White Americans’ Food Choices Contribute Most to Climate Change – Eater

Higher dairy consumption is one key reason

A new study suggests that the diets of white Americans create more emissions than those of other racial or ethnic groups in the United States. In an article that Fox News types will likely construe as stoking race wars, Popular Science unpacked the details of the study, which appeared a week ago in the Journal of Industrial Ecology.

The study looked at the environmental impacts of various foods, then used EPA data about diet trends within different demographic groups. The results show that because white Americans tend to consume somewhat more dairy and a little more beef than other groups, their diets put out more greenhouse gases and use more water. Meanwhile, black Americans’ diets require the greatest land use, although they don’t contribute to climate change as much. The study uses pretty broad categories (white, black, Latinx), so it’s not ultra precise, and of course, does not imply that all white people eat piles of dairy while all black people avoid it, but nonetheless, it’s food for thought.

And in other news…

• With the Game of Thrones finale premiere two days away, the shameless and sometimes confusing cross-promotions continue rolling in. Shake Shack has expanded its secret menu that you have to order in Valyrian across the country, while KFC wants all the GoT dollars with none of the copyright baggage, offering this dragon-themed “hot and spicy” chicken. [Food & Wine/The Drum]
• Twenty-four years after the celebrity TV painter died, you can now chow down on some happy little flakes with this Bob Ross cereal thanks to miscellaneous entertainment store FYE. [Food & Wine]
• Take a look inside the only snail farm in the United States, which is on Long Island, and is run by a former Noma chef. [NYT]
• A New Jersey restaurant has an innovative way to cut carbs from its sandwiches: replace the bread with a rather large pickle. A tasty substitution or recipe for heartburn? [Cosmopolitan]
• The Boston Globe drew conservative criticism for publishing, then editing and pulling, a column that endorsed the expulsion of Trump administration officials from restaurants, while making a dumb joke about tampering with their food. [WaPo]
• Amidst all the Julian Assange drama on Thursday, the Times informed us that Pamela Anderson once delivered vegan sandwiches to London’s Ecuadorian embassy. [NYT]
• It looks like the Rock could be dropping his own tequila very soon, since the wrestler-turned-actor sure is tasting a lot of it. [Esquire]

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