In August, record-breaking rainfall soaked the Dallas area—15 inches fell in 24 hours, overwhelming streets and submerging cars; rising river waters inundated Jackson, Miss., and left some 180,000 people without fresh water, and one third of Pakistan was underwater from a huge monsoon.
Ice melting from the enormous Greenland ice sheet will eventually raise the global sea level by at least 10 inches just on its own, scientists report. To put that in context, for every 1 foot of vertical rise in sea level, 100 feet of shoreline is swallowed up if the slope is just 1% or more.
While plug-in electric car market share is up to about 12%, according to InsideEVs, the human-caused greenhouse gases leading to the climate crisis is about more than what we drive–a lot of it has to do with what we eat.
Our food system–producing food, transporting it and throwing wasted food in landfills–produces about 37% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
A big part of these emissions are methane, much of which comes from livestock, especially cows, according to the World Wildlife Fund: beef production uses more agricultural land than all other domesticated animals and crops combined. Cattle eat an increasing proportion of grain produced from agriculture, are one of the most significant contributors to water pollution and soil degradation, and the meat and by-product processing is a major source of pollution in many countries, according to WWF.
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That’s why beef tops this list of foods with the biggest carbon footprint.
Animal-based foods tend to have a higher footprint than plant-based, according to Our World in Data. The impact of the food we eat can be measured in carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2eq), meaning non-CO2 gases are weighted by the amount of warming they cause over a 100-year timescale.
Beef — especially steak — produces the most CO2 equivalents of virtually all foods: 129.75 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents per 2.2 pounds of beef steak, or nearly 50 kg of per 100 grams (3.5 ounces) of protein. Lamb and cheese both contribute more than 20 kilograms CO2-equivalents per kilogram, and poultry and pork have lower footprints but are still higher than most plant-based foods, at 9 and 12 kg of CO2-equivalents, respectively.
The easiest solution is to eat less meat, especially beef. Meanwhile, scientists are also working on reducing the methane emissions of cattle: anaerobic manure digesters capture the methane released as the manure is processed into liquid fertilizer; and feed additives, including seaweed, interrupt the microbial processes in a cow’s gut that produce methane.
To reduce your food footprint, WWF recommends rebalancing your diet to prioritize plants and plant-based foods and reducing your meat intake, eat more variety, avoid foods packaged in plastic, reduce food waste, grow your own food, eat what’s in season, and eat responsibly produced seafood.
Here are the greenhouse gas emissions produced by some of the most common foods we eat, from a list of 211 foods at Our World in Data.
Beef steak
Beef steak has by far the most emissions: 129.75 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents for 2.2 pounds of beef steak, 2.4 times more than even a beef burger, which still out paces all other non-beef foods.
Beef burger
53.98 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents per 2.2 pounds
Lamb chops
30.9 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents per 2.2 pounds
Prawns
20.91 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents per 2.2 pounds
Cheddar cheese
20.75 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents per 2.2 pounds
Coffee pods
20.3 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents per 2.2 pounds
Goat cheese
19.31 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents per 2.2 pounds
Tea
17.62 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents per 2.2 pounds
Coffee beans
16.82 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents per 2.2 pounds
Tuna
13.08 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents per 2.2 pounds
Pork chops
12.16 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents per 2.2 pounds
Milk chocolate
10.8 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents per 2.2 pounds
Salmon
10.41 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents per 2.2 pounds
The following foods produce less than 10 kg of CO2eq per 2.2 pounds:
Chicken thighs
9.98 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents per 2.2 pounds
Chicken breast
9.27 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents per 2.2 pounds
Raspberries
8.37 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents per 2.2 pounds
Meat pizza
7.4 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents per 2.2 pounds
Olive oil
5.18 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents per 2.2 pounds
Lettuce
4.93 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents per 2.2 pounds
Eggs
4.44 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents per 2.2 pounds
Rice
3.93 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents per 2.2 pounds
Cow’s milk
3.7 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents per 2.2 pounds
Yogurt
3.11 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents per 2.2 pounds
Tomatoes
2.27 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents per 2.2 pounds
Sugar
1.85 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents per 2.2 pounds
Wine
1.72 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents per 2.2 pounds
Quinoa
1.14 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents per 2.2 pounds
Pasta shells
1.03 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents per 2.2 pounds
The following foods produce less than 1 kg of CO2eq per 2.2 pounds, and are among those with the lowest environmental impact.
Sweet corn
0.97 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents per 2.2 pounds
Carrots
0.94 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents per 2.2 pounds
Bread
0.88 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents per 2.2 pounds
Beer
0.69 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents per 2.2 pounds
Almond milk
0.66 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents per 2.2 pounds
Food can also be measured by water footprint: the amount of fresh water that’s drawn in production, and some plant-based foods, like almonds, use quite a bit. A kilogram of cheese requires 5,605 liters of water, nuts require 4,134, prawns and fish more than 3,500 liters and beef 2,714 liters. Rice requires 2,248 liters. Some of the lowest impact foods by this measurement are potatoes (59 liters) and root vegetables (28 liters).
Almonds
0.6 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents per 2.2 pounds
Apples
0.5 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents per 2.2 pounds
Onions
0.36 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents per 2.2 pounds
Potatoes
0.21 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents per 2.2 pounds
The humble potato is the champion: Potatoes and onions produce the fewest emissions of the list of 211 foods.
This visualization compares the greenhouse gas emissions for all of the foods on this list. You can see more at Our World in Data.
Source: Our World in Data, CCby 4.0