From the Farm to Your Table

From the Farm to Your Table

For many people, what they eat has a greater environmental impact than what they drive.

Next time you go to the grocery store, look at that big steak sealed in plastic sitting atop a foam tray. Then wander down the aisle and stop in front of the potatoes or the bananas. What are you thinking— “That would be delicious for dinner,” or “That will contribute a lot to climate change”?

Eating has become something of a minefield in North America: dietary guidelines, seafood contamination, sustainable production, ethical trade—and now climate change, too?

As a full-time advisor to a national food service company that earnestly tries to live up to its decade-old tagline, “food services for a sustainable future,” I’ve spent the last three years researching the connection between food and climate change and considering what one should eat, beyond choices dictated by taste and budget.

Public awareness of climate change has grown exponentially during the last two years. More people accept what scientists have claimed for two decades: that climate change and its impacts are very likely byproducts of human activities, especially burning fossil fuels. Just this year, however, Americans are beginning to realize that many of our consumption choices, food in particular, cause direct as well as indirect emissions of greenhouse gases that substantially contribute to the problem. For many people, what they eat has a greater environmental impact than what they drive.

High-Carbon Food

As someone who is concerned about the state of the world, you’ve probably heard that some foods, meat in particular, are “high-carbon” foods. Globally, agriculture may contribute up to one third of the world’s greenhouse-gas emissions, with livestock production alone contributing 18 percent.

Beyond agricultural production—fertilizer, chemicals and diesel—a great deal of energy is spent on transporting foods that range from the necessary (fresh foods in wintry northern climes) to the frivolous (exotic tropical fruits in summer months when local produce is abundant). Much of our food travels by refrigerated truck or as air cargo rather than by more efficient modes such as trains or container ships. Add to this the energy it takes to manufacture the prepackaged, highly processed and refined foods we eat in ever-greater quantities, and we can conservatively estimate that the food system’s contribution to climate change is one-third of total worldwide emissions.

Industrial livestock production is a particularly high emitter of greenhouse gases. And it’s not only the use of fossil fuels in feed production or long distance transportation. In pre-industrialized farming, animal waste was used to fertilize crop land. Now it is typically pooled into lagoons that emit great quantities of methane gas, 23 times more powerful at trapping heat against the Earth’s surface than carbon dioxide. Sadly, what was once considered a nutrient is now considered a noxious waste byproduct.

Food from cows, sheep and goats—including cheese and meat—are the highest per-ounce contributors of greenhouse gases. As ruminants, these animals have specialized stomachs that cause them to belch methane gas as they digest their food. And they consume a lot of food during their lifetimes. If you eat local meats and cheeses, you are reducing the better-known transportation impact of the food system, and this helps. But these foods are classified as highly emitting because of the way they are grown, not where they are raised. Sustainably raised animals—and their waste—are an appropriate part of a healthy cycle that can nourish people and the land.

From the Farm to Your Table

Your Choices Matter

So how much does the choice of what you eat for dinner really matter? Your choices can reduce greenhouse-gas emissions associated with our existing food system. They can give others around the world an opportunity to sustain their growing regions. Your choices can also represent an investment in a region’s ability to rebuild itself as a sustainable whole.

What Can You Do?

• Buy Less, Waste Less. Make a conscience choice to reduce the amount of food you buy each week and serve smaller portion sizes, and don't make enough for leftovers if they're not popular in your house. Besides being a dead loss of all the energy that went into growing, transporting and preparing it, organic matter that is thrown away creates methane gas in landfills. Compost if you can
• Avoid air-freighted and hothouse-grown foods. Your food shouldn't get more frequent flier miles than you do. Hothouse tomatoes in winter seem more natural and less polluting than tomatoes trucked from far away. In fact, neither tomato is a good choice. Seasonal varieties of other produce, or tomatoes canned in season, are significantly better choices.
• Eat less meat. While a vegetarian diet will contribute less to climate change, a more practical option for most people is to reduce the amount of meat and cheese they consume. Making a conscience choice to eat less meat is a step in the right direction.
• Learn more. As part of its Low Carbon Diet Program, announced in April 2007, Bon Appètit Management Company Foundation developed an online calculator as a public service to help people make informed food decisions. Play with your food choices and see what a difference it can make at www.eatlowcarbon.org.

Helene S. York is director of the Bon Appètit Management Company Foundation, an organization whose mission is to educate chefs and consumers about the environmental and social implications of their food choices.