Celebrating summer in a climate conscious way

Eating and drinking are important parts of celebrating Midsummer. Photo: Henrik Trygg/www.imagebank.sweden.se.

Tomorrow Sweden goes into celebration mode. Midsummer, one of Sweden’s most loved holidays, celebrates the longest day of the year and a long awaited summer.
Celebrating Midsummer typically involves spending time outside, preferably in the countryside, raise  a Maypole – and eating a lot. All over the country people are preparing and queues are long at supermarkets, people struggling with heavy bags filled with new potatoes, sour cream, pickled herring and fresh strawberries.

Local food

Actually the traditional Midsummer food is pretty good from a sustainability point of view. Most of it is possible to find locally produced. But after the holidays, eating habits go back to normal again. Just a few days ago the Swedish National Food Administration presented new advice on how to eat in order to benefit health but at the same time consider climate and environmental effects.

Clams are good

Food production generates about 25 percent of Swedish consumers’ greenhouse gas emissions. The report, which has to be sent to the member states of the European Union before being officially published, recommends for example eating less meat (beef production leads to 15 –25 kilos greenhouse gases per kilo meat), more clams (which live on plant plankton, thus helping to reduce eutrophication), eating according to season and what can be locally produced.
Considering that Swedish meat consumption has risen to more than 65 kilos per person/year and that we are one of the nations which consume most bananas in the world, we still have quite a lot to learn.

Obviously some of the advice are mostly suitable for this part of the world. But some principles, such as eating less meat and avoid bottled water, are globally valid. If I find the recommendations in English I’ll publish the link on this blog.
For more ideas on how to celebrate Midsummer: Create your own Swedish Midsummer party.

Sara Jeswani - Sustainability

June 18, 2009

• climate change
• food production
• Midsummer