Forget food miles - go veggie to go green

Chris Smyth writes:

Forget local food, if you're worried about your carbon footprint, you should eat less meat and dairy products, research by American scientists claims.

While 'food miles' get the attention, the researchers found that transport accounted for relatively little of the carbon emissions during food's total lifespan - only 11 per cent of the 8.1 tonnes of greenhouse gases produced by the average American household's consumption of food.

Production, by contrast, was responsible for 83 per cent of these emissions, according to a study by Christopher Weber and Scott Matthews of Carnegie Mellon Univeristy in Pittsburgh, published in the journal Environmental Science Technology.

Raising animals for meat and dairy products is far more energy intensive than growing crops - but even more importantly, says Weber, is the methane and nitrous oxide emitted by, to put it bluntly, farts and manure. These account for two-thirds of the greenhouse gases emitted by cattle.

Weber claims that opting for vegetables over red meat or dairy for one day a week cuts emissions by equivalent of driving 1160 miles per year. This is roughly as much as giving up the school run.

Even switching to chicken, fish or eggs is the equivalent or saving 760 miles per year. This, the authors say, is more than can be saved by eating only locally-sourced food.

Going for organic meat reduces emissions somewhat, Weber says, but there's still "an order of magnitude difference" between that and going veggie.

While the UK flies in much more of its food than the US, Weber doesn't think this would greatly affect the calculation for British greens. "Even if you fly meat in from New Zealand, transport's still going to be a pretty small chunk of emissions". 

Kenyan sugar snaps all round?

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