Food Habits to Reduce Carbon Footprint

21st June 2010

World Health Organization (WHO) has prepared its own document on how reducing your carbon footprint can be good for your health. The term "carbon footprint" is used widely these days (some airlines have even made a business out of it by selling at an extra charge the possibility to "fly with a lower carbon footprint"... if you know what that really means, let me know!). "Carbon footprint" is a measure of the impact your activities have on the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) produced through the burning of fossil fuels and is expressed as a weight of CO2 emissions produced in tonnes.

What WHO says is that reducing your carbon footprint when it comes to food can have both health and environmental benefits. Better dietary choices can reduce the intake of saturated fats, excess sugar and salts, and thus lower the risk of obesity, heart disease, stroke, diabetes and colon and breast cancers. From the environmental point of view, WHO states that food production is a major contributor to global emissions, and the reduction of meat and dairy product consumption reduces the global CO2 and methane emissions. Similarly, choosing local products reduces the "food miles" and leads to lower fossil fuels used in transportation of foods.

The actions WHO suggest for reducing the carbon footprint, when it comes to food, are:

1. Reduce intake of animal products in developed countries

2. Eat local and seasonal products

3. Try not to waste food

4. Recycle organic waste

Actions related to other areas of life can be found in the complete WHO article following the link on the right of blog page.

In the article WHO does not talk about the carbon footprint related to organic cultivation of fruit and vegetables vs. normal cultivation using pesticides. I will look into the matter and share the findings with you in the future. I remember hearing that the organic cultivation can actually have a bigger carbon footprint than the regular cultivation, but have to look for the facts.

In the meanwhile - let's reduce the meat consumption to reduce the carbon footprint! Especially in Denmark this is relevant, as the Danes eat the most meat per capita in the World - even more than the Americans!