Abstract
Amid growing concern regarding the food system are calls to reduce or eliminate animal sourced foods (ASF) from human diets. Despite the green revolution and consequent increase in crop yields, nutrient deficiencies are still problematic, particularly in developing regions. In the US, ASF provide 24% of energy, 48% of protein, approximately 50% of the essential amino acids and essential fatty acids as well as the micronutrients (White and Hall, 2017). This presentation introduces a framework for evaluation and discusses remaining knowledge gaps regarding the role of ASF in sustainable food systems that provide nutritious diets. Lifecycle assessment (LCA) was used to provide an accounting of environmental and sustainability characteristics of food production systems. LCA has an explicit goal the identification of tradeoffs between stages in the supply chain and tradeoffs across environmental dimensions. In a published study (Kim et al., 2020) using a hybrid lifecycle assessment technique, it was shown that while vegetarian diets resulted in lower environmental impacts across several environmental categories, that the US non-vegetarian recommended dietary guidelines led to increases for many categories. This is driven by the increased consumption of less calorically dense foods and changes in the patterns of food loss and waste. Ongoing studies of US beef production systems are providing insight into factors behind the variability in sustainability driven by practice and location. One management practice receiving attention is Adaptively Managed Paddocks (AMP). Sequestration estimates were combined with process model simulations of cow calf finishing operations. One system used conventional grain finishing and the other used grass finishing. The potential mitigation of GHG emissions from the potential sequestration is significant. Complete assessment of the role of ASF in healthy diets from sustainable food systems requires a full understanding of the benefits and costs of alternatives and informed decisions based on understanding of tradeoffs.