What We Need To Know About Our Asparagus

While many of us associate Planes, Trains, and Automobiles with Steve Martin and John Candy, instead, we should think of asparagus.

Food’s Carbon Footprint

All we eat acquires some food miles. We need to ask though if those miles are on a train, a plane, or in a truck. The answer helps us determine our food’s carbon footprint.

Take asparagus (my favorite).

It is likely that the asparagus you ate for dinner came from Peru. For a 10,000 kilometer journey, flying one kilogram between Lima and London emits around 11 kilograms of CO₂eq–far more than on a boat. On a boat, the emissions of our less perishables plunge to 0.67 kg CO₂eq per kg. Because, like berries, asparagus are in the more perishable category, they had to fly here.

At this point, if you have begun to like local better, do look at truck emissions:

Our Bottom Line: Food Miles

Figuring out food miles, we have to record the number of kilometers a plane, truck, or a boat travels, and also how much it can carry. As a result, air travel does the fewest food miles:

In addition, air travel emits the most carbon. At 50 times the greenhouse gases of sea transport, air transport is the more persuasive reason to buy locally grown fruits and vegetables:

As usual, though, what we assume is not quite accurate. For most food, the boat trip is a low emission journey. Consequently, It only makes sense to buy locally the perishable items that would have come to us by plane. If we want to slow global warming, we should import many of our fruits and vegetables.

So, where are we? Because transport is so small a proportion of food emissions, we have to shift our focus to the land, labor, and capital on the farm. Then, we can decide if we prefer a local farmer. We even can eat the chicken that has a smaller carbon footprint.

And, sadly, during most of the year, we should eat less asparagus.

My sources and more: Always handy, Our World in Data had most of my facts. Then, the perfect complement, our past post on locavores completes the puzzle with more of food production emissions.

Please note that after publication, this post was slightly edited with a new section heading and the sentence abour chicken.