The Low Carbon Diet

So, you've ridden your bike to the grocery store and packed your canvas shopping bags. That's a great start to creating a green home and lifestyle. However, the choices you'll make inside the market may have even more impact. Everything we consume— from bananas to fresh-caught salmon—has to make the journey from the farm to your plate. This trek, like all others, takes energy every step of the way.

Foods like local fruits and veggies require minimal energy for transportation and processing. That salmon, on the other hand, has to be flown in from Alaska in order for it to stay fresh. Your food's carbon footprint doesn't just come from its transport. It also has to do with how it was cultivated or processed. The cheeseburger you're eating comes from a cow that had to take up a certain amount of land and produced plenty of methane-filled burps throughout its lifetime.

This doesn't mean that you have to become a vegetarian or localvore over night. But, one of the first steps to having a green home is to be knowledgeable about the products you are bringing into it. Luckily, your friends at Bon Appetit have created a fun low carbon diet calculator that allows you to see how much energy it takes to produce your daily diet. [Plenty]

So...are you up for the challenge? How low carbon is your diet?