Everyone has heard that local food reduces your carbon footprint. But how much are you saving? Recently I read an
article on Planet Green that summarizes the impact of tropical foods. I sum it up below:
- 4 oz. of banana..........8 lbs of CO2
- 4 oz. of mango...........8 lbs of CO2
- 1 lb. coffee..................1 lbs of CO2
- 1 cup of tea................20 g of CO2
- 4 oz. of mixed nuts...0.43 lbs. CO2
Since you can get about 32 cups of coffee out of a pound, it works out to about 14 grams of CO2 per cup of coffee. It feels good to get some numbers on this. To put it into perspective, the average American puts out 7.5 tons of CO2 a year, that's 16,800 pounds. For those of you having a banana and cup of coffee for your breakfast everyday, that's almost 3000 pounds already....17% of your carbon footprint.
Maybe a small caffeine habit doesn't have an astronomical impact, but maybe we should lay off those tropical fruits and trade them in for what's in season around here. It's not so bad to enjoy some peaches or blueberries on your cereal instead of that banana tomorrow is it?
I love bananas. i forgot to add that i bought 18 bananas for a $1 today from the salvage bin at a local food stand in NJ. I will eat everybite consciously
ReplyDeleteI ate a mango today and had a cup of coffee, but then local tomotos, eggplant for dinner. Tomorrow is peaches, corn and greenbeans. I eat alot of fruits and veggies
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