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We all have very similar needs.
Eat less meat: CO2 emission of our food
The carbon dioxide emissions (carbon footprint) caused by our personal behavior is driven to a large extent by the type and quality of our food. The amount of greenhouse gases caused by the production of food differs very much from one food type to the other (see table below). Worst is meat and in particular beef.
A environmental friendly and "climate change friendly" nourishment is characterised as follows:
- Very little (or no) meat
- Eat primarily organic food
- Saisonal food is preferred
- Regionally produced food is preferred
CO2-Emissions (in g CO2e per kg food):
| Food group | Food |
CO2-Emissions (in g
per kg food)
|
|---|---|---|
| Meat and sausages | Beef | 13'300 |
| Raw sausages |
8'000 | |
| Ham (pork) |
4'800 | |
| Poeltry |
3'500 | |
| Pork | 3'250 | |
| Milk- and dairy products | Butter | 23'800 |
| Hard cheese |
8'500 | |
| Cream | 7'600 | |
| Eggs | 1'950 | |
| Quark (curd) |
1'950 | |
| Farmer cheese |
1'950 | |
| Margarine | 1'350 | |
| Yogurt | 1'250 | |
| Milk | 950 | |
| Fruits |
Apples | 550 |
| Strawberries | 300 | |
| Baked goods |
Brown bread |
750 |
| White bread |
650 |
Example:
The production of 1 kg beef causes about 13.3 kg of CO2. The same quantity of CO2 is released when you burn about 6 liters of petrol!
CO2e means "CO2 equivalents"
Source of data: Pendos CO2-Zähler: ISBN: 978-3-86612-141-6 (The book is written in German language)
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Comments
CO2 emission of food
Thank you for this table. It saved me a lot of time.
Please add more products ot this list!
awesome
saved me a huge amount of time, i had been finding bits and pieces around the web for various products but none in one table, if ONLY i had found this first!
oh well, I have a few others i found across the web (figures are in kg CO2 per kg of product):
Beef 36.4
Chicken 4
Pork 4.8
Eggs 1.9
Milk 1.4
Cheese 8.5
Apple 0.55
Potatoes 0.64
Bread 4.5
Wine 3
researched extensively, dont know if you want to include them, but i double checked most sources
Is CO2 output affected by production method?
Surely there is a difference between beef from intensively-farmed, corn-fed, barn-wintered cattle and from low-intensity, grass-fed cattle?
For example, here in New Zealand, beef cattle stay outside on grass all year round and are not fed corn products - therefore they're not consuming as much petroleum-derived food as corn-fed cattle.
Thanks for the great site, though.
I have a couple of
I have a couple of questions. Why is is that beef causes so much CO2, while others cause lesser, is this because of the processing required to process the meat. Because here in India, they raise the goat naturally and hand slaughter it (the only co2 coming out would be from their breathing, (joke)), would this affect the environment. My second questions is what is the process required to make CO2 liquid, is it hard because we can store the Co2 and soon later find use for it. I also had an idea it might be silly, but it might just work, what if we can collect the CO2 in containers and store it under pressure. (similar to nuclear waste)
Total production process or merely during perishing?
Do these #'s refer to the entire amount of CO2 released during the foods production (Start to finish) or are the #'s merely while the food perishes?