Even broccoli has a carbon footprint: When I eat, I contribute to the CO2 emissions on the planet through the choices I make

We know that driving our gas guzzling cars contributes to the overall CO2 emissions on our planet, but did you also know that every time you lift a fork of food to your mouth, you are also adding to the CO2 emissions? Who would think broccoli would have a carbon footprint? Turns out broccoli and everything we eat has some percentage of CO2 emissions attached to it. In fact, according to CleanMetrics Corp., if I purchase broccoli that travelled 100 miles it would contribute production emissions of 0.16, transport emissions of 0.02 and waste emissions of 0.00. (2012, Cleanmetrics.com.)
The most surprising element I found from running the various calculators for our lab this week was that production had the highest carbon footprint in the total food scenario. I thought transportation and packaging would be higher due to the use of fossil fuels and the processes that often go into making packaging. I liked the calculator at PlantGreen.com best, but found the methodology of CleanMetrics Corp’s carbon emissions food calculator interesting. CleanMetrics states on their website: “We looked at several sources (such as the USDA, About Seafood, and others) to come up with a list of about 31 food commodities that are commonly consumed in the US. For each of these commodities, we picked a typical North American production system or an average of several North American production systems (in one or more agricultural regions) to calculate the production emissions.” (2012, Cleanmetrics.com.)
1. What factors impact the carbon footprint of food in general? Describe at least three.
Knowledge is power, so in order to reduce my carbon footprint (or mouth print for food); it helps to know how I am contributing CO2. There are a number of factors which impact the carbon footprint of food. Any process in the food cycle (from farm to cradle) which uses a fossil-fuel based ingredient adds a carbon footprint component to the food we eat. This would include the energy costs, and the transportation costs involved in the various aspects of the food, from the farmer’s machinery, to delivery to a warehouse or processing plant, to the distributor, to the grocery store, all transporting the food in the supply chain. Another component is the various chemicals farmers use, such as fossil-fuel based pesticides or fertilizers, such as nitrogen. The packaging of the food adds another element to the carbon footprint. Labor costs could also be included, since the workers drive fossil-fuel based vehicles to get to their jobs.
In addition, when we as consumers drive to the store to purchase our food, we have contributed to the carbon footprint as well. In fact, consumer’s driving to the store had the highest percentage of the carbon footprint, according to Planetgreen.com. And food miles make up 20% of the carbon footprint. “According to calculations in a Washington Post article, farmers using small trucks can delivery 3,200 lbs. of food for every gallon on fuel expended. Tractor trailers can only delivery 100 lbs. of food for every gallon of fuel.” (2012, PlanetGreen.com.)
This surprised me. I thought packaging was the larger of the two. Planet Green also states: “The type of food you eat and how it’s produced is the single largest component in your dinner’s carbon footprint, 40 percent of the total. Cooking is 29 percent, how it’s packaged is 5 percent, emissions associated with food disposal and retail are just 3 percent each.” (2012, PlanetGreen.com.)
2. Based on the factors in question #1, describe how your choices for a lower carbon breakfast, lunch and dinner actually lowered your carbon footprint for those meals.
There are a number of ways we (or I) can lower the carbon footprint of my food choices. One way is to grow a significant portion of my own food organically, thereby removing some of the reliance on fossil-fuel based elements. Following organic methods removes the use of fossil-fuel based pesticides and fertilizers, and when I grow my own food, the transportation costs are eliminated, except for seeds. (I could also save my own seeds.) Packaging and production CO2 emissions also go down since most of the food I grow is fresh and not packaged. I could also raise my own livestock, such as chickens, goats, pigs or cows, from which to get meat, milk and eggs. I do have chickens. I could also buy grains and grind the grain for bread. These are all things my parents did as I was growing up. We grew our own veggies, made our own butter, had whole milk from cows, and my mom made her own flour for breads.
Another way I could lower my carbon footprint is to purchase fruits and veggies from a farmer’s market or cooperative. For items I purchase at the store, I could purchase organic, and, foods with minimal packaging or minimal production processes. Since red meat has the highest carbon footprint of all of our foods, eating a vegetarian diet would reduce CO2 emissions by 33 percent, according to Planet Green. “On the basis of grams of CO2 emitted per calorie, a vegan diet is about 33 percent lower in emissions that the average American omnivore diet. That meat-heavy diet emits 4.3 grams of CO2 per calorie. A vegetarian diet is about 21 percent lower than meat-eating.” (2012, Planetgreen.com.)

