From the UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER and the “everything is bad, because we say so” department. One wonders if they’d be happy with Tofu eggs. Probably not.
Is your Easter egg bad for the environment?
With Easter fast approaching, the thought of chocolate is probably on all our minds, but could the UK’s love of chocolate be having a damaging effect on the environment?
A recent study by researchers at The University of Manchester and published in the journal Food Research International has looked at the carbon footprint of chocolate and its other environmental impacts. It has done this by assessing the impacts of ingredients, manufacturing processes, packaging and waste.
The study estimates that the UK chocolate industry produces about 2.1m tonnes of greenhouse gases (GHG) a year. This is equivalent to the annual emissions of the whole population of a city as large as Belfast. It also found that it takes around 1000?litres of water to produce just one chocolate bar.
Chocolate is the UK’s favourite confectionary product, with the nation preferring milk over dark chocolate. The industry was worth around £4 billion in the UK in 2014 and is set to grow by a further 9 percent by 2019. On a global scale, the UK is the sixth highest chocolate-consuming country in the world. On average each person individually gets through approximately 8 kg per year, which is equivalent to around 157 Mars bars.
The study focused on the three most popular types of chocolate products in the UK, which occupy 90% of the UK market. These are milk chocolate bars, sharing bags and snack chocolates. The team found the worst for the environment were the sharing bags due to their ingredients and bigger packaging.
The researchers found the raw materials used to produce chocolate are the major environmental hotspot as well as the packaging. The impacts from the ingredients are mainly due to milk powder, cocoa derivatives, sugar and palm oil.
Professor Adisa Azapagic, Head of Sustainable Industrial Systems at the University, says: “Most of us love chocolate, but don’t often think of what it takes to get from cocoa beans to the chocolate products we buy in the shop.
“Cocoa is cultivated around the equator in humid climate conditions, mainly in West Africa and Central and South America so it has to travel some distance before it makes it into the chocolate products we produce and consume in the UK.”
According to the International Cocoa Organization the annual production of cocoa beans in 2016 was 4.25?million?tonnes. The worldwide sales of chocolate are estimated to be worth more than US$101 billion, with Europe accounting for 45% of the global consumption.
However, it’s not only the cocoa – it’s also the milk powder used to make milk chocolates. Its production is very energy intensive, plus dairy cows produce significant GHG emissions per litre of milk produced. This all adds to the environmental impacts of chocolate.
Professor Azapagic added: ‘It is true that our love of chocolate has environmental consequences for the planet. But let’s be clear, we aren’t saying people should stop eating it.
“The point of this study is to raise consumers’ awareness and enable more informed choices. Also, we hope this work will help the chocolates industry to target the environmental hotspots in the supply chains and make chocolate products as sustainable as possible.”
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The paper, ‘Environmental impacts of chocolate production and consumption in the UK’, was published in the Food Research International journal, Volume 106, April 2018, Pages 1012-1021 A free copy of the paper can be downloaded here: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1WmGC3RC05uK9P
It is true that our love of – FILL IN THE BLANK – has environmental consequences for the planet
Conducting studies and Writing articles about climate change… causes climate change! The amount of energy they waste is shameful. 😉
Their study overlooks the vast quantities of sodium bicarbonate baking powder used in large-scale manufacture of Chocolate Biscuits and Cocolate Cakes. Don’t they know that all those unfortunate tiny bubbles of lightly textured aerated doom found in a Jaffa Cake could cause the planet to explode.
And what about real eggs, not just the chocolate ones? I’m almost positive that keeping the chickens warm, feeding them and collecting the eggs has a robust carbon footprint. And the guano? What a source of planet-killing methane! (need I say it?/sarc)
We might just as well all kill ourselves – I am sure that would be good for the planet
Well there has been for a long time something in that line: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntary_Human_Extinction_Movement
They are more serious than the Church of Euthanasia. They all should show us how it is done.
Jonestown, Guyana definitely would have been better off if the Reverend Jim Jones had led by example and all his Flock waited the obligatory 3 days to see if he was resurrected. They could have gotten the Flock outta there
Them (the ones who create the “studies”) first.
