Sustainable Food
My Principles
- Prepare only what you eat
- Eat only what you need
- Buy foods that are responsably produced
- Avoid carbon intensive foods most of the time
Also, this really goes hand in hand with general healthy eating
Chart: The Carbon Footprint of the Food Supply Chain
Specifics
High carbon foods (Buy and eat very rarely)
- Beef (Beef from dairy herds is significantly better than beef from beef herds)
- Lamb
- Cheese
- Chocolate
- Coffee
- Prawns
Lower carbon foods (Ok)
- Olive oil
- Fish
- Eggs
- Rice
- Milk
- Nuts
- Potato (The most carbon intensive vegetable 2.9kg co2e/kg)
- Vegetables in general
- Fruit
- Lentils
- Beans
Notable facts
- The type of food is much more important for the total emissions than transport, packaging etc.
- We should strive to avoid high carbon foods, but cheese/chocolate are “better” high carbon options than beef simply because we tend to eat less of theese than beef once we eat them.
Coffee
- Espresso: 0.28kg - 0.06kg (depending on growth and farming)
- Latte: 0.55kg - 0. 33kg
Source: Coffee: here’s the carbon cost of your daily cup – and how to make it climate-friendly