Which foods are the worst for the environment?

Although beef is always climatically costly, pork or chicken can be a better choice than broccoli, calorie for calorie.

From Toronto Star, March 20, 2014

Reprinted from the Washington Post, March 13, 2014

By Tamar Haspel

Any way you slice it, beef has the highest environmental cost of just about any food going, and the cow’s digestive system is to blame.  Image Source:  FREDERIC J. BROWN / AFP / GETTY IMAGES file photo

The argument that a vegetarian diet is more planet-friendly than a carnivorous one is straightforward: If we feed plants to animals, and then eat the animals, we use more resources and produce more greenhouse gases than if we simply eat the plants. As with most arguments about our food supply, though, it’s not that simple. Although beef is always climatically costly, pork or chicken can be a better choice than broccoli, calorie for calorie.

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Comparing cows with pigs, and meat with plants, is often done using data from the Environmental Working Group, which produced a report in 2011 that detailed the environmental cost of meat. The report includes a chart that ranks various foods according to the amount of emissions generated in the course of production. Ruminants are the worst offenders, with lamb generating 39 kilograms of carbon dioxide (or its equivalent) for each kilogram of meat, and beef generating 27. Then come pork (12), turkey (11) and chicken (7). Plants are all lower, ranging from potatoes (3) to lentils (1).

But there’s another way to look at the same information. If you stop eating beef, you can’t replace a kilogram of it, which has 2,280 calories, with a kilogram of broccoli, at 340 calories. You have to replace it with 6.7 kilograms of broccoli. Calories are the great equalizer, and it makes sense to use them as the basis of the calculation.

When you reorder the chart to look at climate impact by calorie, the landscape looks different. The ruminants still top the chart, but the monogastrics look a whole lot better. Low-calorie crops like broccoli don’t do so well. Although beef still looks bad and beans still look good, pork and poultry are on a par with green vegetables. (Which means that a beef-and-leaf paleo diet is the worst choice going, environmentally speaking.)

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The claim that vegetarianism is kinder to the planet also fails to consider a couple of kinds of meat that aren’t on the Environmental Working Group’s chart. Deer and Canada geese do active damage in the areas where they’re overpopulated, and wild pigs leave destruction in their path wherever they go. Eat one of those, and do the planet a favour.

Most people, though, are most likely to get their food from the farm, and it’s important to note that, although the chart attaches one number to each kind of food, farming styles vary widely and not all pork chops — or tomatoes, or eggs — are created equal. Unfortunately, it’s all but impossible for us consumers to figure out the climate impact of the particular specimens on our dinner table, whether they’re animal or vegetable.

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There's a lot more in this article that serves as "food for thought" (I know, bad pun).  In some ways, I find it paralyzing, since it all becomes more complicated, and it's so much easier to simply conclude that if it's organic or local, or [even better] both, then I grab it.  Still, if knowledge is power (as some say), becoming informed about all the aspects to keep in mind, we'll all be empowered to make decisions that make sense (at least to ourselves).

You can read the entire article by clicking here. 

- Submitted by Gareth