Ban Easter Eggs! Ban eggs! Ban ALL THE THINGS!!!!11!!
Well, that’s pretty much the solution to everything. I’d like to see ONE hour of one day, where some progressive wasn’t trying to ban one thing or another, or control someone else’s life – ideally with some form of histrionic judgment/punishment.
There’s just a certain kind of personality that just can’t mind their own business but has got to be all hot and bothered about what someone else is doing down the street, and decides they have to take it upon themselves to put a stop to it.
The same ones who’ll stand upon their tip-toes to peer into your bedroom window so that they may be offended at what is occurring.
Well stated, Joel!
+10!
“There’s just a certain kind of personality that just can’t mind their own business but has got to be all hot and bothered about what someone else is doing down the street, ”
It’s called “Perturbed by Proxy” (PbP) – they would be upset about having nothing to be upset about.
Joel Snider – March 29, 2018 at 12:22 pm
YUP, and they are ganging up everywhere to ……………
What a waste of research money. They’ll soon be suggesting that there is feedback from this too …
Patrick, those were my first thoughts. My second thought was where do such folks live, under rocks. They suddenly realized that manufacturing of something requires the use of energy. Imagine if all the money being spent on such research was put to doing something useful.
Climate change causes doomsday stories that cause anxiety pushing more chocolate eating?
Notice how all these progressive issues flow together? Nothing, repeat nothing that brings even a modicum of pleasure can be tolerated by people who deal in hatred and misery. Slag is the height of their creativity.
It’s all they are. It’s all they’ve got. Think what it must be like to live in a head like that.
“Think what it must be like to live in a head like that.”
No thanks. Too too depressing. It’s a wonder they haven’t committed suicide already.
What, pray tell, is a “sharing bag”? Sometimes English to American requires translation.
“Sharing” bags are just oversized bags – contents meant to be shared.
It’s when Pelosi and Waters split a meal together.
Not surprising, really. A major part of CAGW is to frighten small children into doing what the Green Blob tells them to do.
The obvious solution is to make and eat more chocolate! All that extra CO2 will help the Theobroma trees grow faster and produce larger pods. No brainer!
These people are worse than religious fundys.
Methinks you are projecting. I am not like that at all (look up my previous comments). Science rocks!
And yet I know God exists. Please open your mind.
Forgive me I was not maligning faith in God, but those who try to take the joy out of life in the name of God.
They’re not trying very hard to make climate converts. Just the opposite.
Wait – is it Easter eggs that are bad, or chocolate, or both? I’m so confused!
Ban everything good in life. Because life is detrimental to Gaia.
Especially ban sex, because sex leads to people and people are eeeevil.
It has been said that the world will continue to have a population problem as long as f**king is more popular than dying.
Further adventures with Dopamine….
There is *something* about certain foods or food recipes that makes the food quite irresistable to human taste. Such foods hit a trigger, absolutely bang-on.
it happens when the food contains fat and (refined) sugar in roughly equal amounts and the button those things hit is the one that releases Dopamine.
Milk chocolate is certainly one, iced doughnuts are another, also most ice-creams.
They are sometimes called “Comfort Foods” and the comfort comes from the Dopamine alleviating symptoms of stress.
Dopamine cancels Cortisol
Ah you say, so that means the people who eat most Comfort Food might also be the ones under the most stress – they are self-medicating.
I shall leave it to the reader(s) here to work out where the stress may be coming from.
Again, I’m going to point you to this:The Real Skinny on Fat
especially this time from 1hr and 6mins in – the 70 yr old Iron Man competitor who also does triathlons.
Hear what he says about what sugar (from eating carbs) does to your mind, how it affects concentration, memory, sensitivity (empathy) and irritability.
Even before alcohol is added to the mix, the Orifinal & Best Comfort Food there ever was.
All the things I’ve been bleating about here since Day One – you do remeber don’t you?
How might those mind altering things affect one’s ability to do…….. science for example?
This thing is bigger than a really big thing because the only thing we have left to eat on this planet is: Sugar.
aplos for the speeling mstkies..
I forgot the biggest source of stress is what some folks were wondering about- Sharing Packs.
