Cutting Your Food Carbon Footprint

In 2023, there are many reasons to help do your part to help the environment. With the effects of climate change, resource depletion, extinction of plants and animals, and much more, making positive changes in our daily lives to better the planet can help create a more significant impact than any of us could ever imagine. You’d be surprised to learn that even your eating habits can help to make a difference for the world around you, even if they are just minor adjustments. If you’ve been thinking of ways to lower your carbon footprint, food may be the perfect place to start! Today, we wanted to discuss how you can reduce your carbon footprint through your eating habits to help build a better future.

What is our Carbon Footprint?

Before we dive into some tips you can incorporate into your life to help lower your carbon footprint, it’s important to define just what carbon footprint means. According to National Geographic, a carbon footprint is the total of all the greenhouse gas emissions that have to take place for a product to be produced or for an activity to occur. These greenhouse gas emissions could come from the production of cars, household energy use, the products we buy, and food. While every nation has a varying average carbon footprint per capita, the United States has the highest carbon footprint, with each person producing around 16 tons yearly! While that might not seem like an issue, Nature notes that to prevent a 2-degree Celsius jump in global temperatures by 2050, each of us on Earth must reduce our carbon footprint by at least 2 tons a year. To put this into perspective, a 2-degree Celsius jump in global temperatures can lead to extreme weather conditions, loss of food and resources, loss of habitats for animals and humans, and much more.

Now that we’ve discussed the importance of bringing awareness to carbon footprint, you may be wondering how to lower your own. Here are four changes you can implement within your lifestyle that, added up, will help make a lasting impact in protecting and preserving the world around you. 

Lower Your Food Waste

One of the easiest ways to help lower your carbon footprint is minimizing food waste. Food waste is throwing away food at the consumer and business level, such as at restaurants, grocery stores, and within our homes. Food waste has become a heavy contributor to our carbon footprints and climate change as a whole; the United Nations notes that food that ends up in landfills is a significant contributor to the production of methane gases (a gas more potent than carbon dioxide) which, in turn, speed up the process of global warming in our atmosphere.

So how can you lower food waste in your life? There are quite a few ways to do so, including making sure to use your leftovers before they go to waste, purchasing only items you’ll be sure to use in your cooking and as a part of your diet, writing and sticking to your grocery list, and even donating unused non-perishable items like cans to your local food bank!

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Use Less Plastic

Another viable way to help reduce your carbon footprint is using less single-use plastic! Single-use plastics, or pieces of plastic made to be thrown out, have become significant contributors to the buildup of greenhouse gases within our atmosphere, impacting climate change on quite a heavy level. These plastics don’t fully decompose but instead break down into tinier and tinier microplastics which end up in our oceans and impact the habitats and well-being of species globally. Additionally, single-use plastics are made from fossil fuels, and their extraction and production are heavy contributors to the immense amount of greenhouse gasses emitted into the atmosphere!

So how can we reduce our single-use plastic usage within our homes and daily routines? Thankfully, as this issue has taken center stage in recent years, there are several new substitutes you can use to replace and lower your plastic footprint! For instance, you can find metal straws as a replacement for the straws you get when purchasing soda or coffee while out, use reusable bags when picking up groceries, avoid picking up food that is overly packaged in plastic, and repurpose old bottles or containers when restoring your leftovers, to name a few!

Eat Less Meat

Did you know that 14.5% of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions are caused by livestock farming? Due to the carbon dioxide as well as the methane and nitrous oxide that are released as a result of livestock farming, global meat consumption has had an immense impact on climate change and causes environmental pollution at an incredible scale. Beef production is the most significant contributor to the growth of greenhouse gases within the environment; 99.48 kilograms of carbon dioxide is produced with every kilogram of beef produced. Production of pork, poultry, and mutton produce much fewer greenhouse gases than beef - in fact, by choosing to eat chicken over meat, you’ll cut down your carbon footprint in your diet by a considerable amount! It’s important to note that fish farming also produces carbon dioxide, although at a much lower level than beef.

So how can eating less meat impact your carbon footprint? Enjoying plant-based alternatives or choosing chicken in your meal will help lower your carbon footprint by almost a quarter of your average greenhouse gas emissions! Additionally, by choosing to enjoy less meat in your diet, you’ll help save water, increase biodiversity, prevent soil degradation, and much more.

Eat Locally Grown Food

Did you know that eating food grown locally can help lower your carbon footprint by quite a lot? By supporting local farms and food producers within your community, you’ll be helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions produced along the food production process. For instance, when produce is grown at factory farms, it is grown at a mass level, and the techniques required to grow efficiently at this level require fertilizers, pesticides, deforestation for more land, and more. Over time, the chemicals produced have an immense impact on the soil they are grown in and the air we breathe; factory farms are noted to contribute to soil degradation and air pollution due to compounds like hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, and methane released during farming.

On the other hand, food grown at local farms is growing at a much smaller scale, and typically, less food is wasted during the food production process. Many smaller farms utilize sustainable farming practices, including using less fertilizers, focusing on building healthy soil, and minimizing air and water pollution while growing their crops. Additionally, smaller farms help to promote biodiversity within the land they grow in and focus on delivering quality rather than quantity, helping to ensure their food is both tasty and nutritious!