Introduction:

Food production is one of the main causes of Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHGE). Estimating GHG emissions from the diet is the starting point for defining healthy and environmentally sustainable diets.

Objective:

Estimate the total GHGE in the diet of adolescent women from eastern Guatemala, as well as the contribution of food groups to this value.

Materials and methods:

In the context of an agriculture and nutrition study in eastern Guatemala, a secondary analysis of dietary data (24-hour recall) of 2082 adolescent women was performed. The reported foods were linked to the SHARP database, which contains GHGE estimates for 944 foods. The linking variable was a unique code harmonized with the FoodEx2 classification system.

Results:

The diet is not diverse, mainly based on food groups of plant origin, with little presence of foods of animal origin. The GHG of the diet was 2.3 KgCO2eq/per capita/day, with the greatest contribution from prepared foods (26.7%) and breads, tortillas and similar products (12.8%).

Conclusions:

The diet of adolescent women in rural areas of Guatemala has a lower GHG than that reported in other countries in the region for socioeconomic strata with greater consumption of foods of animal origin. This study is the starting point to systematize the methodology to continue with GHG estimates in Guatemala.