Some interesting news from the NHS today; they are introducing a low carb diet. Not the type of diet that reduces your calorie uptake ( although this might be another upside), but a diet that will have a lower carbon footprint.
So this got me thinking, what is a low carbon diet? In my previous emails I had assumed that anything vegetarian would be better than meat, but according to the Low Carbon Diet Calculatorthis is not the case. Naively I chose a cereal meal above a cooked meat feast ( see sample meals) and found to my surprise that the meat meal had a lower footprint than the cereal. On further analysis it seems that I had chosen a high processed cereal and that is much worse than bacon and eggs.
The site has a number of useful tips including some of the following
Seasonal and regional
move away from beef or eggs
Avoid ‘flown’ in food
If it’s processed or packaged - skip it!
It’s a great site and you can create your own meal, although it is light on many of the things that I eat. But a great site none the less.
So, given that Steve’s pigs are local AND seasonal, then perhaps he is OK?
Guy
26th January 2009
Tags: low carbon diet
