The overlooked importance of food disadoption for the environmental sustainability of new foods

Abstract

With human food production a major driver of global environmental change, there is increasing recognition of the importance of shifting towards more sustainable dietary patterns. With wholesale dietary change notoriously difficult to implement at scale, various new food analogues have emerged to serve as qualitatively similar (e.g. taste, texture) but lower environmental impact alternatives for existing foods, particularly animal protein. While new foods may have low environmental impacts, very little is known about how reliably new products drive the disadoption (permanently reduced or ceased consumption) of existing foods. Using simple models of the interplay between adoption levels, substitution ratios of new and existing foods, and different products targeted for replacement, we explore the role of food disadoption on the global warming potential of protein consumption by a theoretical human population. We show how counterintuitive changes to the total environmental impacts attributable to food consumption are plausible following widespread uptake of ‘sustainable’ new foods if they do not reliably drive the disadoption of existing high-impact alternatives. Greater empirical evidence of how effectively new foods drive the disadoption of their intended targets is needed to prevent mass development of alternatives that exacerbate the environmental impact of human diets.