Dinner has become an alien concept for me in recent years. Instead of actually cooking, I've been getting by on ramen noodles topped with whatever green veg I have in the fridge, and a boiled egg, which adds the umpf that pushes it into the "meal" category, as opposed to the "pathetic snack/college flashback" category. 

On the days that I feel like a responsible adult, I venture to the grocery store in search of milk, granola cereal, soy sauce, and chicken breast. Needless to say, these are very basic food items that you could expect to find anywhere and at any time of the year. But what if this changed? What if I wasn't able to buy granola cereal during the winter, because oats were out of season, or ramen noodles, due to restrictions on imports from Asia and elsewhere? What if livestock rearing in the US declined, and meat and milk were rationed? How would this alter my diet? How would I cope?

As improbable as this scenario might sound, it is indeed a real possibility, as the impacts of climate change begin to be felt around the world, and governments act to drastically curtail global greenhouse gas emissions, with the aim of an 80% reduction by 2050. While policy, technology and sound management practices may achieve significant results, experts agree that this may not be enough to avert the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's projected 2-4.5 degrees Celsius rise in average global temperature expected by the end of the century.

"Cooking Up a Storm", a comprehensive report issued by the Food Climate Research Network http://www.fcrn.org.uk/ last month, examines the current polluting capacity of the western diet - with a special focus on the UK - and details possible measures that, when enacted with concrete environmental policies and the implementation of carbon control technologies, will help fend off the worst effects of global climate change. Remedies include reducing meal size, altering our diets to synch with locally produced seasonal fruits and vegetables, and eating less meat and dairy altogether.

As is detailed in the report, food production is an inherently "dirty" process. From planting, harvesting, and packaging for retail sale, to storage, cooking, and final disposal in a landfill, the life-cycle of "food" is loaded with greenhouse gases.

While much attention is paid to "food miles", the distance and means by which food travels from the farm to your local supermarket, the agricultural process has been identified as a far larger contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions than transport, with experts estimating it makes up between 17-32% of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Meat and dairy production is also highly greenhouse gas-intensive, as livestock - cattle, goats and sheep - emit large amounts of methane into the atmosphere. And let's not forget the nitrous oxide that's kicked up when land is converted to pasture.

In short, what this study demonstrates is that in the fight against global warming, there is no easy way out. Our consumption of meat and dairy, the places from which we source our foods, what we eat and at which time of year, and our methods of food preparation and storage are all on the chopping block. Sacrifice from the developed world will be required to avert a climate change disaster, and it might sting a little. But let's put a positive spin on the situation. Perhaps this will give us the opportunity to reflect on our definition of "normal," particularly in regards to our eating habits, because in many ways our reasons for eating, and certainly the extent to which we waste food, are anything but normal, and are in need of serious overhauling.