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Sweets and snacks have a bitter climate aftertaste, says study

Discretionary foods, including confectionery and baked snacks, accounted for 22% of spending in Finnish households but contributed up to 32% of environmental impacts.

In studies of the greenhouse gas emissions from food production and consumption, meat and dairy often end up as the ‘bad guys’. In that sense, a new study from Finland published in the Science of Food journal is no different.

“Environmental impact differences were largely attributable to the protein sources, with meat and fish contributing the most,” wrote the authors, who compared the total purchases of households with varying preferred protein sources, including red meat, poultry, fish or plant proteins, among 30,000 consumers.

However, they also discovered that “discretionary foods” accounted for 22% of spending and contributed from 17 to 32% of environmental impacts.

Confectionery, sweet baked goods, desserts, savoury snacks, sugar and other sweeteners, sweetened and unsweetened soft drinks and juices, alcoholic beverages, cocoa, coffee and tea, accounted for a “large share” of emissions.

“Reducing discretionary foods would also improve the nutritional quality of purchases, as they amounted to almost 20% of the energy content and 60% of the added sugar,” said Jelena Meinilä from the University of Helsinki, which conducted the study with Tampere University and Natural Resources Institute Finland.

Big discretionary spend bumps up carbon footprint

As much as one-fifth of the total food expenditure of Finns is spent on discretionary foods, like sweets and snacks, according to a recent study. The findings are similar to those from studies carried out in Australia and Sweden, the team said.

A unique strength of the Finland study was the use of food purchase data from the loyalty cards of 30,000 co-op members of the Finnish S Group food retail chain. Loyalty-card data are less reliant on self-reporting than traditional dietary intake data.

“What makes [the finding on treats and snacks] significant is that many foods classified as discretionary have a small environmental impact per mass unit. Their combined effect is nevertheless considerable,” the academics wrote in their paper for Science of Food journal.

They noted how the food industry and retailers “have untapped potential to promote healthier and more sustainable production and consumption patterns”. They added: “Food product options, their arrangement in the shop and pricing must make healthy choices that support the environment easy. The new Nordic and Finnish nutrition recommendations provide a good basis for transforming supply and demand.”

However, swapping chocolate, candies and croissants for carrots, cucumbers and cranberries is not a black and white choice. “[...] food choices have “purposes beyond nutritional value, such as regulating feelings, social influences, and constructing cultural identity,” they wrote, “which complicates the idea of substituting food choices across different food groups”.

Protein choices are not about the pennies

The researchers from Finland discovered something else: that expenditure for the protein sources within their food choices was similar “regardless of the choice of the main protein source”.

Those who preferred red meat spent €1.60 per 2,500 kcal on protein sources, with 46% of that on red meat. Those who preferred plant-based protein sources spent €1.50 per 2,500 kcal. “This suggests that a health-promoting and environmentally friendly transition towards fish and plants as protein sources is not primarily about price,” Meinilä explained.

Other studies have also shown that plant-based protein sources, such as legumes, have been on average cheaper than or priced equal to meat, and yet the perception is that plant-based choices can come at a premium (especially those that attempt to mimic meat).

Worth noting too, is that the purchases of those Finnish consumers who preferred plant-based protein sources contained more fibre, folate and iron, and less saturated fat and salt. Vitamin B12 and D concentrations were lower for this group compared with those favouring other protein sources, which should be considered in the transition towards plant-based dietary patterns, the academics said.