Food Miles Are Not As Important As You Think
Our World in Data has just published a great article about the source of the emissions associated with different foods.
It's a simple stacked bar chart. Each bar represents a food, and the coloured chunks represent where the emisisons come from - the key is at the top.
The main message for me - transport and packaging are a really tiny part of emissions for most foods. Turns out that "buying local" is much less significant than what you buy.
Other interesting infonuggets - cheese, chocolate and olive oil have very high emissions, and nuts are almost carbon neutral, because nut trees are replacing croplands.
Check out the full article, with lots of extra explanatory information, here:
You want to reduce the carbon footprint of your food? Focus on what you eat, not whether your food is local
‘Eat local’ is a common recommendation to reduce the carbon footprint of your diet. But transport tends to account for a small share of greenhouse gas emissions. How does the impact of what you eat compare to where it’s come from?
