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Scientists Calculate Carbon Emissions of Your Sandwich (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: It's a staple of the British diet and a popular choice for a quick and easy lunch. But new research reveals the carbon footprint of the humble sandwich could be fuelling harmful greenhouse emissions. The worst offender is revealed as the ready-made "all-day breakfast" sandwich, crammed with egg, bacon and sausage. Researchers at the University of Manchester carried out the first ever study of the carbon footprint of sandwiches -- both home-made and ready-made. They considered the entire life cycle of sandwiches, including the production of ingredients, packaging, refrigeration and food waste. The team scrutinised 40 different sandwich types, recipes and combinations and found the highest carbon footprints for the sandwiches containing pork meat (bacon, ham or sausages) and also those filled with cheese or prawns. The researchers estimate that a ready-made (and highly calorific) all-day breakfast sandwich generates 1441g of carbon dioxide equivalent -- equal to the emissions created by driving a car for 12 miles (19km).
Oh good heavens. You people are insane.
The much larger contributor to global warming and general human misery is the methane emissions that begin about 15 minutes after I eat it.
From the We-Have-Entirely-Too-Much-Free-Time Department
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Guess we'd better stop eating sandwiches.
need to off themselves.
The big problem with sandwiches is meat.
Try instead peanut butter, sprouts, toufu, etc. It's better for the animals and the environment and your health.
Calculate your Global Warming sins down to the microliter of CO2 emission and then pay your pope ALGORE to purchase carbon credit indulgences so that your soul is saved and you are forgiven of your CO2 sin.
Praised be the models until we replace them with new models that miraculously always show IT WAS WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT!
And if you disagree with us that eating a sandwich will LITERALLY DESTROY THE WORLD then clearly you are an anti-science flat-earth nazi.
This should be titled from the "We-Are-Voluntarily-Giving-Up-Our-Credibility" department.
Living things on this planet breathe. They exhale. Sometimes we humans kill and eat them.
If all those animals were left alive, breathing out CO2, farting methane, eating up all the good grass and taking the jobs of other animals whose consumption have fallen out of popularity, their carbon footprint would be even worse.
Save the environment - stop eating plants that absorb CO2 and eat more meat.
What the carbon emissions of these bullshit "scientific" studies are?
Perhaps we should collect all these "scientists", melt them down and use their juices as a low cost biofuel. At least then they will be contributing.
it is only after a long journey that you know the strength of the horse.
You will only pry my bacon from my cold dead fingers
Everything we eat has carbon emissions tied to it. Even the water we drink, unless you live next to a stream, in a house built from mud, using no wood, or any other vegetation or materials that can decompose and drink the water directly from the stream, your drinking water has carbon emissions attached to it. Oh wait, you have to be only be clothed in animal furs from animals you killed by your hand or from a weapon you created by hand, stone or bone only. No wood, no metal allowed either. Wood will decompose and release carbon it has trapped, metal cannot be created or worked without releasing carbon.
Sorry vegans your diet has a carbon footprint too.
lol u dumb
Methane (CH4) is a very powerful greenhouse gas. Some sandwiches generate more methane than others. Did the scientists consider this?
The carbon footprint per calorie needs to be calculated, so one can determine how best to fill oneself up while minimizing carbon footprint. I imagine 'eat food that would otherwise be discarded' would be at the top of the efficiency list, above food choice. What I REALLY wonder is why more research isn't being done into finding a way to control livestock micribiota, to eliminate their methane emissions. The research would also be useful for treating a wide variety of human gastrointestinal disorders and diseases (lactose intolerance and C. Difficile infection come to mind.)
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
I guess these scientists aren't aware that pure-veggie sandwich's exist?
Animal-based foods are almost always many-fold more carbon intensive than plant-based food.
All-day breakfast 1,441
Ham and cheese 1,350
Prawn and mayonnaise 1,255
Egg and bacon 1,182
Ham salad 1,119
Cheese ploughman’s 1,112
Sausage and brown sauce 1,087
Double cheese and onion 1,078
Cheese and tomato 1,067
Roast chicken and bacon 1,030
12 miles is about the round-trip distance to a place I like getting breakfast, so I can fuck the environment on both fronts.
The University of Manchester is a prestigious organisation but I really would prefer them to spend their time doing something useful.
We have "scientists" spending time on this crap instead. What's next, requesting my sealed-up-in-a-Mason-jar fart so its effects on so-called global warming can be calculated? Give me a f*cking break.
The carbon foot print of the Military Industrial Complex. Odds are, they're the BIGGEST contributor to climate change. So you get them to slim down, god knows they need to go on a diet, you can keep your egg, bacon and sausage sandwich.
Humans must be destroyed in order to save humanity. New at 11.
What if I eat a sandwich while I'm driving? That would add an additional 1441g of carbon monoxide to my commute, all while expanding my waste line and get crumbs everywhere. Sandwiches should be outlawed!
