Searching for Meaning in post-war Japan

This paper examines the decline of traditional religions in Japan. With the impact of WWlI and post-war economic growth there has been a decline in traditional Japanese religions. However, there has been a growth of New Religions in Japan. Despite this there is still an overall decline in religiosity. The Aum incident contributed to suspicion of organized religion in general. Japanese society has also been changing from a collectivist to individualist oriented culture. Members of the New Generation especially embrace more Western oriented culture and are more likely to become involved in a New Religion. New Age ideas have also begun to gain an audience in Japan. These general trends are reflected by some modem Japanese films. This paper concludes that although religion, and especially traditional religion, has decreased in importance in the daily life of individuals, it is so closely connected to Japanese identity that it is not likely to disappear entirely, even if it is relegated to a cultural, rather than spiritual entity

Integration of environment and nutrition in life cycle assessment of food items: opportunities and challenges

This report is the outcome of a consensus-building project to agree on best practices for environmental and nutritional Life Cycle Assessment (nLCA) methodology, and identify future research needs. The project involved 30 nutritional and environmental LCA researchers from 18 countries. It focused on the assessment of food items (as opposed to meals or diets).Best practice recommendations were developed to address the intended purpose of an LCA study and related modeling approach, choice of an appropriate functional unit, assessment of nutritional value, and reporting nLCA results. An nLCA study should report the quantities of as many essential nutrients as possible and aim to provide information on the nutritional quality and/or health impacts in addition to nutrient quantities. Outstanding issues requiring further research attention include: defining a minimum number of nutrients to be considered in an nLCA study; treatment of nutrients to limit; use of nutrient indexes; further development of Impact Assessment methods; representation of nutritional changes that may occur during subsequent distribution and food preparation in cradle-to-gate nLCA studies; and communication of data uncertainty and variability. More data are required for different regions (particularly developing countries); for the processing, distribution, retail, and consumption life cycle stages; and for food loss and waste. Finally, there is a need to extend nLCA methodology for the assessment of meals and diets, to consider further how to account for the multi-functionality of food in a sustainability framework, and to set nLCA studies within the context of environmental limits.These results provide a robust basis for improving nLCA methodology and applying it to identify solutions that minimize the trade-offs between nourishing populations and safeguarding the environment

Environmental Impacts of Foods in the Adventist Health Study-2 Dietary Questionnaire

The objective of this study was to use life cycle assessment to estimate the environmental impacts (from farm to factory gate) of the 198 hard-coded line-items included in the food frequency questionnaire of the Adventist Health Study-2 survey and to assess differences among food groups. Life cycle inventories were created using existing data sources and primary data, and their global warming potential (GWP), land use, and water consumption impacts were assessed using the ReCiPe 2016 methodology. In addition to presenting the impacts according to weight and protein content across food groups, we include the novel addition of presenting impacts according to the NOVA classification indicating various levels of processing. Food categories were compared based on one kilogram of edible food, protein food sources were compared based on one kilogram of protein, and NOVA comparisons were based on one serving. In general, meats had the highest environmental impacts per both weight and protein content, while the lowest overall impacts per kilogram came from fruits. Meat analogs had the lowest overall impacts per kilogram of protein, contrary to expectations that additional processing would result in higher environmental impacts when compared to whole plant-based foods. Per serving, ultra-processed foods had the highest GWP, processed foods the highest land use, and minimally processed foods the highest water consumption. Results from this analysis were consistent with other studies. Results from this study suggest that meat and ultra-processed foods have the overall worst environmental impacts, but high water consumption in some minimally processed foods means that those should be carefully considered as well

Searching for Meaning in post-war Japan

This paper examines the decline of traditional religions in Japan. With the impact of WWlI and post-war economic growth there has been a decline in traditional Japanese religions. However, there has been a growth of New Religions in Japan. Despite this there is still an overall decline in religiosity. The Aum incident contributed to suspicion of organized religion in general. Japanese society has also been changing from a collectivist to individualist oriented culture. Members of the New Generation especially embrace more Western oriented culture and are more likely to become involved in a New Religion. New Age ideas have also begun to gain an audience in Japan. These general trends are reflected by some modem Japanese films. This paper concludes that although religion, and especially traditional religion, has decreased in importance in the daily life of individuals, it is so closely connected to Japanese identity that it is not likely to disappear entirely, even if it is relegated to a cultural, rather than spiritual entity

