Some foods require a lot more energy and resources to produce, as well as needing more land area that could otherwise be covered in forests. These foods emit a disproportionate amount of warming greenhouse gases.

As part of my goal to meet the ‘two-tonne’ challenge and live a 1.5-degree-compatible life this year, I’ve taken a deep dive into how to cut down my personal emissions from food, and changed my diet accordingly.

What’s the carbon impact of an average New Zealander’s diet?

It turns out there’s a surprising amount of variation depending on exactly what you eat - check out this amazing Stuff interactive on the topic. It was hard to get real numbers and do all the maths behind but here’s an approximation: 

Source: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-014-1169-1

The table above is taken from a 2018 study which is the largest meta-analysis of food systems to date. The dataset covers about 38,700 commercially viable farms across 119 countries and spans a total of 40 food products, representing about 90% of global protein and calorie intake.

You’ve probably heard the argument: Eat local to reduce your food miles! While supporting local farmers is wonderful, according to this comprehensive study, transportation accounts for a relatively small part of food’s carbon footprint.

The big hitters? Production and land use.

For example, cheese has higher emissions than chicken, even if it’s made next door. So yes, shop local when you can, but cutting back on red meat and dairy will always have a bigger impact.

Above:IMAGE

And although I’d been a low-meat eater for years, I have to admit my main food groups before this challenge were still top offenders on this chart: milk, cheese, chocolate, coffee, and fish.

So after committing to this challenge, it was time to dig out the plant-based meals.

I swapped milk, cheese, beef, chicken and fish for chickpeas, lentils, spinach, silverbeet and tofu. The only animal product I actually continue to eat are eggs.

I have now become what nerds call an ovo-vegetarian - or in plain language: “a problem to cater for”.

Can you survive on a vegan diet? Is it healthy?

There are entire cultures of people living happy, healthy lives eating only plants.

One-third of Indians are Hindu and therefore vegetarian, and have vegetarian food down to an art.

Mexican cultures have perfected the transformation of humble beans into absolutely heavenly taste bombs. If you’re curious to expand your vegetarian repertoire, I highly recommend looking to these cultures first for inspiration and guidance.

Vegetarian foods using legumes as a protein alternative are also far cheaper, hardly ever go off, and are overall healthier. The Nutrition Society of NZ recommends you eat at least two servings of plant protein (legumes) a week, regardless of your meat intake. Not only is it healthy and great for your heart and brain, it’s also very wallet-friendly.

I’ve noticed that I now no longer get the after-lunch slump in energy that I used to get after eating meat for lunch.

My budget breakdown: How I cut emissions and costs

Before I switched, my weekly food budget was $100. By cutting out meat, dairy, and fish, I’ve brought that down to around $50—a huge help during the peak of a serious cost of living crisis. 

Here’s how it works:

1. No expensive cuts of meat: Chickpeas, pasta, lentils are cheap and can be bought in bulk (shout out to Bin Inn)

2. Chicken and fish? Sub in tofu and textured vegetable protein (TVP)

3. Cow milk and ice cream? Goodbye. Hello dairy-free salted caramel fudge: Tip Top is my new fave!

4. Need leafy greens? Grow your own. I started out with a small patch of lawn, chucked some wood and soil down, and started to grow spinach and silverbeet.

And as for carbon emissions, I used this handy item calculator to work out emissions from a plant-based diet with eggs:

Plant-based: 2.89g / day = 1054 kg

• Add Eggs - 21kg

• Add occasional cheesy / milky deviances -  4.9kg

• Add a one-off fish dish where no plant-based food available- 2.8kg

TOTAL: 1082.7kg

That’s half my budget already gone. Fingers crossed this leaves room for the rest of my activities!

Can we actually make a difference by changing our diets?

Yes - if we all ate plant-based, we could actually see a reduction in one quarter of the world’s emissions. This is because feeding animals to eat requires over double the land use: you have to grow the food for the animals, then put the animals on land. If we all ate plants, we could use less land for food, and repurpose much of this back to forests. The study below says if the world switched to eating only plants we could reduce global emissions by 40% (roughly 38 billion tonnes).

Further to this, we’d see the wins quickly. Methane is such a powerful warming gas (30 to 80 times stronger than CO2) that if we cut it out quickly and reforested, we could rapidly cool the climate.

How do I convince people in my life to love plant-based eating?

I often have conversations about food with people with different dietary habits to me. Since only 3% of New Zealanders are vegetarian or vegan, we are an endangered breed.

When introducing people to the mysterious land-of-less-meat, I’ve discovered that the most convincing argument is to make the meal delicious.

A moment of pride for me in this regard was the success I had serving a (secretly vegetarian) spaghetti bolognaise to my cousins. They were coming over to visit and they are fussy eaters, so I was a bit worried. In the end they picked around the broccoli and carrots - but lapped up the sauce and fake mince without batting an eyelash!

One recipe for success in convincing others to try vegetarian meals is to make it tasty, nutritious, healthy, and familiar by making it look like something they’ve had before.

Food waste: the literal low-hanging fruit

Minimising food waste plays a big role in our carbon footprints: roughly a third of the world’s food is wasted. It’s hard to know how much food you’ll need for a week, but I would recommend Wonky Box or trying to buy unloved food, hunting on Foodprint to rescue cheap food, and growing your own veggies - activities that technically allow us to reduce our carbon footprint.

Takeaways: What I want you to hear

If there’s one thing I hope you’ll take from this, it’s that reducing your meat and dairy intake is the most impactful dietary shift you can take for the planet.

Not ready to go fully plant-based? That’s okay. Start small:

• Try Meatless Mondays. 

• Swap cow’s milk for oat or almond.

• Experiment with plant-based recipes (like the spag bol below).

• Watch a movie: I can fully recommend The Gamechangers, documenting how athletes following a vegan diet can still perform incredibly well.

• Be the one bringing vegan sausages to the summer barbie (go on, they’re tasty!) 

• Cook a tasty plant-based meal like lentil spagbol, eggplant ragu, cauliflower wings, curry.

• Sneak tofu into Chocolate Mousse to freak out your rellies

So the next time you’re catering for an event or going to a summer barbie, I dare you to think: what’s the coolest plate you could bring?

That’s 1.082.7 out of 2 tonnes already used up. Will Emily make it to the end of 2024 under two tonnes? Find out in the next instalment.

Emily Mabin Sutton is an emerging director, on the board of Consumer NZ, Clean Planet, and Cool-Safe Trust. She is also general manager of Climate Club, a climate non-profit that runs climate workshops as well as Climate Fresks - a climate game played by 1.9 million people worldwide.

Read Emily’s other article on her two tonne challenge: Why (and how) I’m taking the two tonne challenge