Why Meal Kits Aren ’t as Bad for the Environment as You Think

This study really motivates the need to carefully consider the food that we’re purchasing, and how we’re using the food that we buy.” Meal kits have a few sustainability benefits beyond reducing food waste, the researchers say. It is environmentally more friendly for a delivery truck, which is filled with other packages and driving an optimized route, to deliver food to consumers’ doorsteps, rather than having each person make an independent trip to the grocery store, Heard says. The cooling packs included with meal kits are also easier on the environment than refrigeration used in retail stores, the paper says. Those findings might be surprising to consumers, which highlights the importance of considering the entire lifecycle of a product, instead of focusing only the parts that are obvious, Heard says. “When we think about objectives likes minimizing environmental impacts or climate change mitigation, it’s important to understand the impacts that are occurring in the food system,” Heard says. “A lot of times, they’re largely invisible to the consumer.” Tangible factors like plastic and packaging aren’t always the most important, even if they’re the easiest to conceptualize. “So many people are feeling guilty because of the plastic and packaging that [meal kits] are creating,” Miller says. “That is not to minimize that there are environmental impacts associated with plastics and packagi...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Diet/Nutrition Source Type: news