Food has been the big ‘sleeper’ issue in the climate debate.

What’s more, it’s closely linked to your health, so focussing on the food you eat can benefit you twice over.

• How does food contribute to climate change?

The food we eat accounts for a whopping 30 percent of a typical household’s greenhouse gas emissions.

According to the CSIRO the average Australian diet causes about 4.5 tonnes of greenhouse gases (per person, per annum). That’s more than all the energy we use within our homes, so it’s much more important than things like changing light bulbs or insulating your ceiling.

Mechanisation of the agricultural industry, downstream food processing, refrigeration and transport of foods all add to the carbon footprint of the food we eat.

But the biggest factor of all is high carbon foods (mainly read meat and cheese) that come from sheep and cows – because their gut releases large amounts of climate damaging methane. To put this in dramatic perspective the greenhouse linked to the production of a kilogram of beef or mutton is equivalent to the impact of driving an average sized car 90 kilometres.

• How can I easily reduce my food footprint?

You can knock a huge hole in your food footprint by gradually adjusting your food choices in four ways:

1. Gradually change your diet (reduce emissions by up to 55%)
2. Grow at least some of your own
3. Try to buy locally grown foods
4. Minimise food wastage

The key to success is moderation. Tending to just one of these four areas can quickly reduce your total food footprint by 10 percent in one whack. Tend to all of them and you’re looking at 40 percent, without too much effort. 

• How does diet affect my food footprint?

The bar at right gives an indication of the climate impact of several types of foods (kg of carbon produced for each kg of food). For instance, eating chicken and fish has less than one fifth the impact of eating red meats.

By gradually reducing consumption of high-impact foods and eating more low-impact foods we can dramatically alter our climate footprint.

• How can I measure these benefits?

This is not quite as easy as measuring your electricity usage, but the following (courtesy of CSIRO) is a good guide.

• The average Australian high-meat diet releases about 4,500 kilograms greenhouse gases per annum.


• By switching to a ‘healthy heart’ diet you can reduce this to 3,200 kilograms or by 28%
  (Such a diet still includes a moderate consumption of meat products.)


• By switching to a vegetarian diet you can reduce it to 2,400 kilograms or by 47%
  (Such a diet still includes a moderate consumption of cheese products.)


• If you go all the way, and switch to a vegan diet, you can reduce your footprint to 2,000 kilograms or by up to 55%.

• What about food miles?

It is somewhat more difficult to precisely measure the impact of food miles.

However, the CSIRO, again, calculates, that growing your own vegies will reduce the carbon footprint of a three person household by up to 450 kilograms (per person, per year). Even if you grow just 10 percent of your veggies at home you will make a significant impact on your food footprint (and improve the quality of the food you eat in the bargain!).

The problem with trying to measure the impact of food miles, it is often not possible to find out where foods come from. Buying direct from ‘farmers markets’ or local food co-ops is probably your best bet. If buying in shops, ask the shopkeeper, or look out for foods that are marked as ‘locally produced’.

Large supermarket chains centralise their sources of food, so buying from smaller outlets will most likely reduce the ‘food miles’ of the foods that you end up eating. Do try to avoid exotic choices like eating grapes in mid winter, because such foods have to travel half the way around the world to get to you when out-of-season.