Integrating Protein Quality and Quantity with Environmental Impacts in Life Cycle Assessment

Christopher Wharton,Andrew Berardy,Carol S Johnston,Alexandra Plukis,Maricarmen Vizcaino

doi:10.3390/su11102747

Christopher Wharton, Andrew Berardy + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/su11102747

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Abstract

Life cycle assessment (LCA) evaluates environmental impacts of a product from material extraction through disposal. Applications of LCA in evaluating diets and foods indicate that plant-based foods have lower environmental impacts than animal-based foods, whether on the basis of total weight or weight of the protein content. However, LCA comparisons do not differentiate the true biological value of protein bioavailability. This paper presents a methodology to incorporate protein quality and quantity using the digestible indispensable amino acid score (DIAAS) when making comparisons using LCA data. The methodology also incorporates the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) reference amounts customarily consumed (RACCs) to best represent actual consumption patterns. Integration of these measures into LCA provides a mechanism to identify foods that offer balance between the true value of their protein and environmental impacts. To demonstrate, this approach is applied to LCA data regarding common protein foods’ global warming potential (GWP). The end result is a ratio-based score representing the biological value of protein on a GWP basis. Principal findings show that protein powders provide the best efficiency while cheeses, grains, and beef are the least efficient. This study demonstrates a new way to evaluate foods in terms of nutrition and sustainability.

Highlights

As awareness of the environmental consequences of food choices grows, consumers’ demand for plant-based alternatives to meat and other animal-based foods has increased as well, in part due to a perception of plant foods’ lesser impact on the environment [1,2]
This representation of data does not capture the protein content in terms of quality and quantity and is insufficient to make a determination for what foods to eat in order to strike the best balance between meeting protein needs and minimizing environmental impact
As more consumers seek to change their eating habits to address concerns related to environmental impact, it is important to develop evidence-based tools that allow for consideration of, and distinguishing between, food choices across multiple relevant concerns

Summary

Introduction

As awareness of the environmental consequences of food choices grows, consumers’ demand for plant-based alternatives to meat and other animal-based foods has increased as well, in part due to a perception of plant foods’ lesser impact on the environment [1,2]. In 2018, another Nielsen study found 20% growth in sales of plant-based foods, up from 8% in 2017 and compared to 2% overall growth, which may be due to the large variety of high-quality plant-based foods available to consumers [1] Given this market trend, two primary issues arise in relation to non-animal-based protein foods, their contribution to the quality of the diet and their implications for the environment. Separate methodologies currently exist to evaluate data regarding each These include life cycle assessment (LCA), a common choice for assessing the environmental impacts of food, and the digestible indispensable amino acid score (DIAAS), an advanced evaluation of how amino acids are digested and assimilated by the body, providing a score related to “protein quality”

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