Ever wonder where does your food come from? If your immediate answer is the market, well you’re not wrong. But where does all that food in the market come from? Let’s take a moment to think about our very last meal. This morning i just had some fried eggs with sauteed vegetables topped with an extra hot sambal. Hmmm, delicious. But where did the vegetables come from? From where do I get the eggs? Ever had Durian from Medan, Indonesia? Sounds amazing right, but imagine the amount of energy lost just to deliver that durian to our places all over Indonesia from Medan, Sumatera.
Most scientific data categorize half of the world greenhouse gas emissions are produced by either the electricity and energy sector or agriculture and land use. But actually, the main contributor to the increase of greenhouse gas emissions is our food system.
Many of these energy is lost just to produce, store, and deliver food. Take this scenario for example, Bandung is known as the vegetables producer because we are located in a cooler area, however since we are located in the mountains we don’t have any fresh seafood. Jakarta on the other hand doesn’t have much vegetables grown there but produces many seafood as it is located near the beach. Food from Bandung is then delivered to Jakarta and so is the other way around. Even after delivery those fresh goods aren't directly consumed but rather distributed through supermarkets using a chiller and then stored at home in the refrigerator. The energy lost here is actually the main contributor to the total greenhouse gas emissions because part of the transportation used is to deliver food between cities and even countries. Part of the electricity used is to power the cooler, chiller and refrigerator to store food and most land use is for growing crops that are only used to feed animals.
Your favorite food also contributes differently to the amount of carbon emissions. If you have beef for a meal 3-5 times a week, then in a year you have produced 1.600 kg greenhouse gas emission per year! That’s equal to riding a car for 6.600 km or flying 5 return flights from England to Spain. But if you opt for tofu instead your greenhouse gas emission drops down to only 33kg annually which is equivalent to riding a car 33 km.
So the next time you plan for your meal, remember, your plate has more power in saving the environment than you thought.
Calculate your greenhouse gas emission here:
