Could Your Dinner Be a Recipe from the Global Warmer's Cookbook? Maybe It's Time to Go 'Climatarian'

About a third of the earth’s greenhouse gas pollution can be linked to food, including its production, processing, packaging, transport, storage and preparation. As climate change becomes a mainstream concern, and people keep obsessing about food, it was inevitable that a new flavor of eater would emerge—a buzzword that made the New York Times list of top new food words. 

CLIMATARIAN (n.) A diet whose primary goal is to reverse climate change. This includes eating locally produced food (to reduce energy spent in transportation), choosing pork and poultry instead of beef and lamb (to limit gas emissions), and using every part of ingredients (apple cores, cheese rinds, etc.) to limit food waste.

Climatarians look at their food choices with a sense of duty similar to recycling, or riding their bike to work. While a low-carbon meal isn’t any more of a silver bullet against global warming than a recycled can, the power of many people beating a similar drum can have a big impact. And to assume otherwise— that your actions don’t matter—opens the door to excusing negative behavior.  

Eating in a carbon-friendly way gets one into the habit of respecting the impact of all of one’s actions, great and small, like a meditation practice where you exercise your interconnectedness to the universe. 

Unfortunately, if we were take the Climatarian diet to its logical conclusion, it could take the form of a greenish paste created by scientists to contain the exact balance of nutrients one needs, procured in the most climate-friendly way. Good luck getting people on board that train. 

If you are concerned about the climate and want to do your part, the next best alternative is to learn about the nuanced ways food can impact the climate and apply that understanding to your meal plans and eating habits. To be a smart climate player at the dining table, you need to know how and where food was produced, details that can vary between meals that look similar on the surface, like a good old plate of steak and potatoes. 

According to the food carbon emissions calculator made by CleanMetrics, a pound of “ration-fed beef”—that is, from cows confined in industrial factory farms—is responsible for putting eight kilograms of carbon in the atmosphere, largely in the form of methane. This is an astounding amount when multiplied by the billions of pounds of beef consumed around the world. And in the case of beef it doesn’t much matter where it was produced—the transport-related emissions for that pound of beef, if it were shipped 1000 miles, would only be 0.07 kg/lb.

Grass-fed beef emits a bit less, according to the calculator, releasing 7.58 kilos of carbon for every pound eaten (with same transport emissions). This is less atmospheric carbon than factory farmed beef creates, but is still an astronomical, unsustainable amount. A pound of lentils, by comparison, releases 0.24 kg, while a pound of factory farmed chicken releases 1.5 kg of carbon dioxide. 

There is a case being argued by some ranchers and environmentalists that properly grazed ungulates like cattle can actually help the earth sequester carbon dioxide, as their manure encourages plant growth, which removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But it’s safe to assume the worst when buying beef of unknown provenance. If you move out to the country and buy a portion of your neighbor’s cow, the impact could be very different. 

Aspiring climatarians should start with a base daily carbon allowance they can use, along the same lines as a carbon cap that a corporation might operate under in a cap-and-trade system. Estimates vary for what the average daily allowance should be for all of the Earth’s inhabitants in order to control global warming, but is somewhere near 10-15 kg per day for all activities, including eating. If we stay at home with the heat off and lights out, we can eat a pound of that steak every day, but not much else. Or we could eat 50 pounds of potatoes, with roughly the same impact, according to the calculator.

Unfortunately for cheese and butter lovers, the condensed secretions of bovine mammary glands they so cherish are responsible for a lot of carbon pollution. Cheeses that are minimally aged, like mozzarella, or minimally processed like feta, score better. 

Obviously, eating vegetarian or vegan will make it easier to stay within a fair carbon budget, and if that feels right for your body, go for it. Celebrate your grains and beans and vegetables as they are, instead of fashioning them into wannabe animal proteins. 

If real animal protein is what you want, you will have to either get creative or adjust your lifestyle to one that allows you to enjoy carbon friendly meat. On the “get creative” side of the spectrum, we have animal proteins like European frozen mackerel that have only slightly higher emissions than lentils. 

As for lifestyle changes, you could move to the coast and live off the sea, and eat quite a lot of fish—they are, after all, wild animals that you only need to catch, not raise. Or move to a region where deer outnumber people and hunting opportunities abound.  

Sure, there are energy costs associated with getting to your hunting or fishing spot, and in the production of that set of waterproof camo gloves and whatnot, but you can also chalk some of those emissions toward your carbon allowance for “entertainment.” Maybe skip that Nascar race in Daytona, or that trip to Vegas, and use those budgeted emissions to buy beer for hunting camp. 

While some have the fortune to obsess over their artisanal, carbon-friendly lifestyles, the fact remains that most food that’s eaten will have been purchased at a restaurant or market. But until the smartlabels come out that climatarians can scan with their smartphones and keep track of their personal carbon use, they will have to do it the old fashioned way: with their brains, by digging for clues and stringing them together. But let’s face it, climatarianism is a bit of a nerdy pursuit; they should be OK with that.