Maybe they were training in research, the next step should be to replace the sandwich with other things.
Wrapping it in plastic? Aluminum foil?
Seriously, the Carbon impact of my sandwich?
Let's just be honest, simply LIVING emits carbon, so are they not really saying people will have to die? They want us to go back to the amount of carbon we emitted in the 1700's, which is going to pretty much require that a large percentage of us die to save the planet.
Well the problem is that I'm not willing to do that and THEY are apparently not wiling to do so either, so counting the CO2 emissions of a sandwich is pretty much meaningless.
So I ask the obvious question... Are YOU serious about this? Yes? Then prove it...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
You want terrifying, study carbon emissions of the cargo container ships that bring you all those cheap low-cost goods.
All the cars on the planet produce about the same greenhouse emissions as 15 container ships. And there are over 6000 container ships.
So yeah-- nickel and dime the sandwich industry, or the cattle industry, or whine about how Apple's iPad factory isn't carbon neutral... because none of it matters as long as global commerce is allowed to destroy the planet.
Bullshit. At around 1.8 mm/year it's going to be slow process.
Carbon footprint of 1000 private jets...
More than 1,000 aircraft have landed at a quartet of regional airports near Davos... the attendees will be addressing the major threat of climate change....
8-)
5 out of 6 people enjoy Russian Roulette & 6 out of 7 Dwarfs are not Happy
>> It's better for the animals...
An interesting thing I learned about this was some years back when I acquired a chicken plucking outfit and went into business. They guy I bought it from had retired, and there wasn't anyone in this half of the state that offered the service. I didn't even need to advertise. The local feed store manager did all that for me. He said his sales of chicks had taken a nose dive since the previous owner had quit, and over the next three years he sold thousands of chicks that he attributed directly to me and my outfit.
Consider my neighbor, the rancher. It's his job to make sure as many calves as possible get born. Except for the few that die on him, ALL of them are destined to be eaten.
There are an awful lot of animals in this world that would never be born in the first place if we didn't eat them.
Here is just one example. There are many, many others of how they are addressing their part of the responsibility to deal with the problem.
Why shouldn't you care?
Sandwiches are bad for the environment. Thank the baby jebus I prefer Tacos!
Man, you really need that seminar!
So... calculation with these values, I would have to eat an All-Day breakfast sandwich every day for the next 17 years to equal the difference in carbon footprint between my car and one that is more environmentally friendly. So if I keep my car and just don't eat the sandwich, I can achieve balance at a fraction of the cost and even cut some calories in the process. Thanks Slashdot!
There are an awful lot of animals in this world that would never be born in the first place if we didn't eat them.
Indeed. Many millions a year. Maybe billions of animals that owe their existence due to humans. Wouldn't want to be in their shoes, but the global cow, chicken, pig, etc... populations would be far lower if people didn't exist.
Again, not saying life is all rosy for a farm animal, but farmed animals in general have a healthier, less stressful life than their wild counterparts. Life sucks for battery hens and the like though.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
The study also recommends reducing or omitting certain ingredients that have a higher carbon footprint, like lettuce, tomato, cheese and meat.
If I can't eat those ingredients in a sandwich then I'm just having two slices of bread.
What do these sandal and socks wearing hippies eat? No lettuce, tomatoes, cheese or meat? Does this include other vegetables? Or, other dairy products? I also wonder if this study included only cold sandwiches or warm ones, like a hamburger.
One last question, if I need to calculate my carbon footprint before I even eat then I'm not thinking of anything else, so do these people that think this hard of their carbon footprint actually do anything productive?
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Every time one of these inane articles surfaces, I go drive my gas guzzling truck 100 miles and and burn down a tree. Your move, Guardian.
I'm eating a sandwich right now. It's delicious.
"How to feel bad about EVERYTHING!"
It will cleanse the world of everyone who doesn't worship The Lulz.
Living things on this planet breathe. They exhale. Sometimes we humans kill and eat them.
If all those animals were left alive, breathing out CO2, farting methane, eating up all the good grass and taking the jobs of other animals whose consumption have fallen out of popularity, their carbon footprint would be even worse.
This xkcd is relevant.
The actual animals that normally live around on the planet are actually an insignificant small speck, compared to the impact... ...of all the specially human-created species that we raise on purpose to feed ourselves.
These are not animal that normal roam this planet.
This are animal specially raised by the human agriculture for the the specific purpose of answering the demand.
There is currently that much CO2, that much methane farting, and that much depletion of normal flora for the sole purpose of providing grazing, because we need to answer the meet eating habits (mostly of the developed world).
We want (as a specie) to eat meat, that's why we raise an insane amount of cattle.
Save the environment - stop eating plants that absorb CO2 and eat more meat.
