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I've written a lot lately about a low carbon diet. When you actually calculate the emissions of certain foods, it's absolutely amazing how much the choices that we make have a huge impact. Eating local is hugely important, I know, but what about that cup of tea after dinner or that steak on the grill? Which foods have such a huge impact that we just have to give them up?
First off, in order for this feast to be super low carbon, it has to be meat free. Seriously, beef creates 13,300 grams of carbon dioxide emissions per kilogram of food. If you were working to keep your carbon footprint at 3 tons a year, the number many experts think we need to be at to reduce global climate change, then that 13,300 grams of carbon is equal to .5 percent of your yearly allotment—that's a lot for a serving or two of beef. In addition, livestock production accounts for 55 percent of the erosion process, 37 percent of pesticides applied, 50 percent of antibiotics consumed, and a third of total discharged nitrogen and phosphorus into surface water. When you cut back on meat or even go vegetarian either get your protein from natural sources like beans and nuts or make sure that your soy products are organic. By some estimates, we could remove 580 billion pounds of carbon from the atmosphere simply by growing all our corn and soybeans organically.
