"Which Foods Have the Lowest Carbon Footprint?"
Our eating habits are making us and the planet increasingly unhealthy.
Ours is a lose-lose situation;
a global transformation of the food system is urgently needed.
In consideration of the mounting evidence regarding the environmental effects of
foods, for the 2015 to 2020 U.S. Dietary Guidelines the scientific advisory
committee included for the first time a chapter focused on food safety
and sustainability, concluding, "a dietary pattern that is higher
in plant-based foods, such as vegetables, fruits,
whole grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds,
and lower in animal-based foods, is not only more health promoting
but also associated with lesser environmental impact..."
Despite unprecedented public support, this and other sustainability language
was, not surprisingly, vanished from the final Dietary Guidelines
published jointly by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. They're not even
sufficiently sticking to the science on healthy eating either, including no, or
too lax limits for animal-source foods, despite the available evidence.
Even if they ignored planetary health altogether and just stuck to the latest
evidence on healthy eating, it would have knock-on environmental benefits.
Replacing animal-source foods with plant-based ones would not only
improve nutrition and help people live longer,
but could reduce greenhouse gas emissions up to 84%.
In general, plant-based foods cause fewer adverse environmental effects
by nearly any measure. In terms of carbon footprint, all the foods that are
the equivalent of driving more than a mile per serving are animal products.
Here's the greenhouse gas emissions from various foods.
Even though something like a lamb chop or farmed fish may be the worst,
eating chicken still causes like five times the global warming
than even something like tropical fruit, though the climate superstars
are legumes—beans, split peas, chickpeas, and lentils.
For example, in the United States, substituting beans for beef
at the national level could alone deliver up to 75% of the 2020 greenhouse gas
emissions reduction target and spare an area of land 1.5 times
the size of California, not to mention the health benefits.
And it's not just greenhouse gases. Kidney beans required approximately
18 times less land, 10 times less water, 9 times less fuel, 12 times less fertilizer,
and 10 times less pesticides. So yeah, according to the prestigious
EAT-Lancet Commission, more plant-based may be better,
but even a shift towards a healthier dietary pattern emphasizing whole grains,
fruits, vegetables, nuts, and legumes without necessarily
eating strictly-plant-based, would be beneficial.
In Europe, for example, just halving the consumption of meat, dairy, and eggs
would achieve up to a 40% reduction in nitrogen emissions and greenhouse gas
emissions, and require about a fifth less land. In addition, the dietary changes
would also lower health risks, reducing cardiovascular mortality,
their leading cause of death. Note, however, that minimizing
environmental impacts does not necessarily maximize human health.
Yes, animal products, dairy, eggs, fish, and other meat releases significantly
more greenhouse gas per serving than foods from plants;
eating added sugar and oil isn't going to do your own body any favors.
In California, including more animal products in your diet requires
an additional 10,000 quarts of water a week.
So that's like taking 150 more showers a week.
Even just skipping meat on weekdays could conserve thousands of gallons
a week compared to eating meat every day, and cut your daily
carbon footprint and total ecological footprint by about 40%.
Some countries are actually doing something about it.
The Chinese government, for example, has outlined a plan to reduce
its citizens' meat consumption by 50%, whereas much of the rest of the world
appears to be doing the complete opposite, pumping billions
of taxpayer dollars into subsidizing the meat, dairy, and egg industries.
We can certainly all try to do our part; however, an obstacle to dietary change
may be consumers' underestimation of the environmental impacts
of different types of food, but may be aided by labeling.
For example, imagine picking up a can of a beef noodle soup and seeing this.
The carbon footprint of a single half-cup serving
is like leaving a light on for 39 hours straight.
And not some eco-bulb, right? An old-school 100-watt hot incandescent,
compared to a meat-free vegetable soup—a difference of 34 light-bulb hours.
You can imagine someone getting on your case for unnecessarily leaving on a light
for 34 minutes, but this is 34 hours just eating a different half cup of soup.