Climate is not impacted only by how much gases we directly emit into the atmosphere, but also by what we consume. Each type of food that we consume at our home, in the restaurant or on the go has a climate footprint. However, most of us are unaware of the severe impact that our food choices can have on the climate. It may come as a surprise to you, if you have never heard it before, every spoon that we consume has a bearing on the environment we live in. Yes, and if you are wondering how, let us explain to you in detail.
Veggies
For those who are vegetarians, your vegetables and fruits do add a lot of Carbon Dioxide into the air. From farm to fork, the production of food, its storage, supply chain and final delivery of the eatables at your place does take up immense amounts of energy. And it must not come as a surprise that each stage does add toxic gases during transportation, put pressure on water sources during cleaning and consumes energy during the storage. Not to forget the large volumes of pesticides and fertilizers that go into the soil to nourish it in the short term, but deplete its quality in the long term. And yes, how could we skip this, the wastage of vegetables and fruits at the stores and our homes does not end up in compost always, but can become pollutants when not handled well.
Meat
Hey non-vegetarians, you cannot be laughing at the vegetarians at all, for your carbon footprint is way larger. Meat and dairy, especially from cows, have a massive impact, with livestock accounting for around 14.5 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases each year. Can you imagine that’s roughly the same amount as the emissions from all the cars, trucks, airplanes and ships combined in the world today? Lamb and beef have the biggest climate footprint per gram of protein, while plant-based foods tend to have the smallest impact. Pork and chicken are somewhere in the middle. This is where veggies triumph. A number of studies suggest that plant-based foods usually have a lower impact than meat, and beef and lamb tend to be the worst offenders by a considerable margin.
The “carbon footprint” of hamburger, for example, includes all of the fossil fuels that that went into producing the fertilizer and pumping the irrigation water to grow the corn that fed the cow, and may also include emissions that result from converting forest land to grazing land.
Source: NRDC
Sea food
What we pull out of sea has its own impact on the climate. Wild fish is said to have a relatively small climate footprint, as the main source of emissions in this case is the fuel burned by fishing boats. A 2018 analysis by Sustainable Fisheries found that popular wild fish — such as anchovies, sardines, herring, tuna, pollock, cod, haddock — have, on average, a lower carbon footprint compared to pork or chicken. If you want to taste seafood regularly, then mollusks like clams, oysters and scallops are also great low-carbon choices. However, wild shrimp and lobster can have a larger impact than chicken or pork, since pulling them out of water in demands extra fuel for the fishing boats. Currently, most fisheries are being fished at their maximum sustainable level, while some are getting overexploited. Hence, we don’t have a lot of room for increasing their wild fish consumption.
The way the fisheries operate also affects climate. Farmed mollusks, like oysters, mussels and scallops are usually protein options and have some of the lowest emissions. Moreover, farmed salmon has, on average, a lower impact compared to chicken or pork. But fish farms for shrimp and catfish usually need a large amount of energy to recirculate water and can therefore, have a larger climate footprint than even beef.
How should we choose food?
- Try eating lower on the food chain by adding more grains, fruits & vegetables, to your diet.
- Limit intake of red meat to reduce risk of coronary disease and colorectal cancer, while reducing your grocery bill.
- Choose locally caught, sustainably managed fish or herbivorous farmed stocks like tilapia, catfish, and carp. Seafood lower on the food chain includes clams, mussels and squid.
- Look for fresh foods which have the fewest process steps from farm to plate, and hence, low carbon footprint.
- Process of freezing, processing, packaging, cooking, and refrigerating food all increase energy use.
What’s an eye-opener is that a study reports bringing home a frozen bag of carrots has nearly triple the associated global warming pollution relative to purchasing a fresh bunch.
Conclusion
With that, we conclude this article. Let’s make sure that whatever we eat and produce, has as low carbon footprint as possible. Our food choices do determine the quality of future we hand over to our kids. So eat sustainably, live sustainably.
