Fight Global Warming. Eat PB&J.
By Brad on Jul 22, 2008 in Amazing Stuff, Food, Making a Difference, Worth Considering | comments(1)
I’ve always loved peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I still eat them for lunch often. Aside from the great taste, they are easy to fix and can last all day without worrying about it spoiling. Now I have one more reason to keep on eating those PB&J’s: it reduced my carbon footprint and helps fight global warming. So says The PB&J Campaign:
Each time you have a plant-based lunch like a PB&J you’ll reduce your carbon footprint by the equivalent of 2.5 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions over an average animal-based lunch like a hamburger, a tuna sandwich, grilled cheese, or chicken nuggets. For dinner you save 2.8 pounds and for breakfast 2.0 pounds of emissions.
Those 2.5 pounds of emissions at lunch are about forty percent of the greenhouse gas emissions you’d save driving around for the day in a hybrid instead of a standard sedan.
If you have a PB&J instead of a red-meat lunch like a ham sandwich or a hamburger, you shrink your carbon footprint by almost 3.5 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions.
Pretty impressive! And it tastes great too! In fairness, it’s really not just PB&J sandwiches that will make a different.
Any plant-based meal you eat instead of something based on meat, fish, eggs, or dairy products can have a big impact.
But wait! There’s more!
You’ll conserve water at lunch too! How about 133 gallons of water conserved at lunch versus the average American lunch? To put this in perspective, five PB&Js or other plant-based lunches per month would save more water than switching to a low-flow showerhead. If you’re replacing hamburgers, it should take you just three lunches to conserve more water than the low-flow showerhead.
Still not satisfied? There’s more still!
Don’t forget the land you save from deforestation, over-grazing, and pesticide and fertilizer pollution: about 24 square feet at lunch.
I’m happy to help out. I’ll do my part to fight global warming. Eat more chicken PB&J’s!*
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*This does not mean that I will completely give up hamburgers and other animal-based meals. I simply can’t cut out delicious, fresh-off-the-barbecue grill hamburgers… or steaks… or porkchops… or marinated chicken… mmmmmmmmm, grilled marinated chicken… (drooling)
