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Page added on June 3, 2015
Dinner in 2050
What will our dinner plate look like in 2050? As Yogi Berra commented, there is nothing more difficult to predict than the future, except that dinner for most people is likely to be different than it is today.
Several realities will play out: the number of mouths to be fed will increase from about 7 billion today to about 9.5 billion by 2050. Climate change is happening at a rate that seemed unimaginable just a few years ago and the political will to mitigate this has not been apparent; in the U.S., even modest proposals are being met with obstruction at every step by oil and coal interests and their Congressional puppets.
Already, extremes in temperature and drought are affecting food production adversely, and this will almost certainly increase in ways that are difficult to predict. Even now only a tiny fraction of the world’s population eats an adequate and healthy diet. In the U.S., fewer than 5% of Americans meet the national dietary goals: sugar, refined starch, and potatoes comprise about 40% of our national caloric intake, fruit and vegetable consumption remains low, and red and processed meat intake is high.
Globally, the majority of the world’s population lives on an unbalanced diet high in carbohydrates that is becoming increasingly refined and high in sugar, and almost a billion persons have inadequate caloric intake. The transition to an industrial, highly processed diet, now fueling a pandemic of obesity and diabetes, is being accelerated by multinational corporations such as Coca Cola and Pepsi, who regard this as their market of the future.
Current U.S. trends in dietary patterns and health indicators suggest a troubling future. We recently analyzed U.S. national data from 2000 to 2010, examining 11 dietary variables that strongly predict risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and death. On average, the overall quality of diet had modestly improved over this period, although it remained far from optimal. About half of the improvement was due to a large decrease in trans fat, but soda consumption also decreased modestly, and whole grains and fruits increased slightly.
However, the overall improvement masked a disturbing feature in these trends: all of the increase was in those with higher incomes and education; among those with low income and education, there was no improvement at all, and the gap in dietary quality by socio-economic status doubled over the decade.
Because the dietary-quality score strongly predicts health outcomes and death, it is no surprise that that these trends in diet quality have moved in parallel with widening income disparities and mortality trends in the U.S. Thus, the emerging picture is of two Americas, whether viewed through an economic, health, or dietary lens.
These global and domestic trends suggest that our dinner plates in 2050 will look very different, depending on who we are: most common will be the global-industrial plate, comprised primarily of the cheapest and most profitable calories: refined starch and sugar. These may be paired with industrially synthesized fats that are now being manufactured from cheap carbohydrates. Fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and protein sources will be few.
Is this soylent green? Maybe nutritionally so, but I am confident that this will not be so dreary because there will be huge profit in marketing these ingredients in many forms, colors, and flavors — as is already being done with ultra-processed foods.
A small, affluent fraction of the population may still be infatuated with the paleo plate, which emphasizes red meat and full-fat dairy products. This diet does minimize the adverse metabolic effects of refined carbohydrates, but is not optimal due to the high intakes of unhealthy fats and cholesterol. This diet will necessarily be limited to a small part of the global population, as it is extremely consumptive of land and water resources.
Fortunately, another option is possible, the smart and sustainable plate. The model for this plate is the traditional Mediterranean diet, which emphasized olive oil, abundant fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, seeds, legumes and fish; moderate amounts of dairy foods, and only occasional red meat.
Notably, this diet sustainably supported a remarkable civilization on a semiarid land, and during the 1950s Greek men lived many years longer than American men. In the last 30 years, many lines of research have substantiated the health benefits of this diet and we now understand the important elements so that a similarly healthy diet can be created with the foods and flavors from other cultures and climates. We don’t need to scour the world to find people eating this way now; they are in our studies right here in America, and we find they live longer and have a better quality of life than those consuming the traditional animal-based, industrial American diet.
How do we bring as many people as possible to a table where the smart and sustainable dinner is served? Fundamentally, we need to consider both the nutritional and sustainability aspects of food policies if we are to have healthy and secure dinners in 2050. This includes the need for careful analysis and research to ensure that every step of the food production and distribution system has the smallest environmental footprint possible.
10 Comments on "Dinner in 2050"
Rodster on Wed, 3rd Jun 2015 8:51 am
As a climate scientist recently explained that there is a 40 year lag in what we are now seeing today.
So if you add 40 years to 2015 that’s when you’ll the ill effects of today. It’s not a pretty picture when we hit 2055. Thankfully, I won’t be around to deal with it because the environmental damage will have already been baked into the cake in 2055.
Davy on Wed, 3rd Jun 2015 8:53 am
More of the BAUtopian spell talking out loud. They want to tell you things look bad but there are solutions. There are no solutions to a situation where foods are produced globally in monocultures and primarily with fossil fuels as inputs or responsible for the creation of other inputs through mining, processing, and transport. The huge global system of food preparation, preservation, storage, and transport is completely unsustainable and at risk of a catastrophic collapse.
Food insecurity, hunger and famine is the biggest danger to overall stability of the system. People will become desperate in a matter of weeks. The system could bifurcate very quickly with liquid fuel and food shortages. This is a slippery slope to few crops being grown, stored, and processed by the next year. In this case billions will die within a year or two. This is how close we are to death as a global people.
