Environmental implications and socioeconomic characterisation of Indian diets

Greenhouse gas emissions, water footprint, and ecological footprint of food purchases according to their degree of processing in Brazilian metropolitan areas: a time-series study from 1987 to 2018

“…7 In India, where the consumption of red meat is low, dairy products are one of the main drivers of GHGE, water footprint, and ecological footprint. 8 Although the results of the Chinese and Indian studies are shown separated by food groups, there is no information on the extent of food processing, and so further direct comparison with our results is not possible. In an Australian study, ultra-processed meat was the ultra-processed food with the largest contribution to GHGE, water footprint, and ecological footprint.…”

“…[3][4][5] Recently, not only GHGE, but a much larger set of environmental indicators have been explored. For example, studies in Brazil, 6 China, 7 India, 8 and Australia 9 have estimated the GHGE, water footprint, and ecological footprint of various diets.…”

India consists of multiple food systems with scoioeconomic and environmental variations

“…Existing studies mostly investigate food systems of Indian households based on a few components (i.e., elements, activities, or outcomes of food systems), mainly on their inter-linkages. For example, income and education are positively associated with calorie, protein, and fat intake, whereas some rural households consume more calories than urban ones in India [15][16][17][18][19]. Similarly, farming families with a large landholding have mostly higher calorie intake than smallholders and households with other occupations [16,18,20].…”

“…In general, Indian diets have become diverse with an increase in income [17,21]. Regarding food processing, urban households consume more ready to eat and processed foods than rural ones [19,22]. The diets' environmental footprints are higher in high-income Indian households and northern India because of a larger amount of dairy products consumption [19,23,24].…”

“…Regarding food processing, urban households consume more ready to eat and processed foods than rural ones [19,22]. The diets' environmental footprints are higher in high-income Indian households and northern India because of a larger amount of dairy products consumption [19,23,24]. Although existing studies report various aspects of Indian food systems, a holistic understanding covering all the components is still missing.…”