No Free Lunch is a food-logging app that also reports on the typical environmental sustainability of fresh foods, in terms of their greenhouse gas production, land use, and water use.
Different food groups have wildly different environmental impact. No Free Lunch makes it easy to experiment with different consumption patterns and compare both their nutritiousness and environmental sustainability. Data on typical gas production, land use, and water use are easily obtainable but difficult to conceptualize. The app normalizes this data relative to caloric content, making it easy to translate into everyday terms.
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Search for food and view nutritional + environmental information
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Log food on a day-to-day basis
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Set and view progress towards caloric intake goals
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View weekly, monthly, and yearly trends in caloric intake and environmental impact
Agriculture accounts for 9% of greenhouse gas emissions in the US. Some foods, like beef and lamb, produce vastly more GHG's than nutritionally similar foods: beef has roughly 4x the GHG contributions of poultry. Widepsread dietary adjustment could easily reduce GHG emissions from agriculture, but people need to actually know which foods to eat.
The relative land requirements of various foods are also a signficant environmental concern, and is increasingly important as worldwide population grows. Deforestation worsens global warming by reducing the biosphere's ability to re-absorb carbon from the atmosphere, and reduces biodiversity by destroying habitats. Agriculture can also negatively impact biodiversity through excessive pesticide/weedkiller use and degredation in soil quality.
Water use is of particular concern in the Southwest as Lake Mead’s water level continues to drop and a federal drought declaration becomes increasingly likely. In Arizona, the majority of water taken from the Colorado River is used in agriculture.
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. 20xx. USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, Release . Nutrient Data Laboratory Home Page, http://www.ars.usda.gov/nutrientdata Gerbens-Leenes, W., & Nonhebel, S. (2005). Food and land use. The influence of consumption patterns on the use of agricultural resources. Appetite, 45(1), 24-31.
Mekonnen, M. M., & Hoekstra, A. Y. (2010). The green, blue and grey water footprint of farm animals and animal products(Vol. 1). Delft: UNESCO-IHE Institute for water Education.
Clune, S., Crossin, E., & Verghese, K. (2017). Systematic review of greenhouse gas emissions for different fresh food categories. Journal of Cleaner Production, 140, 766-783.