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Pictured:Red-Wine Hot Chocolate
When people talk about climate change, it’s often about rising temperatures and shrinking habitats. But one result that will have the biggest impact on our day-to-day lives is what hotter temperatures mean for food crops. Some of our favorite foods require a certain climate to grow-or, in the case of fish and shellfish, particular water conditions to thrive. Here are 10 things we’re at risk of losing, or that may be forced to move to cooler climates. That could have devastating impacts on local economies, and even impact the way the food tastes.
1. Coffee
As the tropics get warmer, coffee bushes become less productive and more susceptible to disease. By 2050, an estimated 50 percent of current coffee-producing land could be unusable.
2. Chocolate
Cacao trees can take the heat, but they don’t like the dryness that comes along with it. Some chocolate hot spots, like Indonesia and western Africa, are already seeing declines in yield.
3. Wine
Too much heat for too long destroys the acidity of grapes. The resulting wine tastes “cooked.” By the end of the century, many celebrated regions, such as Napa Valley, may be too hot to make great wine.
4. Apples
Many apple varieties require a certain number of days of winter chill to produce fruit the following year. In the Northeast alone there are now 8 more frost-free days annually than a century ago.
5. Almonds
6. Corn
7. Beans
8. Oysters
9. Lobster
10. Maple Syrup
Read On:
How to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint with Food
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