A recent update to nutritional recommendations in Finland was followed by a robust debate.
As might be expected, the Finnish Food Authority revised its advice, urging the nation to reduce intakes of coffee, alcohol, and all meats and eating more vegetables. Behind the review — the first since 2014 — were considerations not only of human health but also environmental impact, reports Finnish Broadcasting Company, YLE.
“When it comes to unprocessed meat, poultry is better health-wise than red meat,” said professor of nutrition sciences at the University of Helsinki, Jelena Meinilä. However, she warned against eating more chicken as a substitute for red meats for environmental reasons.
According to Meinilä, providing that total meat consumption is no more than the now-recommended weekly maximum of 350g, the type of meat makes little difference to one’s health.
While previously seen as a healthier choice than red meat, poultry meat is now being linked to biodiversity loss, according to YLE.
The article cites a study that found that “poultry is problematic from the standpoint of biodiversity loss caused by land use.” This derives from inclusion in the birds’ feed of soybean meal, which YLE reports, is “often cultivated on land cleared from South American rainforests.”
The latest data from the Natural Resources Institute of Finland (Luke) put total meat production in the country in 2023 at 389,000 metric tons (mt). This represented a year-on-year reduction of 3%.
The total comprised 159,000mt of pig meat, 144,000mt of poultry meat, 85,000mt beef, and 1,100mt sheep meat. While beef volume was higher in 2023 than over the previous 12 months, production of poultry, pork and sheep meat were down.
Study: Environmental impact of different diet options
The YLE article refers to a paper published by Luke scientists in the International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment in mid-2023.
In the study, the researchers set out to compare two different land-use-based biodiversity impact assessment methods used in Life Cycle Analysis (LCA). They evaluated five human dietary scenarios, including a standard Finnish diet, and four alternatives with step-wise reductions in the content of foods of animal origin to a vegan diet. For all 90 of the food product groups included in these diets, the researchers identified country of origin, land occupation, and land use change.
According to the authors, this was the first direct comparison of two widely used assessment methods.
Among the key findings of the study was that the assessment method had a substantial impact on the biodiversity impact calculated for the different diets.
Feed impacts on land-use change
To assess the impact of animal-based foods, the researchers said that ignoring the impacts of land-use change in livestock feed production might underestimate the impact. This is because growing the raw materials and processing of feed can account for a substantial share of the environmental impact in the production of meat, milk, and eggs.
In the study, international trade was also found to be an important factor in the impact assessment. As much as 85% of the biodiversity impact of the diet options examined derived from imported foods and animal feed, rather than within Finland.
This may be the YLE article about the higher biodiversity impact of poultry, because the Finnish poultry industry relies more heavily on imported feed than those producing other meats.
So in Finland, the authors report, beef and dairy production contribute substantially to land use in the country, but less to biodiversity impact. However, poultry production contributes more to biodiversity impact than land use. This is attributable largely to the use of soybean meal in broiler diets, and the land-use change associated with soy cultivation.
The full paper by Venla Kyttä, Terho Hyvönen and Merja Saarinen — entitled "Land-use-driven biodiversity impacts of diets — a comparison of two assessment methods in a Finnish case study" — was published in International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, 2023. 28: 1104-1116.
