Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, University of Arkansas, 203 Engineering Hall, Fayetteville, AR, 72701, United States.
Ralph E Martin Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Arkansas, 3153 BELL Engineering, Fayetteville, AR, 72701, United States.
J Environ Manage. 2022 Jan 15;302(Pt B):114062. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.114062. Epub 2021 Nov 10.
Environmental impact associated with production and consumption of pulses in the United States was evaluated using life cycle assessment (LCA). The system boundary was set to cradle-to-grave with a functional unit of 60 g (dry basis) of pulses consumed in a US household. Varieties of pulses modeled in the study included field pea (Pisum sativum), lentil (Lens culinaris), chickpea (Cicer arietinum), and dry bean. Three methods of cooking pulses at the consumer stage tested in the study were cooking in open vessel on electric cooking range (OVC), cooking in stovetop pressure cooker on electric cooking range (SPC), and cooking in electric pressure cooker (EPC). OVC formed the base scenario against which all other scenarios were compared. The environmental impact of pulses varied with type of pulse crop, cooking method, and the batch size. Consumption of approximately 60 g of dry pulses resulted in the greatest environmental impact for OVC. The consumer stage contributed at least 83, 81, 76, 75, and 87 percent for global warming potential (GWP), fossil resource scarcity (FRS), water consumption (WC), freshwater eutrophication (FE), and marine eutrophication (ME), respectively for this scenario. EPC resulted in the greatest decrease in the environmental impact, compared to OVC, for GWP, FRS, FE, and ME for all pulse varieties, which was validated in the uncertainty analysis. SPC, on the other hand, decreased the impact across these categories only for chickpea and dry bean. The uncertainty analysis suggested that the differences associated with cooking methods in the mean land use and water consumption scores of pulses were statistically non-significant. The impact categories were also highly sensitive to the mass of pulses cooked in a batch. Increasing the reference flow in OVC to 1 kg decreased the environmental impact of pulses by 49-87 percent for all impact categories, excluding land use. Overall, the study identified the consumer stage as the hotspot for environmental impact in the supply chain of pulses in the United States. The large contribution of the consumer stage to the overall environmental impact of pulses was attributed to electricity consumption for cooking and associated upstream emissions.
采用生命周期评价（LCA）方法评估了美国豆类生产和消费对环境的影响。该系统边界设定为摇篮到坟墓，以美国家庭消费的 60 克（干重）豆类为功能单位。本研究中建模的豆类品种包括豌豆（Pisum sativum）、小扁豆（Lens culinaris）、鹰嘴豆（Cicer arietinum）和干豆。本研究中测试的三种消费者烹饪方法包括在电灶上的开放式煮锅中烹饪（OVC）、在电灶上的压力锅中烹饪（SPC）和在电压力锅中烹饪（EPC）。OVC 是与所有其他方案进行比较的基础方案。豆类的环境影响因豆科作物类型、烹饪方法和批次大小而异。对于 OVC，消费约 60 克干豆会产生最大的环境影响。消费者阶段对全球变暖潜力（GWP）、化石资源稀缺性（FRS）、水消耗（WC）、淡水富营养化（FE）和海洋富营养化（ME）的贡献至少分别为 83%、81%、76%、75%和 87%。与 OVC 相比，EPC 导致所有豆类品种的 GWP、FRS、FE 和 ME 的环境影响最大降低，这在不确定性分析中得到了验证。另一方面，SPC 仅降低了鹰嘴豆和干豆在这些类别中的影响。不确定性分析表明，烹饪方法对豆类土地利用和用水量得分的差异在统计学上不显著。这些类别对批次中烹饪的豆类质量也非常敏感。将 OVC 中的参考流量增加到 1 公斤可使所有影响类别（不包括土地利用）的豆类的环境影响降低 49-87%。总的来说，该研究确定消费者阶段是美国豆类供应链中环境影响的热点。消费者阶段对豆类整体环境影响的巨大贡献归因于烹饪用电和相关的上游排放。
