Tara Garnett | TableDebates

Has veganism become a dirty word?

Tara Garnett is a researcher at the University of Oxford where she runs the Food Climate Research Network and its sister site Foodsource. Her work centres on the interactions among food, climate, health and broader sustainability issues. She has particular interests in livestock as an area where many of these converge, and in how knowledge is communicated to and interpreted by policy makers, civil society and industry, and in their different approaches to food problems and solutions. Tara is also part of the LEAP project at Oxford, a Wellcome Trust-funded initiative focused on gaining a greater understanding of the health, environmental, social and economic effects of livestock production and consumption. In particular she works closely with Jamie Lorimer, Alex Sexton and Nathan Clay, on themes which explore the rise in alternatives to animal products, and transitions in the dairy sector. You can contact Tara on taragarnett@fcrn.org.uk.

Photo credits: Rawpixel via Pexels - https://www.pexels.com/photo/sweet-gummies-on-a-plate-1931439/

What is ultra-processed food? And why do people disagree about its utility as a concept?

The increasing consumption of industrially processed convenience foods, soft drinks, and fast foods has been associated with a rise in non-communicable diseases, overweight and obesity. This building block explores the concept of ultra-processed food: how it has been defined, and differing views as to whether it is a useful way of thinking about food and its relation to health and wider sustainability concerns. Last update: 2 July, 2019 https://www.doi.org/10.56661/ca3e86f2

Photo credits: Janet Vincent via https://flic.kr/p/eHGRay

What is environmental efficiency? And is it sustainable?

The concept of efficiency and its relation to food sustainability is defined and valued in different ways. Among those who argue that improved efficiency will lead to greater sustainability, there are different interpretations of what improved efficiency actually means. Others still, view the quest for efficiency itself to be problematic and its relationship with sustainability potentially oxymoronic. This building block is based on the FCRN report Lean, green, mean, obscene…? What is efficiency? And is it sustainable? It introduces the concept of efficiency and explores its relation to food system sustainability. Last update: 31 May, 2019 https://www.doi.org/10.56661/013a7886

Framing the future of food: The contested promises of alternative proteins

Dr Alexandra Sexton is a geographer and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oxford and has been studying the socio-political aspects of cellular agriculture and plant-based alternatives since 2013. She is currently a researcher on the 'Livestock, Environment and Planning' (LEAP) project funded by Wellcome's Our Planet, Our Health initiative. This blog is an overview of the open-access article Framing the future of food: The contested promises of alternative proteins written by Alexandra Sexton, Tara Garnett & Jamie Lorimer and published in Environment and Planning E: Nature & Space. Its findings were also included in a recent World Economic Forum report entitled ‘Meat: The Future Series – Alternative Proteins’.

A large white van is parked in an alleyway next to boxes of vegetables

Food systems and contributions to other environmental problems

Food systems interact with, and affect, the environment in a great many ways beyond their greenhouse gas emissions. In order to feed humans, the global food system occupies over a third of the earth’s land surface; extracts large amounts of fish and animals from natural habitats; makes huge claims on natural resources; and dispurses various pollutants into the environment. An appreciation of this wide range of environmental impacts is needed to understand why food systems are central to solving many of our biggest environmental problems, and ultimately to maintaining human well-being. Also useful, is to understand that the causes and solutions to these problems are often interconnected through food systems, resulting in trade-off situations where a course of action can at the same time, make one issue better and another worse.

Foodsource

How are food systems, diets, and health connected?

Today, billions are malnourished: not eating a diet containing energy and nutrients in healthy amounts. Both lack of food and excess of consumption cause huge levels of disease worldwide. To a significant extent, the food systems in which people participate determine what people can and do eat (i.e. their diets); and as a consequence, their health. Food systems are, therefore, central to solving many of the world’s biggest health challenges. But the way in which they affect health in different regions and among different groups of people is complex, and varies greatly. An understanding of these interconnections and their effects is needed, in order for food systems to be changed in ways that promote human wellbeing.

Beef cattle in a feed lot. Photo by Annie Spratt via Unsplash.

Blog-post by Tara Garnett: Why eating grass-fed beef isn’t going to help fight climate change

In this piece, Dr. Tara Garnett introduces her full report, Grazed and Confused, on the controversy around beef consumption.Dr Tara Garnett is coordinator and lead researcher at the FCRN. It originally appeared in The Conversation on the 3rd October and is reposted here with permisssion. Tara’s work centres on the interactions among food, climate, health and broader sustainability issues and she has a particular interest in livestock as a sector where many of these converge. She is also interested in how knowledge is communicated to and interpreted by policy makers, civil society organisations and industry, and in the values that these different stakeholders bring to food problems and possible solutions.

Grazed and Confused

Ruminating on cattle, grazing systems, methane, nitrous oxide, the soil carbon sequestration question – and what it all means for greenhouse gas emissions.

Stack of produce on a shelf. Photo by William Topa via Unsplash.

Plating up solutions: Knowledge for better food systems

This is a reposting of a blog-post by FCRN’s Tara Garnett for the Women’s Environmental Network, 1st August 2017. We are reposting it with permission and the original post can be found here.Dr Tara Garnett initiated and runs the Food Climate Research Network at the University of Oxford. Her work focuses on the contribution that the food system makes to greenhouse gas emissions and what could be achieved by changes in behaviour.