How Drawdown Dietetics Got Started

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While on parental leave in 2019, I noticed a new book called Drawdown–the first resource I’m aware of that had systematically reviewed, modeled, and listed the most effective, known strategies for reversing climate change for the public (1). This book hit me hard. The narrative around climate change usually focuses on the problem itself, or on doomsday scenarios (which always make me panic about my toddler’s future). By placing the goal and solutions at the centre of the book, Drawdown refocuses our attention on what we need to aim at: a healthier, more equitable, climate-friendly future. It offers hope that we can prevent the worst-case scenarios of climate change, using solutions we already have. It also includes only “no-regrets” solutions: the solutions to climate change must promote human health and protect people’s rights (such as reproductive rights). 

There is so much power in being able to measure and compare the effectiveness of different climate change actions. Without it, we’re just guessing at what works. For example, one analysis found that plant-based diets and reduced food waste would be more than twice as effective as households adopting LED lighting, recycling, and hybrid vehicles combined (2)! For this reason, food (both production and consumption) features prominently in Project Drawdown’s solutions. 

Soon after the book launched, “Nurses Drawdown” was born (nursesdrawdown.org). This raised a nagging question in my mind: why not build a drawdown group of our own? After all, diets, food waste, and other solutions like refrigerant management are key tools in addressing climate change, and it seems obvious that dietitians are key players in each of these areas. 

It also occurred to me that if dietitians don’t step into this space soon, our profession risks becoming irrelevant to climate change action. I don’t want that to happen–the world of climate change mitigation needs us. Activists tell everyone to stop eating meat and dairy, but research shows that most people who adopt a vegetarian or vegan diet don’t stick with it for very long (3), and that these diets can be associated with disordered eating (though probably not causally [4]). I absolutely support plant-based diets, and follow one myself, but people need support to achieve a realistic, long-term, climate-friendly diet that works for them, and it needs to protect human health. 

We also need more information than “eat less meat and dairy” or “eat a plant-rich diet.” Producing cheese, for example, emits ten times the emissions of liquid milk (5). This is because it takes so much milk to make cheese. Yet the food industry and the public have focused heavily on milk alternatives rather than cheese alternatives. While I’m happy people are interested in sustainable food, having good (tasty, nutritious) cheese alternatives would be ten times as effective to mitigating climate change as milk alternatives (depending on what the cheese is replaced with).

Renita and I got started on sustainable diets during our Master of Public Health at the University of Toronto in 2016 (the day we presented our work was memorable as the day Donald Trump was announced president in the US). Dietitians and others at Toronto Public Health had requested research support on this topic, because they were sometimes asked about sustainable food by the public, and the dietitians weren’t sure what to say. 

Our group dug into the literature and presented our findings: while local and organic food had mixed or no evidence to support their effect on climate change (6), plant-based foods and reduced food waste had reliable, significant benefits for the environment and for lowering the emissions of the overall food system (1). It was also obvious that people in rich countries eat much more meat than people in poor ones (7), and that a reduction of meat from ruminant animals in particular (cows, goats, and sheep) could have huge benefits (1). 

While there is awareness about climate change, plant protein foods, and reduced food waste among dietitians in Canada, we lack clear, consistent messages on climate change and food. We don’t have a path forward to operationalize these findings, and there’s still confusion on certain topics like food miles (8).

There has been great progress in this space in recent years: Dietitians of Canada’s Role Paper (9), the Sustainable Food Systems Member Network, and many dietitians who are involved in amazing projects on climate change and sustainability in their existing practice. But we need collaboration, we need guidance on applying drawdown solutions in different practice settings, and we need the world of climate change activism to know that we’re here, doing the work.

 

Thanks for reading and I’m so excited to get started,

Anneke

 

References

  1. Hawken, P. (2017). Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming. (Book). Ongoing content, research, and initiatives at https://drawdown.org/ 

  2. Lowrey, A. (2021). Your diet is cooking the planet. The Atlantic. Retrieved March 28, 2022 from https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/04/rules-eating-fight-climate-change/618515/

  3. Humane Research Council (2014). Study of current and former vegetarians and vegans. Retrieved March 28, 2022 from https://faunalytics.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Faunalytics_Current-Former-Vegetarians_Full-Report.pdf

  4. Practice-based Evidence in Nutrition (2021) Vegetarianism: Key Practice Points. Retrieved March 28, 2022. 

  5. Clune, S.; Crossin, E. & Verghese, K. (2017). Systematic review of greenhouse gas emissions for different fresh food categories. Journal of Cleaner Production, 140: 766-783.

  6. MacRae, R.; Cuddeford, V.; Young, S.B. & Matsubuchi-Shaw, M. (2013). The Food System and Climate Change: An Exploration of Emerging Strategies to Reduce GHG Emissions in Canada, Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, 37:8, 933-963.

  7. Our World in Data. Per capita meat consumption by type, 2017. Retrieved March 28, 2022 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-meat-type?country=CHN~USA~IND~ARG~PRT~ETH~JPN~GBR~BRA

  8. Drawdown Dietetics dietitian survey. (2021). How much do you know about climate-friendly eating? Internal data. 

  9. Carlsson L, Seed B, Yeudall F. (2020). The Role of Dietitians in Sustainable Food Systems and Sustainable Diets. Toronto: Dietitians of Canada. Retrieved March 28 2022 from https://www.dietitians.ca/Advocacy/Priority-Issues-(1)/Food-Policy/Sustainable-Food-System

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