What you eat impacts global warming.

The average produce item in the grocery store has traveled 1500 miles to get there -- that means some travel much further than that -- like those apples from New Zealand! (Note: we've been to New Zealand - it took us 22 hours to get there by plane - I think it's about 17,000 miles away).

How do those produce items get to your grocery store? By boat and by truck.  And that transportation uses fuel -- and burning that fuel releases carbon.

I found a food carbon footprint calculator. It's from the UK, so you have to be a little creative in answering the questions -- you'll see what I mean if you go there.

Just by answering the questions, I learned something. For instance, frozen and refrigerated foods are responsible for more carbon emissions than dry packaged goods -- it takes energy to keep things cool, and most energy production releases carbon (at least around here where the utilities do not derive any energy from alternative sources like wind or solar).

Our household food-related carbon* footprint is about 3700 pounds a year.  That adds about 10% to our household carbon footprint when we started the challenge the beginning of May.

So, where are our trouble spots? Milk.  More than half of our food-related carbon footprint comes from milk. We drink about a gallon of milk each week. Half of it is organic, and half is lactose free. The only thing we could do - other than giving up milk - would be to buy local milk, and that would help some.  At least the organic milk I drink is from Organic Valley - a coop in LaFarge, Wisconsin which is about 3 1/2 hours from here.

A distant second and third on our food-carbon list are bananas and bread. There is no local source for bananas - they travel from Central America (or some place equally far). Tom would have to give up bananas (which isn't likely). And, while we get our bread at the grocery store, it isn't made at the grocery store -- it is baked, packaged and shippped from some distant place. At least we could buy local bread, and that might have some impact.

Tom & I already eat very little meat, and the meat we do eat is from local sources. For most people, meat is the biggest contributor, with the emissions from beef production, processing and transportation being much higher than chicken. The best answer is to become a vegetarian, but if that's not something you are ready to do, then at least you can look for, and buy local meat. There is a good website that lets you search for local farms if you aren't sure where to start!

* Note from the food carbon footprint website: Two other greenhouse gases included in the Kyoto agreement are methane and nitrous oxide. These gases are often expressed in "carbon dioxide equivalent", that is the amount of CO₂ that would be required for the same warming effect. Methane has around 20 times the warming potential of CO₂ and nitrous oxide has 300 times the potential of CO₂. The Food Carbon Footprint Calculator includes methane and nitrous oxide in the footprint figure.

In terms of global emissions, agriculture is believed to be responsible for 25% of CO₂, 65% of methane and 90% of nitrous oxide emitted. Modern processes such as use of machinary over man and animal power, global trading and increased use of fertilizers and other so called "agro-chemicals" has already made agriculture an energy intesive process in the developed world and is still in the process of doing the same thing in the developing world.