My Not Insignificant Foot Footprint

Using the product footprint estimates I compiled, I was able to compute my overall food footprint. Over the last 12 months, I spend $5,880 for 1.2 tons of food and was responsible for 2.1 tons of green-house-gas emissions. That's two Olympic size swimming pools of pollution on my account. Not good. Billions of us on this planet can't continue to do that ... anything multipled by a billion suddenly becomes a very big deal.

What can I do about it? Lots! First, I can buy carbon offsets for under $30 (at the market rate of $14/ton) to deal with my historic emissions. Going forward, some simple food choices make a big difference. Though I guess I knew this, my analysis showed that consumption of meat, milk and vegetables make up the majority of my footprint. So I've decided to significantly reduce my red meat consumption (if not eliminate it all together) by eating chicken instead. This saves 394 lbs – 19% of my footprint. And instead of drinking so much milk, I am going to look into a protein powder mix. This saves 274 lbs – 13% of my footprint. Two simple adjustments to my diet and I've reduced my footprint by 1/3^rd.

Again, I am struck by what Mahatma Gandhi said: "Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it."

Note - Vegetables are a little trickier. My database doesn't do a good enough job yet of looking at in-season and local production. What I am learning is that "hot house" production is extremely energy intensive.