Saving the world and having fun
Food and Greenhouse Gasses
You might think that for every apple, potato, or beet that you eat, you also consume the energy that went into planting, fertilizing, harvesting, shipping, refrigerating, and cooking that morsel before it met your lips.
There are no numbers, specifically, as to the amount of greenhouse gasses that we San Diegans pump up into the atmosphere because of the food we consume, but we can assume that it is probably the same amount that Americans across the country produce, which is 16 percent.[1] Admittedly, 16 percent is not the largest percentage of GHG, but it is large enough to be seriously considered in any climate plan, and there are some simple things that we can do to reduce this GHG slice of the pie. |
Most commonsensically, wasting food wastes all the energy that was used in the agricultural production of that food. Every jellybean or rutabaga that winds up in the trash or down the garbage disposal is wasted food, wasted energy, and CO2 needlessly drifting up in the atmosphere for no good reason. German researchers have estimate in a recent study that one tenth of the greenhouse gasses associated with agriculture could be traced back to food wastage. In the last 50 years GHG emissions associated with food waste have gone up by 300 percent and are expected to increase as affluence spreads through Asia and other parts of the world.[2]
Strategies to Ending Food Waste
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What You Eat and CO2
Generally, the higher the caloric content of a food item, the higher its carbon footprint.[1] Because beef is high in emissions of all three GHG, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane, it is the food with the highest carbon footprint. For every pound of beef produced 30 pounds of CO2 (or equivalent) go up in the atmosphere. By comparison, pork emits one third the greenhouse gasses (9.2 pounds of CO2 per pound of pork), and chicken comes in at 4.3. Carrots and potatoes have the lowest, 0.42 and 0.45 respectively.
The more your diet consists of fruits and vegetables and less of meat, the less you are warming the planet. By a very conservative estimate, the average American diet that includes meat releases the equivalent of an extra ton and a half of CO2 into the atmosphere every year.[2] Simply reducing your meat consumption can make a big difference. The same study found that bringing your meat eating down to 20 percent of your diet rather than 27 percent, the average for an adult American, can be the difference between driving a Prius or driving a regular sedan.[3]
What You Can Do
You can switch to being a vegetarian or, better yet, a vegan. I myself am not a vegetarian, but I have cut down on the amount of meat that I eat by a respectable amount. Meat is part of my diet two or three days a week instead of every day. Check out our page for vegetarian recipes.
There are strategies to cut out the pork, beef, and chicken, one being Meatless Mondays. This is a worldwide organization that was founded in 2003 by longtime advertising mavin Sid Lerner, in association with the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Paul McCartney is a big supporter. Check their website. It's a lot of fun. It is also our first campaign as South Park Climate Solutions. Check out what our neighborhood is doing for Meatless Monday.
Having chicken or pork as part of rather than the main portion of a meal is also a way to cut down on meat. Think of chili con carne or a cobb salad. A lot of times that I wind up eating meat is when I’m at a restaurant and I find no vegetarian or vegan option. In situations like this it’s appropriate to politely say to the waiter that you saw no vegetarian dishes. The waiter will either tell you that the restaurant actually has vegan dishes; they just aren’t on the menu. Or they might say that they can substitute tofu in the chicken dish. Even if the waiter can’t offer a vegetarian option, those comments and requests make it back to the managers and chefs who want your patronage. Four or five folks asking for a vegetarian or vegan dish at a restaurant can make the difference between having a garden burger and not having garden burger.
A Note on Eating Local
A little over ten years ago researchers at Iowa State University found that, on average, the food we Americans consume travelled 1,500 miles from harvest point to where it was eaten.[4] While this seems really extreme—it is as though every morsel of food we San Diegans eat is produced in Kansas City—what the researchers later found was that, as far as energy consumption, it mattered more how food was transported rather than how far it travelled. For example, they found that the semitrailer trucks favored by large agribusiness transported food six times more efficiently than midsized trucks (Pirog 2003). What that means is the big 18-wheelers unloading at Ralphs or Vons that have brought in kohlrabi from the Central Valley, 300 miles away are using less fuel per pound than the county farmer who trucks in kohlrabi from 60 miles away.
Even more efficient than the semitrailers are rail and cargo ships. The least efficient is the automobile, especially considering that personal cars are rarely loaded to maximum capacity. To put this in personal perspective, moving five pounds of potatoes one mile in your car takes the same energy as flying those potatoes 43 miles; trucking them 740 miles by semitrailer; sending them by freight train 2,400 miles; or sending them by cargo ship 3,800 miles.
