EatLowCarbon.org was created by Bon Appétit Management Company, a food
service pioneer operating hundreds of cafés all over America for
corporations, universities, and specialty venues. This website brings the work of various researchers who have been calculating the
environmental impact of various food items. You may be surprised at some of the results.
EatLowCarbon.org brings you an interactive display of various food items which are most typical in the average diet. One can simply hover over each food item to obtain the relevant carbon footprint. So are you being environmentally friendly whenever you go healthy with cereal and milk for breakfast? Wrong... cereal with milk is in the top half of the list. And what about french fries? Are these as bad to the environment as much as they are to your health? You will be wrong again if you think that.
This is because the carbon footprint is calculated by the amount of greenhouse gases which are emitted throughout the food item's complete lifecycle - including the materials required to grow and/or fertilize it, energy required for harvesting and transportation, and till the item is processed and cooked. So a healthy food item might be good for your health, but the harvesting and processing might leave a huge toll on the carbon footprint.
5 easy tips to reduce your dietary carbon footprint?
- You bought it, you eat it - don't waste food
- Make "seasonal and regional" your food mantra
- Move away from beef and cheese
- Stop flying fish and fruit - don't buy air-freighted food
- If it's processed and packaged, skip it
If you live outside the US, we recommend that you stick to these 5 tips rather than memorizing the carbon footprint value in the interactive display. Why? Because the interactive display has a number of assumptions and therefore depends on where you live. For example, salmon has a very low carbon footprint on the interactive display, but then again if you live on a remote island where there is no local salmon supply, then this will have to be air-freighted and/or shipped.
Read more at EatLowCarbon.org. Finally, there is even a quiz for you to test your knowledge of which meals are planet friendlier.
