Carbon Neutral hits the foods you eat

Bon Appetit, a food services company, has gone "green", serving only "low carbon" foods. That's NOT low carbohydrates, that low CARBON. They won't serve pineapple because it has to be shipped to the United States. I wonder if they serve coffee or tea with the meal? Both must be shipped to the US. Forget about bananas, forget about anything that is out of season, like tomatoes.

Carbon Neutral Journal:

Promoting Food Services for a Sustainable Future, Bon Appétit will be introducing a new low-carbon diet to its clients in celebration of Earth Day 2007. But Bon Appétit's newest initiative isn't just jumping on the latest bandwagon. The food service provider's online pressroom is chock full of stories about sustainable food projects–like their recent Eat Local Challenge, which showed 200,000 diners at 400 Bon Appétit cafés across the U.S. what a meal made entirely of food grown within 150 miles of a restaurant looks and tastes like.

Agriculture accounts for one-third of greenhouse gases. In many ways, food choices are more important than car choice. It was clear we had to do something.

In St. Louis, you can't get tomatoes year-round locally. We might stop serving tomatoes with every hamburger in winter…The overarching message is that conscious food choices reduce climate change.

Livestock production accounts for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions…If you currently have a hamburger four times a week, could you cut back to three and reduce carbon emissions by 25 percent?

Bananas are a very high-carbon item. They are grown far away and must be brought rapidly back so that they don't spoil…do you have to have a banana every day, or can you eat dried cranberries?

These aren't major trade-offs but are small things that can have a really big impact. (Student Life Newspaper)

Last year in the UK, via TreeHugger:

Hot on the heels of the imminent arrival of Green Green Tea, the first carbon neutral food product, we have news of Britain’s first carbon neutral restaurant. The Independent newspaper recently reported on Barny Haughton’s newest project in Bristol. Haughton, one of the UK's most respected organic chefs, is working on Bordeaux Quay which will be a restaurant, bar, bistro, shop, bakery and cookery school that aims to reduce it’s impact on the environment.

Bordeaux Quay aims to be zero-waste and carbon-neutral and to source the vast majority of its produce from within 50 miles. "Overall, we aim to be carbon neutral - in both the construction and the running of the restaurant.

TreeHugger reports that Terroir Restaurant on the North Norfolk coast has been Carbon Neutral for three years. Everyone's jumping on the global warming bandwagon. There are carbon neutral hotels, too.

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Comments

[Debbie]

JS, I think sustainability is a great concept. I'm all for personal responsibility, not being dependent on others.

However, with global warming, some folks have lost their minds. Don't you agree?

The price of food has gone up almost 10% over all in the last few months, if I heard the report correctly. Things like cheddar cheese have gone up in price 67%. think about that.

Why? One reason is that American farmers are cutting back on the foods and meats they produce, in order to grow more corn. Corn is being pushed at the new 'fuel' that is supposed to help get us energy efficient and less dependent on foreign oil.

But look who is paying the price, the average hard-working citizen. Not only are they paying through the nose for gas, now they are paying increasingly higher prices for not only food, but everything that must be shipped, both within and from outside the US.

The push by these global warming nuts is not really helping folks or the situation, it's making it worse. It's like Rush being absurd, to show the absurdity of others.

Things like purchasing Carbon Credits does nothing to help the environment, it simply lines the pockets of people like Al Gore.

I agree that the GOP needs to get their act together, but there is way too much kool-aid out there and I'm not drinking.

I'm all for doing whatever we can to be self-sustaining. How about drilling for oil here in the US.

How about building more refineries in the US.

Just an idea.

Thanks so much for the comment. I think you and I agree more than we disagree.

[JS]

Debbie, you sound suspicious of the local food movement. Is that so? I think that conservatives should embrace sustainability as a principle. Over the past decade, conservatism has mutated into a form that is barely recognizable from its historical roots. Traditional conservatism has imploded, it has evolved into a nightmare version of itself that is barely recognizable: the conservative loyalty to independent capitalism epitomized by small business owners morphed into uncritical subservience to soulless international corporatism, the conservative emphasis on faith and religion morphed into "faith based" government programs, the traditional rod and gun conservationists were jettisoned to big oil, coal, and gas interests, the traditional belief in low taxes morphed into record deficits and debt. Debt, waste, pollution, deficits, and big government have become the legacy of a conservatism that treats its principles piecemeal and drifts away without any foundation. I would like to suggest that the the GOP can tie all of its chaotic competing principles back together, and re-emerge with a message for the 21st century, by focusing on the common concept of sustainability--the GOP should become the party of sustainability and all political issues framed and evaluated on this basis. It is sustainability, I believe, that is the bedrock conservative principle that ties the others together. Massive trade and budget deficits are unsustainable, unchecked population growth from immigration is unsustainable, unbalanced budgets are unsustainable, reliance on fossil fuels is unsustainable, community destroying sprawl is unsustainable. In becoming the "sustainability" party the GOP can put the "conserve" back in "conservative", give the party a much needed environmental platform, attract middle class voters who are worried about unchecked development destroying their communities, and bring back the rod and gun and other old-time Republicans who remember when the GOP was the party of environmental conservation. In focusing on sustainability, the GOP can speak about immigration in a way that answers the inevitable charges of racism. In focusing on sustainability, the party can create a popular energy policy that does not look like Republicans are the party of coal, oil, and gas. And by emphasizing sustainability Republicans can get back their reputation as the party of fiscal responsibility. I believe, sustainability will be the issue of the 21st century and the party that captures the issue and can speak of it with the most conviction will be the one that dominates. I hope that the powers-that-be in the GOP heed my advice.