If we actually massively stopped eating meat (e.g.: if the developed world slowed down on meat and started eating food containing a higher mix of vegetable like the rest of the world), we would actually be needing to raise *a lot less* animals, and thus a lot less impact on the environment.
Your whole argument sounds like : "Stop using trains, there are cars out there anyway". Huh no. We build cars to fulfill the needs of those who want cars and refuse to take public transportation. And the same we raise animal on insane scale just to fulfill the needs of those who insist on eating animal.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Why, it's the only explanation, citizen! What a vile plot the geniuses here at Slashdot have blown the lid from.
Eichman would have loved you.
Watch out, peons! The glorious elites have spoken, and have decreed that Subway is the barbringer of destruction! Flee, flee the wrath of Jersey Mike's!
Is the scariest food group to the deranged left.
Your sandwich isn't a problem, unless you import the ingredients by private helicopter from your favourite sandwich place in Zurich.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
From the article:
"The study also recommends reducing or omitting certain ingredients that have a higher carbon footprint, like lettuce, tomato, cheese and meat. Reducing ingredients such as cheese and meat would also reduce the amount of calories eaten, contributing towards healthier lifestyles."
They have a funny definition of a sandwich if omitting lettuce, tomato, cheese and meat, seems like a reasonable recommendation for a sandwich .
Also, caloric fundamentalism is out of style. Did they not get the memo? Bread is "bad for you", yet that seems to be the only thing the environmentalist "scientists" want to allow us to eat. Perhaps the true agenda is to cause widespread human extinction due to obesity caused by bread-only diets. This would certainly reduce the impact of humans on the environment.
Even further, lets say lab grown beef becomes economically viable to replace 'real' beef. Would it be ethical to allow the extinction of the cow because it had become economically unsustainable? It cannot survive without humans because we artificially selected traits to service our needs over its own over thousands of years.
Life may suck for a cow but at least it has a life. Is a bad life better than no life?
I wonder if the carbon footprint just happen to fairly well correlate with the price. i.e. might I find that a $5 sandwich was responsible for roughly twice as much CO2 in the atmosphere as a $2.50 one?
Cases where it doesn't correlate, might have some interesting things going on.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Now they need to calculate the carbon emissions from calculating the carbon emissions for the sandwich.
...your existence has an impact on the planet.
I wonder how this result stacks up against the greenhouse gas emissions attributable to studies of greenhouse gas emissions.
The problem with this sort of thing is they typically make erroneous assumptions that people do the worst choices such as buying grain fed confinement pork. If you change that to pasture raised pork that isn't fed commercial feeds, e.g., grains, and is slaughtered and butchered on-farm then all of a sudden the pork goes from having a carbon footprint to actually sequestering carbon. But, that doesn't make as big a splash in the media so they don't make good choices.
What was the carbon impact of this study to find out the carbon impact of sandwiches?
Seems like there is a lot more productive use of ones time.
Equals 3.68 * 10^15 grams of CO2 emitted if every single human being eats one sandwich a day:
Total content of CO2 in atmosphere is 8.52^10^17 grams which corresponds to 400 parts per million
That means that every year humanity adds 1 part per million to the CO2 concentration by merely eating a sandwich.
For comparison current rate of growth of CO2 concentration is 2 parts per million.
Let's stop eating sandwiches and we can reduce CO2 concentration twice /sarcasm
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Scientists today announced findings of decades-long research: The Human Race is unsustainable, and urged world leaders to draft agreements to phase out human life as soon as possible. In related news, PETA and Vegans are delighted with the news and fully endorse the validity of the study.
Gee, I sure love the University of Manchester.
They will surely save us from the evils of Microwaves and Sandwiches!
Ban microwaves, use ovens and wood-burning stoves!
Ban sandwiches, eat dirt!
The article doesn't make mention of whether or not those numbers are really per-sandwich, or if they take say 2 slices of bread and count the carbon for the whole loaf in the same way that the RIAA lawsuits like to assume each pirated song from an album justifies the full cost of the album so that 12 songs = $300 rather than $25 or whatever..
I think a Reuben might give off more greenhouse emissions, especially for about 24 hours AFTER eating it with a beer. My favorite sandwich is me between a redhead and a blonde with a brunette on the side.
Let's get all the frothing at the mouth, give up civilization Mother Earth types. Strip them of all technology created after 900 BC. Make them live in Antartica. Then, the rest of us can get on with our lives. Oh, and "scientists" who do these kind of studies can join them.
It is likely that the genetic diversity of cows would drop if we no longer had to farm them, eg specific breeds would likely no longer be farmed and therefore cease to exist.
Even further, lets say lab grown beef becomes economically viable to replace 'real' beef. Would it be ethical to allow the extinction of the cow because it had become economically unsustainable? It cannot survive without humans because we artificially selected traits to service our needs over its own over thousands of years.
