Meat free: reducing our FOODprint in California
Let’s have a look at our FOODprint! By now everyone knows that eating (red) meat is more impactful for the environment than eating vegetables. But how much does it differ? We put this to the test during our ride through California. We were surprised by our lessons learned and provide foodprint reduction inspiration by 5 tips.
Meat Free California
When we cycled passed the welcome sign of California, Jakoba was very surprised that Matthijs coined his idea to have a meat-free cycle trough California. Although we do not eat that much meat, Matthijs loves his occasional bacon with eggs or a good steak. Jakoba is more of a fish lover and would mind less giving up meat. So the challenge was accepted: MEAT FREE CALIFORNIA!
Last eggs with bacon in Oregon 
Happy veggie
Meat lovers cause double the CO2
When diving into the numbers for food consumption in the United States it quickly becomes clear that a meat loving diet has twice the footprint of that of a vegetarian diet. On a yearly basis, a meat lover causes an emission of 3.3 ton CO2 compared to 1.7 ton CO2 for a vegetarian. To give you an idea, the difference is the equivalent of over 6,000 kilometer drive in an average gasoline car and it would take 74 trees to absorb this amount of CO2 during one year.
Burning calories; we needed 34% more than average
Although average meals are bigger in the US than we are used to in Europe, the above figures are calculated on the basis of 2,600 kilocalories (kcal) per person per day. With our cycling effort we clearly need some more calories on a daily basis.
In California we cycled 1,816 kilometers and climbed 16,010 meters of elevation along the beautiful coast. This is almost twice Mt. Everest! Strava estimated we burned some 45,410 kcal during 27 cycling days. This adds almost 1,700 kcal to our daily cycling diet. For our total time in California we needed 34% more than the assumed daily intake per person. As we have not lost a considerable amount of weight we are sure we have eaten these calories along our way. This proved not difficult at all as portions are large. This is also reflected in the fact that US citizens consume on average 25% more calories than the Dutch. Where the US globally ranks second, the Netherlands rank #59.
On top of the consumed calories, 50% extra should be incorporated for the total food supply usage. This is due to retail, consumer and consumption losses. For all of food supply emissions 80% is related to production, 10% to transport and 10% for storage. In fact, it is mindboggling that our food system emissions account for a quarter of all human emissions. Just imagine, if everyone in India and China would take-up the same calorie intense diet as the US. This means 2.7 billion people increasing their calorie consumption on average by 44%. CO2 emissions would increase with 2,573 million ton per year, an equivalent of adding 546 million passenger cars globally.
Our meat free cycling diet is comparable to a vegan diet, wow!
Then the question arises, what do we eat? The answer is simple, a LOT of peanut butter sandwiches and pasta dinners when we are camping along the road. For our hosts we cooked a soyrizo couscous and a vegan Dutch ‘boerenkool’ (mashed potatoes, kale and vegan sausage). We also ate out a considerable number of times. Luckily vegetarian and pescatarian options are very tasty and really easy to find in California. The rest of our diet is mainly filled with fruits, vegetables, cereals, nuts, some milk and occasionally yoghurt or cheese.
Peanut butter and happy beef 
Loading up on calories
When we measure our diet along the below carbon intensity scale, we get to an average of 1.5 gram CO2 per kcal. This is less than the vegetarian CO2 impact as we probably eat less fruit and dairy, which are both CO2 intense food sources. Our peanut butter sandwiches are actually very carbon friendly! We score as good as the vegan diet since we eat more dried food and less fresh fruits and vegetables. Fresh produce and dairy is more difficult to carry on the bicycle but do not worry about our health, we compensate with dried fruits and nuts and indulge on delicious salads when we can.
Saving 0.2 ton CO2 in California, a 31% decrease!
All in all, our vegetarian (Wheels on Wind – WoW) effort was comparable carbon intensive as a (lazy) average consumer in the US on a yearly basis (respectively 2.6 tCO2 vs. 2.5 tCO2). How come? The extra calories we eat to keep our body mass index healthy is equal to the CO2 emissions we save by not eating meat. Nevertheless, if we would have continued eating some meat as we did before, our CO2 emissions would be 3.8 t CO2 per year. For California alone, we saved 0.2 ton CO2 during 52 days. This is still a decrease of 31% on our foodprint by just not eating meat.
Lessons learned
- Red meat does make a BIG difference. For us, a 31% decrease of our foodprint.
- If we would have been meat lovers, stop eating meat would have saved 55%.
- The world would be better off if everyone in the US swaps beef for chicken and does NO exercise ;)!
- Exercise may be healthy, but intensive exercise adds an additional burden on global food requirements. Therefore heavy exercisers should be even more aware of their diet.
- Beef, lamb and cheese are among the most carbon intensive products. Being Dutch cheese lovers, you can image we were unpleasantly surprised.
Tips to reduce your foodprint
- Go vegetarian, or even better, vegan.
- Non-vegetarians, replace (some) beef consumption with chicken, fish or pork and you can save up to 25% on your carbon foodprint.
- Eat local.
- Choose organic foods. These typically require 30-50% less energy during production but more human labor, making it more expensive.
- Sport fanatics, there is vegan sports nutrition on the market that uses plant based protein for recovery or meal replacement. We met the guys from Gnarly in Anchorage and received some samples. We are positively surprised by the taste and ability to keep us going!