By far, the worst food product in terms of carbon emissions is beef. The average American eats a pound of beef per week, which is equivalent to the emissions of driving from Providence to Newport. Beef has high emissions partly because of the huge amount of fossil fuels that are used to feed and raise cows. Cutting down on your beef consumption is one of the quickest ways to limit your impact on the planet.

Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet. And break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.

Megan Hall: Agriculture is responsible for roughly 10% of America’s greenhouse gas emissions. But making that snap judgment about the most eco friendly things to buy the grocery store can be hard. So, we brought in Alina Kulman and Molly Magid from our Possibly team to help out. Welcome Alina and Molly!

Alina Kulman: Hi!

Molly Magid: Hello!

Megan Hall: Where did you start?

Alina Kulman: We were thinking about how to talk about carbon emissions of food, when we heard about this approach at a cafeteria in Sweden.

Sohini Ramachandran: In big letters it said “Our climate, our choice, every day.”

Molly Magid: Sohini Ramachandran, a professor at Brown, told us about this poster that showed the emissions required to produce and transport different kinds of food, like lettuce, fish, and red meat. The graph showed how many miles you would have to drive to produce the emissions that were created making your meal.

Alina Kulman: She picked the vegetarian option that day because it had the lowest emissions.

Sohini Ramachandran: In Providence, if you told me, “Oh if you eat that, that’s like driving from here to Montreal, versus driving from here to Boston,” like I would for sure pick the latter.

Megan Hall: So what food is equivalent to the longest driving distance?

Alina Kulman: By far, it’s beef, which is associated with five times the greenhouse gas emissions of chicken.

Molly Magid: And Americans eat a lot of beef – approximately 1 pound a week.

Alina Kulman: Eating a pound of beef would be roughly equivalent to the CO2 emissions of using a gallon of gas – so like driving from Providence to Newport.

Molly Magid: That might not seem like that far, but it can quickly start to add up. If a family ate 4 pounds of beef per week, by the end of the month, those emissions would be the equivalent of driving from Providence to Montreal.

Megan Hall: What is it about beef that leads to all these greenhouse gas emissions?

Alina Kulman: Well a lot of land and energy is used to grow crops to feed cows. In the US, the land we use to grow corn and soybeans to feed cows could cover the entire state of North Dakota. And all that farming uses a lot of fossil fuel.

Megan Hall: What about methane emissions, doesn’t that have something to do with cow farts?

Alina Kulman: It’s actually cow burps. Cows have an extra compartment in their digestive tract called a rumen, for digesting grasses and other plants. That makes them burp out methane.

Molly Magid: And methane is a stronger greenhouse gas than CO2 and about a quarter of worldwide methane emissions are from animals with this extra stomach compartment, mainly cattle.

Alina Kulman: There are also the consequences of deforestation, which isn’t a huge problem in the US. But in places like Brazil, cattle farmers have cut down rainforests to graze their cows and grow feed.

Megan Hall: So is there any way to eat beef sustainably, like by buying locally?

Molly Magid: Honestly, not really. Buying beef from a farmer’s market might do a little to save on transportation emissions, but it won’t significantly reduce its total carbon footprint.

Alina Kulman: Ideally, to lower our carbon footprints, we’d all reduce or eliminate beef in our diets.

Molly Magid: To put all of this in perspective, if a family cut their beef consumption in half, it would be more like driving from Providence to New York City once a month, instead of all the way to Montreal. It’s one of the quickest and easiest ways to lower your carbon footprint.

Megan Hall: Thanks Alina and Molly! That’s it for today. For more information or to ask a question about the way you recycle, use energy, or make any other choice that affects the planet, go to “the public’s radio dot org slash possibly.”

Possibly is a co-production of the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society and the Public’s Radio.

 References

  1. “Sources of Greenhouse Gas Emissions” https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions
  2. Martin C Heller et al 2018 Environ. Res. Lett. 13 044004
  3. “Per Capita Red Meat and Poultry Disappearance: Insights Into Its Steady Growth” https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2018/june/per-capita-red-meat-and-poultry-disappearance-insights-into-its-steady-growth/
  4. “Potential for Reduced Methane from Cows” https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190708112514.htm
  5. “Best and Worst Gas Mileage 2018” https://www.cars.com/articles/best-and-worst-gas-mileage-2018-1420698621218/
  6. “How Can a Gallon of Gas Produce 20 pounds of Carbon Dioxide” https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/contentIncludes/co2_inc.htm
  7. “Meat-eater’s Guide to Climate Change and Health” http://static.ewg.org/reports/2011/meateaters/pdf/methodology_ewg_meat_eaters_guide_to_health_and_climate_2011.pdf

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