3 Common Foods With a Huge Carbon Footprint
These days less and less of us are able to ignore the harrowing impact our inefficient use of unsustainable resources is having, not just on the natural environment, but on our fellow man.
Despite this, many of us are unaware of just how bad for the environment many of the things we take for granted really are. Indeed, this information is, sadly, not made readily available to us as consumers. Here are just a few notable culprits you may not have suspected of having an oversized carbon footprint.
Tomatoes
On average, for every 1kg of tomatoes in our homes, the equivalent of almost 10kg of CO2 is released. This means that, despite the fact that growing vegetables generally involves less carbon emissions than most other things in our fridge, tomatoes are a pretty high carbon foodstuff. In fact, a full grown man could eat more than his own body weight in oranges for the same environmental impact.
This figure, as an average, takes into account both high intensity carbon methods of growing, as well as those that are less intensive. The figure is also pushed up by specialist varieties of the fruit, with ‘cherry’ and ‘plumb’ tomatoes being much worse than the standard type, due to their need for more heat and lower yield relative the space taken up to grow them.
The most carbon friendly way to consume tomatoes is to choose the bigger, more common varieties, sold loose and when in season. Outside of that time frame, tinned tomatoes offer a lower carbon compromise.
Cheese
To produce a 1kg of a standard hard cheese commonly bought at supermarkets, such as cheddar, on average 12 kilograms of CO2 are released into the atmosphere, the equivalent of a four mile drive.
This figure, which is arrived at mostly due to the high levels of milk production required to make cheese (10 litres per 1kg) makes cheese just as environmentally harmful to produce as many meats, a fact that may come as a surprise to many who think of vegetarian diets as being more sustainable.
The simplest solution is to cut down on how much hard cheese you eat, which, as well as being good for the planet, will probably save you money and add a few years to your life expectancy! However, if you are unable to cut cheese out, you could lessen the environmental impact of your diet by opting for soft cheeses, which require less milk to produce.
Unfortunately, finding cheese which is locally sourced makes little difference to the products carbon footprint, as it is the emissions it takes to produce the milk that are the real problem. The emissions created by transporting this product form a relatively small part of its overall carbon footprint.
A Leg of Lamb
Putting a 2kg leg of lamb on a supermarket shelf entails a massive 38kg of CO2 emissions, making it one of the most environmentally damaging meats. As with other forms of cattle, farming sheep creates a lot of methane and, largely for this reason, lamb already has a carbon footprint of 17kg of CO2 per every kg produced, before it even leaves the slaughterhouse.
Then, of course, there are the costs of packaging, transportation and refrigeration, which all contribute further. The end result is that, for the same amount of CO2 emissions as a leg of lamb, you could eat a bowl of porridge every single day for four months.
Steve Waller has a passion for finding ways that everyone can do a little to contribute to reducing society’s carbon footprint. You can read more of his work on his blog, GreenSteve.
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