Red meat is more polluting than cars !

Some days ago I've posted a note "Should we eat strawberries in winter" with a conclusion that, regarding CO2 criteria, it's much better to avoid to eat red meat or dairy products than vegetables even if thought hey have traveled thousands of kilometers from the field to your plate.

As Cecilia noted in her comment to my post "red meat consumption is one of the biggest contributor to the greenhouse effect... and not for their transport but rather by cattle's own digestion... methane is 12 times more polluting than CO2 !"  

The Nobel Prize, Dr Rajendra Pachauri,  chair of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, had the same comment - related in The Guardian - that red meat accounts for 1/5th of the total global  greenhouse gas emission. Cow's flatulence methane is said to be 23 times more polluting than car's dioxide carbon !

Should we ban strawberries in winter ?

Some retailers like Casino in France begin to communicate on the packaging of their Private Label the greenhouse gas balance. Beyond the Marketing effect, it raises some questions for the consumers. It surely may afraid a bit more shoppers and if it’s used to compare products in shelf, anyone must be sure of the method used to measure it. Imported products are on focus for the transportation impact on CO2. Some groups are flourishing in the west coast of the US, the locavores, which purpose is to "eat locally" so they only consume food produced in an area of 100 miles around San Francisco bay.

But nothing is simple and we may perhaps be once more victim of a counterintuitive situation. A study from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of the Carnegie Mellon University (here) demonstrates that even carried on large distance (mean of 6700 km) transportation represents only 11% of greenhouse gas emissions. In fact 83% of the gases has to be attributed to production mode.

By the way, and that’s even more interesting, the kind of food shows very disparate rate of gas balance. Indeed, red meat is around 150% more greenhouse gas intensive than chicken or fish. Conclusion, to save the planet, it’s more efficient to switch your diet, reducing the consumption of red meat and dairy products than quiting strawberries in winter…