The human animal cannot tell an untruth and hence why they are in such a tizz about ‘sharing packs’
A pair of really frugal housemice might find enough to share in one of them, for the rest of – Forget It.
Hence the tizz about the packaging.
Us brits really do have a cryptic sense of humour sometimes. Evil actually, don’t get on the wrong side of it.
PS Is it true that bright young things around The Bay Area are now going so far as to put coconut oil (saturated fat) into their coffee?
There are some NewAge foodies who are into coconut oil as a general-purpose supplement, at least according to my sister, who is one (I live in an Austin TX suburb, and Austin is almost as trendoid as San Francisco)
Coconut oil?
I am still on the Essential oils. I need to get up to date on my new age health miracle cures.
Ban puppies and kittens! And bunnies! Think of the children!
You left out the peep chicks!
(They have more substance than today’s chicken littles.)
And no one will pay this a blind bit of notice.
Only 8kg per year? I do that in a week. 🙂
J.K. Rowling coined the term ” death eater” … an apt fit for these folk.
Thank goodness this is about chocolate. I thought it was going to be about chickens being flatulent.
Careful …..don’t egg them on !
they have Christian connections, of course they’re bad!
Here I thought M&M showed that M&Ms were OK.
(Is UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER located on Mars?)
PS Thanks to both of the “M”‘s. We all owe both of you.
Ban anything that people enjoy so their lives will be as dull and misrable as those that know best think they should be. I will keep on eating what I like and driving my 22 year old diesel vehicle just to annoy them.
James Bull
That does it. I’m doubling or tripling my chocolate consumption. Along with meat and anything else the AGW crowd does not like.
“Most of us love chocolate, but don’t often think of what it takes to get from cocoa beans to the chocolate products we buy in the shop.”
ALL of me does not think about it! Whoever makes Lindor balls (truffles), thank you.
Here, here! I think the wife and I personally keep Lind’s US operations in the black, lol.
In American, that works out to 17.6 pounds per year, or 1.47 pounds of chocolate per month.
I’m way behind!
I’ll need Ghirardelli, Godiva, Corné Port-Royal, Callebaut, Guittard to help me catch up!
Hades, I’ll be happy with Hershey! Though, I do love sine Belgian or Swiss chocolate.
There is that very odd researchers claim:
One thousand liters of water… 264.2 gallons of water, 2,204.9 pounds; i.e. over one ton of water per chocolate bar…
Considering that water and chocolate do not mix well, leaving a diluted sticky mess.
Confirmation bias alleged science achieves new levels of delusion.
Let’s see, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, standard twin pack, is 1.6 oz. At 1.47 pounds per month, that’s 15 packages per month, rounded, or roughly 3-4 packs per week. I hardly ever pick up fewer than 2. Yeah, I probably have that covered in spades.
Almost half of a Reese’s peanut butter cup is peanut flavored filling.
You should pick up twice as many packages, just to ensure meeting the “average” chocolate consumption.
Still, cheap candy minimizes expensive ingredients like chocolate.
To ensure meeting “average” chocolate consumption, one should stuff themselves silly with high quality chocolates. Just to ensure consumption goals.
When one purchases a 5 kilo block of Callebaut chocolate, most people believe they’re preparing for average chocolate consumption over the next 7.5 months.
Trust me, that 5 kilo block never lasts very long.
My wife loves adding chunks of chocolate to her coffee. There is an entirely different flavoring and mouth feel when real chocolate is used instead of defatted cocoa.
While, adding chunks to one’s coffee is a good use, I prefer to make ganache filling for almond macaroon cookies. Dunking these cookies into coffee is wonderful!
Why buy the large block?
Because it provides a very high grade of chocolate at substantially lower cost over high priced small chocolate bars sold in grocery stores. And, one must support one’s health by consuming the finest antioxidants.
“A recent study by researchers at The University of Manchester and published in the journal Food Research International has looked at the carbon footprint of chocolate and its other environmental impacts”
What about a study to look at the the carbon footprint of recent studies by researchers at The University of Manchester and all studies published in the journal Food Research International?