[1] Carlsson-Kanyama, Annika and Gonzalez, Alejandro D. Potential Contributions of Food Consumption Patterns to Climate Change American Society of Nutrition http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/89/5/1704S.full
[2] Gidon Eshel and Pamela A. Martin Diet Energy and Global Warming Earth Interactions vol 10. no. 9. Dec 2005
[3] ibid
[4] Pirog, R., and A. Benjamin. Checking the food odometer: comparing food miles for local versus conventional produce sales to Iowa institutions. Ames, IA: Iowa State University, Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, 2003
[1] Hendrickson, J. Energy use in the U.S. food system: a summary of existing research and analysis. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin, Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems, 1996.
[2] Hic, C. Pradham, P. Rybsky, D. Kropp, JP. Food Surplus and Its Climate Burdens Environmental Science and Technology 2016 April 19;50(8):4269-77
Generally, the higher the caloric content of a food item, the higher its carbon footprint.[1] Because beef is high in emissions of all three GHG, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane, it is the food with the highest carbon footprint. For every pound of beef produced 30 pounds of CO2 (or equivalent) go up in the atmosphere. By comparison, pork emits one third the greenhouse gasses (9.2 pounds of CO2 per pound of pork), and chicken comes in at 4.3. Carrots and potatoes have the lowest, 0.42 and 0.45 respectively.
The more your diet consists of fruits and vegetables and less of meat, the less you are warming the planet. By a very conservative estimate, the average American diet that includes meat releases the equivalent of an extra ton and a half of CO2 into the atmosphere every year.[2] Simply reducing your meat consumption can make a big difference. The same study found that bringing your meat eating down to 20 percent of your diet rather than 27 percent, the average for an adult American, can be the difference between driving a Prius or driving a regular sedan.[3]
What You Can Do
You can switch to being a vegetarian or, better yet, a vegan. I myself am not a vegetarian, but I have cut down on the amount of meat that I eat by a respectable amount. Meat is part of my diet two or three days a week instead of every day. Check out our page for vegetarian recipes.
There are strategies to cut out the pork, beef, and chicken, one being Meatless Mondays. This is a worldwide organization that was founded in 2003 by longtime advertising mavin Sid Lerner, in association with the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Paul McCartney is a big supporter. Check their website. It's a lot of fun. It is also our first campaign as South Park Climate Solutions. Check out what our neighborhood is doing for Meatless Monday.
Having chicken or pork as part of rather than the main portion of a meal is also a way to cut down on meat. Think of chili con carne or a cobb salad. A lot of times that I wind up eating meat is when I’m at a restaurant and I find no vegetarian or vegan option. In situations like this it’s appropriate to politely say to the waiter that you saw no vegetarian dishes. The waiter will either tell you that the restaurant actually has vegan dishes; they just aren’t on the menu. Or they might say that they can substitute tofu in the chicken dish. Even if the waiter can’t offer a vegetarian option, those comments and requests make it back to the managers and chefs who want your patronage. Four or five folks asking for a vegetarian or vegan dish at a restaurant can make the difference between having a garden burger and not having garden burger.
A Note on Eating Local
A little over ten years ago researchers at Iowa State University found that, on average, the food we Americans consume travelled 1,500 miles from harvest point to where it was eaten.[4] While this seems really extreme—it is as though every morsel of food we San Diegans eat is produced in Kansas City—what the researchers later found was that, as far as energy consumption, it mattered more how food was transported rather than how far it travelled. For example, they found that the semitrailer trucks favored by large agribusiness transported food six times more efficiently than midsized trucks (Pirog 2003). What that means is the big 18-wheelers unloading at Ralphs or Vons that have brought in kohlrabi from the Central Valley, 300 miles away are using less fuel per pound than the county farmer who trucks in kohlrabi from 60 miles away.
Even more efficient than the semitrailers are rail and cargo ships. The least efficient is the automobile, especially considering that personal cars are rarely loaded to maximum capacity. To put this in personal perspective, moving five pounds of potatoes one mile in your car takes the same energy as flying those potatoes 43 miles; trucking them 740 miles by semitrailer; sending them by freight train 2,400 miles; or sending them by cargo ship 3,800 miles.
[1] Carlsson-Kanyama, Annika and Gonzalez, Alejandro D. Potential Contributions of Food Consumption Patterns to Climate Change American Society of Nutrition http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/89/5/1704S.full
[2] Gidon Eshel and Pamela A. Martin Diet Energy and Global Warming Earth Interactions vol 10. no. 9. Dec 2005
[3] ibid
[4] Pirog, R., and A. Benjamin. Checking the food odometer: comparing food miles for local versus conventional produce sales to Iowa institutions. Ames, IA: Iowa State University, Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, 2003
[1] Hendrickson, J. Energy use in the U.S. food system: a summary of existing research and analysis. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin, Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems, 1996.
[2] Hic, C. Pradham, P. Rybsky, D. Kropp, JP. Food Surplus and Its Climate Burdens Environmental Science and Technology 2016 April 19;50(8):4269-77