Although animal foods account for just 17 percent of total caloric needs (1), livestock production has a direct impact on climate, resources, land use and biodiversity (2). Livestock alone is not responsible for this, but also the agriculture that is needed to produce the feed (3). But what exactly does all this have to do with cooking ? We can use the daily food choices that everyone makes to positively impact the environment and our health. Because ultimately, our consumer behavior is the greatest power to change the market in a sustainable way. With my "Sunday Roast Principle" we enable you to consume animal foods in a more sustainable way: The omnivore is enabled not to live without meat completely, but to consume it consciously once a week. The rest of the week is then cooked purely plant-based - and this is where the chops will help you. We want to invite everyone, from total cooking novices to hobby cooks, to try our recipes. For the sake of the environment and health, we wanted to show you that delicious dishes taste great without animal products. Try it out and become part of our Sustainable Diet.

Our contribution to the climate - cooking for the environment!

I put the Sunday roast principle to the test and checked the recipes (as part of my master's thesis) with the data from the NAHGAST calculator. For this purpose, a sample meal plan was set up and calculated for the lunch and dinner meals over a period of four weeks and three different diets. In the first step, the carbon footprints (CO2 footprint) for each dish were calculated and then summarized. The result of the carbon footprint of the conventional diet is 72.5 kg per person. The carbon footprint of our Sunday roast principle is 41 kg per person, which is 43% lower than the carbon footprint of the conventional diet. The lowest carbon footprint is achieved with a vegan diet, where 50% of the CO2 emissions can be saved. 

CO2 labeling of food has been demanded for a long time and of course I have also thought about this topic. There are already some companies that use environmental labeling for their products. These are usually divided into levels, according to grades or according to the traffic light principle, which is supposed to simplify the evaluation for the consumer. But this is where I see a slight problem - the calculation of emissions is not uniform. There are different methods of calculating CO2 equivalents and there are just as many differences in how these are evaluated. For this reason, I decided against a rating, but would like to provide you with the necessary information so that you can make your own decision. In addition to the carbon footprint, I have also made a small comparison for you. Each recipe was recalculated with the animal equivalents, for example, instead of tofu, ground beef was used, instead of vegetable cream or milk, cow's milk was used. You can find the percentage CO2 savings in the description of the dishes.