Yet, we have the BAUtopian spell of all those supposedly important smart people that take BAU as a given. These people cannot connect the dots from where all this vital life support comes from. We are at the ends of the rope of sustainability of a complex and energy intensive system that supports all our delocalized locals. We should be talking about this but it is so obvious as to be hidden. That will be the ultimate paradox of our time how obvious but hidden the truth is of our coming death as a global people.
Lawfish1964 on Wed, 3rd Jun 2015 12:24 pm
35 years from now? I’m thinking it will look an awful lot like it did in 1870. Chicken from the back yard a couple times a week. Lots of eggs and some smoked pork. Fresh veggies from the garden, lots of beans, potatoes and corn and perhaps some domestic rabbit and a bit of wild game here and there.
Perk Earl on Wed, 3rd Jun 2015 12:25 pm
“As a climate scientist recently explained that there is a 40 year lag in what we are now seeing today.”
Yeah, thermal inertia. My understanding Rodster is it is a 30-40 year lag time in temperature increases due to the lag time from increasing emissions and it’s transfer of energy into the oceans, followed by it’s release into the atmosphere. There is built in momentum that cannot be stopped even if CO2 levels were to stabilize today, which isn’t happening because every year they are increasing. We keep pushing the worst of it ahead of us 30-40 years.
What’s frustrating is most people either do not understand ‘thermal inertia’ or refuse to acknowledge it. Maybe it’s too difficult to follow such a thought process. The worst of it is there are still many suggesting we have a carbon allowance still to spend. Huh?! They obviously do not get it. What the future holds is reduced food available for a growing population.
dubya on Wed, 3rd Jun 2015 1:50 pm
Rodster – I’m not picking on you specifically but the “I won’t be around” meme is certainly in direct opposition to the previous few thousand years of the “I’m leaving a better world” meme. Clearing land, planting trees, building stone structures – these are gifts to the future. The oriental behaviour of ancestor worship seems to epitomize this.
Now I’m not sure if some of the ‘better world’ products (cars, petroleum, ammonia, persistent chemicals) were the greatest long-term improvements; but mostly everyone did what they thought was best for the future.
Today we say “at least I’ll be dead when the problems come”. How horrifyingly indicative of today’s attitude.
Will, that’s certainly one legacy to leave for future generations; who presumably will rank us as the most selfish/self serving of all societies.
How about this for epitaph on all our headstones:
“Fuck you, descendent, I had a good life and you can deal with the consequences. I got to charge my iPhone and you get to deal with the thousands of years of nuclear waste and radioactive contamination of the land, lakes and oceans; piles of unstable coal ash and atmospheric greenhouse gasses, lack of resources and a vacant ocean. Too bad for you”.
Makati1 on Wed, 3rd Jun 2015 10:38 pm
Lawfish, that lifestyle will only be possible IF:
The population is only 10-20% of today’s where you expect to live such a lifestyle. Think about who those 10-20% will be and see if you qualify?
The climate has allowed some to continue to live on once fertile lands. Also not likely in most instances.
The wildlife is not totally decimated in the first few years of hunger. Not likely. If is it edible, it will be eaten to extinction.
In 2050 I would be 106. Much as I would love to last that long to witness events, it is not likely. I may make it to 2035, as my father’s side has long lives into the upper 80s and lower 90s, but 100+ is a long shot.
I will do what I can to make the future better for those who follow, but that too is very limited. Best I can do is pass on the skills and lessons I learned in my 70 years. AND, a good reference library and school books so they can teach/learn in the language in which the books are written. What good is a library if the next generation cannot read them? They become just fire starters.
GregT on Wed, 3rd Jun 2015 11:59 pm
Much better than reel to reel, 8 track, cassette tapes, 45s, LPs, CDs, DVDs, 5.25 and 31/2inch floppies, hard disks, and solid state drives.
With books Makati, if one tries long and hard enough, they can probably always find ways to translate.
All of the above will be useless, even as fire starter.
Apneaman on Thu, 4th Jun 2015 1:34 pm
Coming Soon to Us All: The Choice Worse Than Sophie’s
“The under-appreciated fact is that most of these movements have as their root cause, climate change: chronic drought leading to hunger and thirst, leading to revolution and civil war and chaos.”
http://www.dailyimpact.net/2015/06/04/coming-soon-to-us-all-the-choice-worse-than-sophies/
Apneaman on Thu, 4th Jun 2015 1:37 pm
Fleeing by the Millions: Migration Crises Around the World
http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2015/06/fleeing-by-the-millions-migration-crises-around-the-world/394805/
Apneaman on Thu, 4th Jun 2015 4:10 pm
“We are in a revolutionary moment”: Chris Hedges explains why an uprising is coming — and soon
The status quo is doomed but whether the future will be progressive or reactionary is uncertain, Hedges tells Salon
http://www.salon.com/2015/06/04/we_are_in_a_revolutionary_moment_chris_hedges_explains_why_an_uprising_is_coming_%E2%80%94_and_soon/