Environmental Reflections of Traditional and Improved Recipes: Assessing Greenhouse Gas and Water Footprints

Abstract

The concept of sustainability is expressed as to increase people's quality of life and reducing resource use and environmental impacts. The aim of this study was to determine the values of greenhouse gas emissions and water footprints of recipes with improved nutritional content specific to various Turkish cuisines. Thirty traditional recipes were improved in terms of nutritional content, and thirty improved new recipes were created. In this context, the carbon and water footprints of traditional and improved recipes were calculated, and the relationship between nutrients and greenhouse gas emissions and water footprints was analyzed. Compared to traditional recipes, improved recipes for meat dishes, pastries, herb dishes, vegetable dishes, and seafood recipes were found to have lower greenhouse gas emission values (p < 0.05), while the water footprint values of meat dishes, herb dishes, vegetable dishes and seafood recipes were found to be lower (p < 0.05). In traditional recipes, as the amount of energy, protein and fat increased, greenhouse gas values increased (p = 0.030 for energy; p = 0.001 for protein; p=<0.001 for fat), while in improved recipes, as the amount of protein and fat increased, greenhouse gas values increased (p = 0.001; p = 0.012). In addition, in traditional recipes, as the amount of protein and fat increased, the water footprint values also increased (p = 0.013; p = 0.007). In improved recipes, as the amount of protein increased, the water footprint values increased significantly (p = 0.008). It was determined that greenhouse gas emission values decreased by 14.55 % in improved meat dishes, 34.89 % in seafood, and 17.21 % in vegetable dishes, while water footprint values decreased by 15.55 %, 33.82 % and 52.26 % for meat, seafood, and vegetable dishes respectively. We believe that improving and reorganizing traditional cuisines of countries will have positive effects ecologically and health-wise, and will provide important contributions to future studies. © 2025 Elsevier B.V.