Carbon Footprint of Foods

Someone on another forum posted this carbon footprint of meat substitutes article. Of note, the article came out before the current generation of vegan meat imposters:

The average impact across all types of meat substitutes was 2.4 kilograms of CO2 equivalent per kilogram of product. Comparable stages of production in the meat industry are estimated to generate between 9-129, 4-11, and 2-6 kilograms of CO2 equivalent per kilogram of product for beef, pork and chicken, respectively. Among meat substitutes, mince, nuggets, slices, rolls and sausages were associated with the lowest emissions, while veggie burgers were associated with the highest emissions, at 4.1 kilograms of CO2 equivalent per kilogram of product.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/04/160404170427.htm

In NM the invasive Eurasian ring neck dove is a non migratory bird and is labeled a nuance.
No season, no bag limit, as far as I can tell no weapon or mag capacity restrictions, no hunting license required.
There are so many of these I don't even think I saw a single native dove.
If I do see a native dove the most conservationist thing to do would be to let it fly.
Collecting some invasive fast food from my back yard is pretty low carbon.

According to the above study, chicken is 2-6 kilograms of CO2 equivalent per kilogram. Since chicken is farm raised and your Eurasian ring neck dove is not, it probably has an even lower carbon foot print. With meat substitutes at 2.4 kilograms of CO2 equivalent per kilogram of product, this might be on par or lower, so by carbon footprint of foods, this looks like a win.

No one has addressed the carbon "footprint" of ALL FOODS, including the biggest culprits...

The eating of all foods affects the environment... Does anyone feel it makes environmental sense to import things like.... Lettuce, and other low or no-calorie plant items from Mexico, South America, or China?? They pick a head of lettuce in Mexico with petroleum powered machines, ship it on planes or trucks to multiple stops before it lands in your hand. Is that smart?

We could cut petroleum use in half if we subsidized the growth and manufacture of foods within 50-100 miles of where they will be consumed.. Better yet, within 20 miles of your home, or back yard?

Personally, I really don't need a $2-3 Avocado from Mexico..

powersurge said:

We could cut petroleum use in half if we subsidized the growth and manufacture of foods within 50-100 miles of where they will be consumed..

Click to expand...

More grain of truth and a heaping of BS and hyperbole.

The more accurate story is that eating in-season, local produce grown in the ground in a sustainable manner has the lowest carbon footprint. That however contains a list of caveats and without knowing details the answer actually is: maybe.

It's true most lettuces have very low calorie content and by measure of CO2 equivalent per calorie they fare quite poorly on the carbon footprint scale. Ostensibly they might seem even worse than beef by such a measure.

But even hard core vegans can only eat so much lettuce. A very large bowl of lettuce has <50 kcal, so unless you are a ruminant, it's not even remotely possible to eat so much stuff.

Speaking of ruminants, imagine taking down large parts of a vast rainforest and turning that to grass or farmed grain so that can feed cattle->beef that gets exported to another continent using petroleum... Now imagine that same rainforest was taken down with now out of control fires currently burning on a massive scale. Then you have this thing called Brazil and the carbon footprint of such activities are way off the charts.