TURINEX - A Social Science Tool To Help Understand and Predict Sustainable Consumption

<p>This paper presents a software tool designed to asses a previously untested level of expertise in between no expertise and interactional expertise. It is referred to as intermediate interactional expertise. The methods of the software tool and results from preliminary tests are presented.</p

TURINEX: A Social Science Tool to Help Understand and Predict Sustainable Consumption

<p>Presentation given at ISSST 2013 in Cincinnati. Explains the TURINEX software and its contribution to the field of Studies of Expertise and Experience.</p

Comparison of Plate Waste between Vegetarian and Meat-Containing Meals in a Hospital Setting: Environmental and Nutritional Considerations

Vegetarian diets can satisfy nutritional requirements and have lower environmental impacts than those containing meat. However, fruits and vegetables are wasted at higher rates than meat. Reducing both food waste (FW) and the environmental impacts associated with food production is an important sustainability goal. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine potential tradeoffs between vegetarian meals’ lower impacts but potentially higher FW compared to meat-containing meals. To examine this, seven consecutive days of plate FW data from Loma Linda University Medical Center (LLUMC) patients were collected and recorded from 471 meals. Mean total FW and associated greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE) were higher among meat-containing meals (293 g/plate, 604 g CO2-eq/plate) than vegetarian meals (259 g/plate, 357 g CO2-eq/plate) by 34 g (p = 0.05) and 240 g CO2-eq (p 2 embodied in meat

Integrating Protein Quality and Quantity with Environmental Impacts in Life Cycle Assessment

Life cycle assessment (LCA) evaluates environmental impacts of a product from material extraction through disposal. Applications of LCA in evaluating diets and foods indicate that plant-based foods have lower environmental impacts than animal-based foods, whether on the basis of total weight or weight of the protein content. However, LCA comparisons do not differentiate the true biological value of protein bioavailability. This paper presents a methodology to incorporate protein quality and quantity using the digestible indispensable amino acid score (DIAAS) when making comparisons using LCA data. The methodology also incorporates the Food and Drug Administration&#8217;s (FDA) reference amounts customarily consumed (RACCs) to best represent actual consumption patterns. Integration of these measures into LCA provides a mechanism to identify foods that offer balance between the true value of their protein and environmental impacts. To demonstrate, this approach is applied to LCA data regarding common protein foods&#8217; global warming potential (GWP). The end result is a ratio-based score representing the biological value of protein on a GWP basis. Principal findings show that protein powders provide the best efficiency while cheeses, grains, and beef are the least efficient. This study demonstrates a new way to evaluate foods in terms of nutrition and sustainability

Life Cycle Assessment of Soy Protein Isolate

<p>Life cycle assessment (LCA) of food indicates that plant-based diets have lower impacts on the environment than those which include meat. However, such conclusions are based on a narrow representation of plant-based diets that excludes the growing number of meat substitutes available. These assessments therefore misrepresent the potential range of environmental impacts associated with plant-based diets, which depends in part on the foods people choose to fulfill their protein needs. Many realistic plant-based meat alternatives use soy protein isolate (SPI) to replicate the texture and nutritional profiles of a variety of meats. SPI uses soybean meal (soymeal) as a feedstock, which undergoes mechanical and chemical processing that in turn increases the environmental impact of the final product. The environmental impacts of SPI per kilogram are estimated here using LCA and expressed in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, freshwater eutrophication, land use, water depletion, fossil fuel use, and energy use. These results are compared to published values for soybeans, soymeal, tofu, chicken, pork and beef for reference. Publically available data, published literature and the ecoinvent database are used in SimaPro with the ReCiPe method to estimate environmental impacts associated with production of one kilogram of SPI. Results indicate that SPI has global warming potential higher than unprocessed chicken and pork, and similar to beef. Freshwater eutrophication associated with SPI is below impacts associated with chicken, pork and beef. Water depletion and fossil fuel depletion are higher in SPI than chicken, pork and beef. Energy use for SPI is lower than energy use for chicken, pork and beef. Land use associated with SPI is negative because of environmental credits from allocation to the byproduct of soymeal, soy oil and therefore represents a lower impact than chicken, pork, and beef. These findings demonstrate that this component of realistic fake meat may not be an environmentally preferable alternative to chicken, pork, or beef, depending on the impact categories considered.</p