Good morning! Tea or coffee, the same principle applies. We don’t live in climates where coffee/tea grows naturally. It has to be transported thousands of miles and requires special packaging and storage. That tea bag started as a tree that was harvested by a man with a gas powered chainsaw, moved with heavy equipment to a truck where it was shipped to a mill and processed using more heavy machinery, toxic chemicals and dozens of people that drove to work that day. That’s just to make the paper for the teabags. Now apply that thinking to everything you eat. Packaging is one of the biggest parts of everyone’s carbon footprint that is most often ignored.

Cut fuel use by 50%? Most of my food comes without packaging! More like cut fuel use by 1000%

Beef has such a high carbon footprint because it is imported, fed manufactured food and processed in a factory. Try buying a grass fed animal from a local farmer and having it processed by a local butcher. You will support your local economy, get healthier food and actually remove carbon from your footprint. Here in the states we had 30,000,000 buffalo roaming the plains before they were ignorantly slaughtered. Large, grass fed ruminants, when farmed on a savanna type landscape actually help remove carbon from the air and put it in the soil where it belongs. Cows don’t have a bad carbon footprint, how we raise them does.

Thanks for the kind words about the farm. It’s been a lifelong dream that took me 28 years to realize. The goal is to be as self sufficient as possible. I don’t “sell”anything from my farm. Selling invites regulations and government. We trade with other people in our community. For example, recently I traded eggs from my chickens for a bushel of blueberries, traded meat for butter. Last year I produced 1000lbs of food for me and my wife, all in a way that removes carbon from the air. Traded the surplus and returned the excess to the land.

That’s why I asked for a debate. Most people, just like the app you suggested, don’t take lifestyle into account. Sure, I drive an F150 a few thousand miles a year, but I’ll put that carbon up against the carbon emissions for the packaging required for a week’s worth of the average person’s groceries. I believe that on an annual basis my actions result in a net negative carbon footprint. My truck isn’t evil and I wouldn’t be able to lead the life I live without it.