Impacto ambiental de cardápios da educação infantil de um município no interior do Rio Grande do Norte.

Abstract

Current food systems have high levels of productivity that are negatively impacting food production for generations to come. In addition, current dietary practices have been linked to an increase in Chronic Non-Communicable Diseases. In this context, thinking about food from a healthy and sustainable perspective is essential, since all activities related to food production, from planting to the offering of the meal can cause negative impacts on the environment. These impacts are evaluated by environmental indicators, such as the ecological and carbon footprint. Therefore, in order to minimize environmental impacts, the nutritionist responsible for Food and Nutrition Units has a fundamental role in menu planning. Thus, this study aimed to evaluate the ecological and carbon footprint of menus of a school of early childhood education in a city in the interior of Rio Grande do Norte. For this, data from the school's food preparation technical sheet were used and the calculations were based on the methodology proposed by Garzillo et al. with values of PE and CP of different foods and culinary preparations in the usual consumption of the Brazilian population. In this perspective, the calculations of PE and CP of breakfast and snack preparations were performed and the results obtained indicated that the highest values of PE and CP were of snack preparations, when compared with breakfast, due to the larger quantity of ingredients used in the preparations. In addition, the meals offered with foods of animal origin increased these indicators, but what drew attention was the high value of PE and CP in breakfast preparations that offered only fruits. Moreover, studies with environmental footprints in institutional UAN are scarce, so it was not possible to compare the results with other studies regarding the ecological footprint. Thus, from the results of this study, the indicators can be reduced with the purchase of food from family farming, in which the reduction of food transportation can impact on lower emissions of greenhouse gases and the use of small lots would minimize the PE and also corroborate for food and nutritional security of diners due to the reduction of pesticide use of these foods.