Jan 2023 - results
Saving emissions: The Joy of Eating
Jan Goal: Reduce emissions by 0.5t of CO2e this calendar year
How: Food swaps and reducing food waste. Think swapping beef and lamb for other proteins, reducing chocolate consumption 😨, monitoring food waste and increase composting effort.
Verdict: Outperforming! On track to save over 1.65t CO2e from better choices in eating and watching our food waste.
Joy of Eating - our January sustainable choices
Food Swaps
Swap more carbon intensive food choices for less carbon intensive food choices.
On track for 1.15tCO2e saved!
Nutrient check
Check-in whether food swap choices will impact our health & wellbeing.
Kept our diet iron-rich!
Food waste
Looks at new habits that can reduce our food waste.
Get composting!
Compost-o-rama on track for 0.5tCO2e saved 🎉!
Jan results - how did we go?
Swap #1 - Beef (& some lamb) for pork or poultry
Recap: at ten and eight times the greenhouse gas emissions per kg of beef to poultry and pork respectively, giving up beef is one swap that makes a HUGE difference.
Mid Green Family were eating approximately 17-20kg of beef each year. That was from spaghetti bolognaise or chilli con carne 2-3 times a month and burgers once a month adding up to around 18kg, emitting 1.76t CO2e per year.
The math
Annual beef consumption (estimate):
(30 x 0.5kg beef (spag bol / chilli)) + (24* x 115g beef patties) = 17.76kg of beef
*I have a normal patty and the kids share a burger or get small kids ones, this may change as they get bigger!
17.76kg beef x 99 CO2e/kg = 1.76t CO2e
Swap to pork for some meals, chicken burgers every second month and keep beef burgers every second month:
[ (11 x 0.5kg beef) + (12 * 115g beef patty)] x 99 CO2e/kg +
(19 x 0.5kg pork) x 12 CO2e/ kg +
(12 x 115g chicken burger) x 9.9 CO2e/kg = 0.81tCO2e
That's a projected saving of 1.76t - 0.81t = 0.95t CO2e
Progress #1 - Beef (& some lamb) for pork or poultry
One of the kids is missing our 'normal' chilli con carne, but other swaps have been a great success. We won't be completely beef free all the time (hey, the odd burger or pie isn't all bad), we will just continue to eliminate it from our everyday meal planning. Even if we had a beef meal once a month, and grown up burgers every second month, we can save 0.95t CO2e this year - outperforming our food target!!
Swap #2 - Swap chocolate for a better choice snack
Recap: at 47kg CO2e / kg, dark chocolate is a pretty densely emissions laden snack choice. Its almost double that of cheese😭😭. I've already declared giving up chocolate altogether is not realistic this year (take my burgers, but not my choccie). Instead, the aim was to reduce consumption, trying to swap for a better snack (dietary and environmentally) like fruit, nuts or popcorn AND when the urge was inescapable, make sure that choccie was coming from UTZ, Rainforest Alliance or Fairtrade certified and palm oil free brands.
Mid Green Family was eating approximately 10.4kg of chocolate a year. That could be from a 100g Lindt block once or twice a week and a few chocolates each for the kids. Highly possible this baseline was more. I won't dwell on it though.
Progress #2 - Swap chocolate for a better choice snack
Given it was school holidays over January and I wasn't working, it felt like it was easy to avoid chocolate. Fresh peaches were in abundance from our weekly farmer's market visit.
I wasn't hauled up in front of the computer late at night in the 'danger zone' of snacking. This is an area where I could easily fall off the wagon as soon as work stress creeps in. Send me good vibes for the next few weeks with the return of work and school as we try to maintain this habit. However, when I remembered what we did eat, there was still a fair bit of chocolate going around.
Chocolate consumed: 320g box of celebrations (Christmas present - not on our buy list now), 200g coconut rough from Whistlers (local chocolate producer and very tasty ❤️).
Meaning we ate about 520g compared to 886g from our average baseline.
OK so if we could reduce our chocolate consumption by 360g / month, we'd actually save 0.2tCO2e a year! (and quite likely, my waistline a few centimeters too). I think we can do better than this but I won't push it until it becomes a sustained habit.
Nutrient check - Are we getting enough iron?
Recap: some family members were concerned reducing our beef content could put us at risk of anemia, so how are we combatting that?
A little research into some high iron foods has led to us deliberately including more of the following in our regular diet:
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lentils (green and red)
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chickpeas
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cashews
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more spinach / leafy greens
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maintain regular appearances from eggs and oats as part of our ongoing fare.
No need to fear we aren't getting enough iron.
Food waste goals
Recap: Australians make 7-8 tonnes of food waste a year, with 34% of all food waste from households. Food waste produces 7.6mtCO2e and costs Australians $36.6 Billion a year.
Our Mid Green goals to reduce food waste -
✅ Buy less and plan for leftovers
✅ Bits & pieces lunches
✅ Prep before freezing
✅ Compost the rest
We've been diligently following this and have only put our bin out once this month (smelly by that stage). There have been a number of dinners made up of leftover salads, boiled eggs, last night's chicken, toasted crusts of bread cut into fingers and whatever other food is hanging around in the fridge - vege sticks, dips, or pickled foods.
We are getting the hang of composting and its just part of the dinner clean up routine now. Let's keep this up once school and work kick back into gear!
So how much emissions does compost save? This is a tricky one to calculate but conservatively this could be up to 0.5t CO2e if we are diligent for the year.
The math
Total food consumption baseline from carbon calculators: 6tCO2e
Assume conservatively that we waste only 10% of our food (could be much more though as the average household wastes 20% of what they buy!!!). Don't forget food waste includes bones and veg stems and fruit seeds.
10% of 6tCO2 e = 0.6tCO2e
Assume that composting saves around 90% of the carbon emissions, compared with sending that organic matter to landfill.
Projected annual saving from good composting habits (vs. sending to landfill):
= 90% * 0.6t CO2e = 0.54t CO2e saved