Life may suck for a cow but at least it has a life. Is a bad life better than no life?
You know fully well the people that are pushing for the reduction or elimination of meat consumption would suddenly reverse their tune if breeds of cows, hogs, and chickens were going extinct because we listened to them.
Its informative to see the full CO2 footprint of foods, because some foods have a very large environmental cost and its not always apparent which ones are the worst offenders. For example, if you bike to work because you care about your CO2 footprint, from this study it looks like you could almost lower it by riding in a car instead if those extra calories come from high impact foods. Or, perhaps lower it quite a bit by giving up some stuff you don't even care about that much but the impact to the environment is large.
Don't touch my sammich!
ready-made "all-day breakfast" sandwich, crammed with egg, bacon and sausage.
Otherwise commonly known as not a fucking sandwich. Which leads to this interesting conclusion: Ready made calorie bomb made with ingredients from an entire meal and is definitely not a sandwich has higher carbon emissions than a sandwich.
We are so clever! Science!
The omission is how much humanure I will produce that will then go back to promote the growth of new plants, plus how much gardening I will do with the calories I consumed that creates new plant life. Also missing is computation for riding my bicycle to work in lieu of driving to burn said calories. I also happen to pick up trash along my route which should also be accounted for.
Even further, lets say lab grown beef becomes economically viable to replace 'real' beef. Would it be ethical to allow the extinction of the cow because it had become economically unsustainable? It cannot survive without humans because we artificially selected traits to service our needs over its own over thousands of years.
Life may suck for a cow but at least it has a life. Is a bad life better than no life?
You know fully well the people that are pushing for the reduction or elimination of meat consumption would suddenly reverse their tune if breeds of cows, hogs, and chickens were going extinct because we listened to them.
On the other hand though, if farm land were to resort to natural woodland (or whatever the natural land usage is wherever that field is) - genetic diversity for other animals that lived in those woodlands would increase- and there would be less extinction pressure on OTHER animals.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
We are not going to pay a carbon tax.
Then they really need to do studies on how much damage your salad causes from agricultural pollution. Yes I said that. In fact they do. I guess the real huge difference here is agricultural pollution is already heavily regulated because it is a real problem. A carbon footprint, quite argumentatively, is not.
...will have a field day with this topic.
Slashdot used to be a relatively intelligent place. Now it's just loaded with knee-jerk trolling fucks with the insight and introspective capabilities of Jerry Springer audience members who still live in their parents' basement.
These dumb fucks will say stuff such as "you can pry my sandwich from my cold dead hands", and "the left is gotten loony" and "what a waste of government money", "who are they to tell me not to eat a sandwich". Yes, this is the average quality of the current Slashdot comment.
These stupid fucks don't have the insight or intelligence to realize that no one is telling them not to have a sandwich. They don't understand that the carbon emissions of a sandwich are not politically left (or right), they just are. They aren't educated enough to know that not all studies are funded by the government.
This is the consequence of not funding the education system properly.
Everyone that believes CO2 is pollution and is causing the Earth to warm.
Please stop breathing.
Your exhausting pollution out your mouth.
Just waiting for the next study that 'discovers' that HUMONS! are a huge source of pollution and CO2...
Solution? BAN ALL HUMONS!
"Murder is illegal? What, do you hate the planet? Are you Pro-Pollution??"
How does such off the wall insanity make it into print anywhere? I think someone needs to go back to middle school and look up carbon cycle and get some kind of handle on what greenhouse gasses are. (increasing the carbon fraction in the cycle by releasing carbon previously bound up in the soil during earlier epochs in the planet's geological history)
NRRPT/RCT
"The study also recommends reducing or omitting certain ingredients that have a higher carbon footprint, like lettuce, tomato, cheese and meat."
So this confirms my first itch which is basically, "where is the alternative or control sandwich." The "researchers" should at least propose a breakfast containing an equivalent amino acid, fatty acid, and carbohydrate profiles, as well as micronutrient content. without a comparison of carbon-sadness-to-food ratio there is no information here at all that is relevant to humans who aren't religiously anti-carbon. For all we know the double-bacon-egg on rye is the most optimal carbon saving device ever discovered at breakfast.
100 gr of egg is about 150 kilocalories, 100 grams of kale is just 50. is the tripple weight hard-core greens sandwich actually that much better that the egg one? At least some of the costs are the same, like fuel used for transport weight. Also ?lettuce? so who knows.
Frankly it's clear they don't give a shit. They just want to scold all the dirty uneducated lower-class brits who need to eat something fast, inexpensive and nutritious before heading off to whatever soul crushing job they are lucky enough to have. Because really fuck all those farting/exhaling humans anyway.
Life emits carbon assholes. Hell, my asshole emits carbon, and so does my face, if you want me to stop emitting from those places then I suppose stopping me from eating would be a good place to start.