Hi my name is Grace and I am from the United States. After studying it during class, I learned that our diets are a part of our carbon footprints.

Especially in America, being it is considered the fattest country, there is a fast food restaurant on every corner. Many american actually eat multiple times a week believe it or not! They package most of there food in plastic or paper and most restaurants don’t even have recycle bins! We also waste a lot of food because A. restaraunts give us too much food, or B. we dont eat all of it. This causes the trash to fill up faster, meaning more waste put into the earth.

Eating a lot of meat also affects the carbon footprint suprisingly. For every hamburger that is made, 55 square feet of rainforest are cut down. At that rate, just imagine how many rainforests are cut down each year!! 150 pounds of carbon are produced for every hamburger too! It is better to eat more organic foods because they produce oxygen and they make there own food! Plus, it’s much healthier for you

Many of the carbon emissions resulting from foods are actually from the transportation of it. Whether by trucks or planes, the long distances traveled in order to get food on the shelves of our supermarkets add even more carbon emissions to our atmosphere. Different countries import food from places that are farther away; for example. New Zealand imports kiwis year round from Italy. England imports 20 tons of water bottles from Australia. Since there is no taxing on shipping such large freights by air or sea and such transport is cheap, countries continue to ship large quantities of food over long distances without paying much attention to the pollution. A simple way to make a difference is buying local, organically grown food from a farmer’s market. The food will be fresher since it did not have to travel hundreds of kilometers just to get to your plate. In addition, you have the option to buy a much greater variety of healthier and seasonal fruits and vegetables.

I learned, surprisingly, that your diet plays a role in your carbon footprint, and many people don’t know this.

I think one of the main problems we have is that we waste so much food. Restaurants everyday throw away all the food that people don’t eat, and that trash alone could feed thousands of hungry people. There is also the point of becoming a vegetarian. While that lifestyle has been proven to be healthier in many ways, this is not always a feasible option for many people. I tried to become vegetarian for a year, but had to stop after the fourth month, because my mom was worried that during my sports seasons, I would not be getting adequate nutrition. I am allergic to nuts and soy, so becoming a vegetarian would be very difficult for me to be as healthy as possible, especially if fish and things were off the table.

If people order the food they know they will eat, and not super-size their meals, a LOT of food will be saved. Many people also invite the less fortunate for Thanksgiving, or deliver a meal to them. This too can feed the hungry. Lastly, if people planned out their meals for the week, and only bought at the grocery store what they NEEDED, not thought they needed, I can’t even begin to imagine the amount of food that would be saved just from my house alone.

Here’s a link about how to plan your meals weekly, which is also a way to reduce stress. Check it out!

When using the footprint calculator I realized that my emissions from food were lower than expected. I think that world hunger is a huge problem. People should only buy the food that they will eat. I feel that it is really wasteful to buy food and let it go bad in your refridgerator. According to the New York Times the problem of world hunger is starting to flare up again. African is one of the main countries that struggle with hunger. One of the main problems for Africa is that fertilizer is too expensive. I think that world hunger needs to be more of a priority. I have donated to a local food bank and little things like that can help. Anything that you do even if it is in your city is helping a few people. We need to start small and then expand more and more.

The livestock industry has a big impact on the state of the enviroment right now. Meat-eating is causing destruction of natural habitats. Many trees are being cut down to give cattle fields to graze in. If the world did not demand the amount of meat that it does the state of the enviroment would be much better. The link below says, about “25% of the planet’s land surface is used for the grazing of domestic livestock.” That is one fourth of all land! If cattle were not on this land it would have trees on it and those trees would be producing oxygen and taking in the huge amounts of carbon dioxide being produced by the rest of the world.

I do believe a lot of you make a point about the fact that people should eat lesser meat and become vegetarian. But since we, humans, have been feeding on meat since the 1st appearance of men on Earth, it will be difficult for us to change our habit into something completely different. Plus, it will also be bad for our organism to handle such change as this might cause some problems in our digestion. We don’t need to destroy our body to be of a help.

Instead of wasting money on weapons for war, why don’t we just waste them on buying necessary and useful tools for agriculture? We could just send people to the countries in need and help create arable lands for plantations or even for irrigation. Humans must be more dynamic on helping others solve problems. We have widely enough money to help these 1 billion of people. The problem is just that the society is unbalanced. But I’m sure that if men are willing to get rid of their selfishness, this goal could be possible to achieve

In honestly, If I could translate what I learned into an effective societal policy on food, I would suggest people to eat less meat, and eat more vegetables or organic foods. Most of the people eat lot’s of meat, and according to the news right now, people have said that meat is not healthy, meat have been listed down many kinds of disease which are known to cause lot’s of health problem for humans. Of course, this policy affects the need to alleviate world hunger, because if we suggest people to eat less meat, then, the African or other poor country people won’t be able to fight with not having meat to eat. In the other hand, I think if we eat lots of meat today, one day, there will be no more meat to be enough for all of the people in the world.

In honestly, If I could translate what I learned into an effective societal policy on food, I would suggest people to eat less meat, and eat more vegetables or organic foods. Most of the people eat lot’s of meat, and according to the news right now, people have said that meat is not healthy, meat have been listed down many kinds of disease which are known to cause lot’s of health problem for humans. Of course, this policy affects the need to alleviate world hunger, because if we suggest people to eat less meat, then, the African or other poor country people won’t be able to fight with not having meat to eat. In the other hand, I think if we eat lots of meat today, one day, there will be no more meat to be enough for all of the people in the world.

I think people should try to eat in more of a vegetarian style and consume less meat. This would greatly help to reduce the carbon footprint we as a society leave on this planet. In order to help the starving people on this planet, starving individuals should be able to have access to food that is not purchased instead of wasting this food by throwing it away.

Hello everyone ! I think it’s very interesting to begin to reduce our carbon footprint by eating sain food, and choosing our foodstuffs conscientiously. There are so many commercial and pollutant intermediates, so as totally denaturalize the things we eat. To buy from a farmer for example could be a good idea. Unfortunatly, most of the people haven’t got the time (like me !) or think it’s too expensive. In my point of view, we are such in the society of consumption, we don’t take the time to learn about other alternatives, but our diet is very important in fact.
I personaly have eaten sain food from a farm during two weeks and when I came back home, I felt very frustrated, the taste wasn’t the same at all. Some people don’t like it, but it’s our health, and food takes a large part of it.