To the editor: The brand new research displaying that prospects reply to climate-impact labels on fast-food menus proves that individuals are hungry for sustainable meals selections. However so long as the menus restrict selections to beef or hen, probably the most climate-friendly possibility is being left off the desk.
Beef is, by far, the most important local weather perpetrator in our diets. It generates 20 occasions extra greenhouse gasoline emissions than frequent plant proteins.
Hen is an enchancment, but it surely nonetheless has greater than 10 occasions the local weather influence of beans. It’s additionally accountable for an unlimited quantity of air and water air pollution that’s devastating to wildlife and rural communities.
Plant-based choices are the clear winner for the local weather and biodiversity, but they’re nonetheless largely absent from fast-food menus. Till that modifications, environmental meals labels are little greater than greenwashing.
Stephanie Feldstein, Portland, Ore.
The author is the inhabitants and sustainability director on the Heart for Organic Range.
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To the editor: Much more pervasive than the “saturated fats ethos” that drives the voracious urge for food of American burger tradition is the “single use ethos” that permits the unexamined consumption of plastic on an more and more life-threatening scale.
Merchandise in complete aisles of supermarkets that could possibly be (and never so way back have been) packaged in glass, paper or cardboard at the moment are packaged in plastics designated with successfully meaningless recycling codes.
Plastic has infiltrated the meals chain to the extent that one research suggests we devour the equal of a bank card in plastic every week (see Allison Cobb’s ebook “Plastic: An Autobiography”).
If climate-impact labeling of quick meals can “empower prospects to make extra climate-conscious selections,” absolutely climate-impact labeling of packaging can do the identical.
Paul Humphreys, Los Angeles