1. 3.      What kinds of challenges would you anticipate if you wanted to lower your carbon footprint?

The challenges to lowering my carbon footprint could include the time it takes to raise a garden and to process the food myself. Reading packaging labels and shopping for foods with less processing and packaging also takes more time. Some garden items require more time than others to process, or can. It also requires weaning oneself off of certain foods that I buy in the store, such as latte’s, or processed food, like pizza. Another challenge is planning. I do raise a garden and I can fruit from my own garden, and make my own jams, but it takes time to plan the garden, prepare the soil, plant the seeds and care for it, then pick and process. Our society has become so convenience oriented, so one of the best ways to reduce our carbon footprint is to get back to the land by growing some of our own foods.

1. 4.      What kinds of things could a community collectively do to enable community members to lower the carbon footprints of their food?

Encouraging and supporting local farmer’s markets and food cooperatives and local food are all significant ways to help community members lower their carbon footprint. In addition, educating people about the importance of organic foods, buying local and learning to grow at least some foods on their own is another component. In Wenatchee, where I live, we have a nice farmer’s market, a food co-op, and a community garden and many people, even in the city grow gardens. Seattle, where I lived before, had many such programs, and Seattle Tilth is an excellent group which “inspires and educates people to grow food organically, conserve natural resources and support local food systems in order to cultivate a healthy urban environment and community.” (2012, seattletilth.org.)
Another component is for people to live closer to the grocery stores so that we can bike and walk (or use public transit) to get to necessary services. Cities were once planned and developed with a 1.5 mile walking radius, and streets were configured on a grid. These were called “traditional neighborhoods.” The new urbanism movement has been working to preserve this and to create traditional and walkable neighborhoods. One significant person to follow is Andre’s Duany who recently wrote an article titled “Agrarian Urbanism: ‘Food not as a means of making a living, but as a basis for making a life,” in the Nov. /Dec. 2011 issue of Sustainable Communities. Duany created a proposal for a city, which has a “pervasive pattern of squares that can be dedicated to allotment gardens. The overlapping urban blocks have turned lots at their ends, a layout which allows every dwelling to directly face a square.” (Duany, 19)
Like Duany suggests, if we encourage people to incorporate gardens into their daily lives, either through raised bed, container or traditional kitchen gardens, or turn lawns into gardens, using the idea of the victory garden or kitchen garden, we could also reduce our food’s carbon footprint. One interesting group which is doing this is Food Not Lawns. At their website, they explain how they got started: “Food Not Lawns was founded in Eugene, Oregon in 1999 by a small group of activists who had been cooking Food Not Bombs (free meals in the park) for several years and decided to start gardening too….With the publication of Heather Flores’ book, Food Not Lawns, How to Turn your Yard into a Garden and Your Neighborhood into a Community, …in 2006, new local FNL chapters starting popping up all over. Now we are a global community of … gardeners, working together to grow and share food, seeds, medicine, and knowledge.” (2012, Foodnotlawns.com.)
Since food producers follow consumer trends, education needs to happen on both sides of the spectrum. We need to educate the general public about the various aspects of their food which contributes to the carbon footprint, and we need to provide education and incentive to food producers to use less processing and packaging and employ other methods to reduce the carbon footprint of our food.
Resources:
Duany, Andre’s. (2011). “Agrarian Urbanism: ‘Food not as a means of making a living, but as a basis for making a life.” Sustainable Communities. Vol. 1. No. 6. Nov. /Dec. 2011. pp. 18-21.
“Food Carbon Emissions Calculator.” CleanMetrics Corp. April 8, 2012. .
“About Us.” Foodnotlawns.com. Food Not Lawns. April 8, 2012.
“Know your Food’s Carbon Emissions?” PlanetGreen.com. April 8, 2012. Discovery Communications, LLC .
“About Us.” seattletilth.org. Seattle Tilth. April 8, 20120.