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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.
Sec. Nutrition and Sustainable Diets
Volume 8 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2024.1366208
This article is part of the Research Topic Sustainable Diets with Sociocultural and Economic Considerations View all 8 articles

Environmental footprints in divergent cuisines: A case study of eight Chinese culinary traditions

Provisionally accepted
Jiaqi Zheng Jiaqi Zheng 1Huijing Yang Huijing Yang 2Shanghong Li Shanghong Li 3Li Chai Li Chai 3*
  • 1 The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong, SAR China
  • 2 Renmin University of China, Beijing, Beijing Municipality, China
  • 3 China Agricultural University, Beijing, Beijing Municipality, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The sustaiable dietary transitions must account for the varied culinary traditions and regional food cultures to ensure a balanced and culturally sensitive approachThe dietary transition towards environmental sustainability needs to consider the diversity of regional cuisines. This study aims to explore the impact of regional preferences on culinary culture and examine ways to achieve environmentally friendly dietary transitions in China by considering the differences in the environmental burdens of various cuisines. We This study investigates the eight Chinese culinary traditions and depicts their respective popularity in China at the city level via POI characterization based on ArcGIS. Water, carbon, and ecological footprints are selected to investigate the environmental performance of each type of cuisine. Results show that the eight cuisines vary significantly in spreads of influence and environmental performances. Chuan Cuisine, the nationally distributed cuisine in China, brings the least environmental burden. Chuan cuisine is the most widely disseminated cuisine with a relatively low environmental burden. The remaining seven cuisines have limited spreads of influence and are mainly distributed in small cultural regions and the surrounding areas. Hui Cuisine, Zhe Cuisine, and Min Cuisine have the worst environmental performances. This study reveals the significant impact of regional cuisines on the environmental footprint of diets and highlights the necessity of considering this impact when promoting dietary transition, especially in those culturally diverse countries.

    Keywords: water footprint, Carbon Footprint, ecological footprint, sustainable diets diet, environmental

    Received: 05 Jan 2024; Accepted: 20 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Zheng, Yang, Li and Chai. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Li Chai, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100083, Beijing Municipality, China

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