UC Davis Study Weighs Impact Of Your Dinner On Climate

UC DAVIS (CBS13) — Did you know the food you eat can have a negative impact on the climate?

A new study by UC Davis calculates how much of a carbon footprint we make based on our diet. Cows produce methane which is 25 times more potent to the climate than carbon dioxide.

About 25 percent of all the global climate change problems we are seeing can be attributed to the meat agricultural industry. This is about twice as much global warming pollution as all the cars on the planet.

So how much of an impact does what we eat make on the climate? One serving of beef is equal to driving a car 6 miles. If you replace that with chicken, that equates to a five-fold drop in emissions.

The best diet, of course, is the vegan diet, but the Mediterranean diet is recommended by doctors as the healthiest diet and this doesn't have a huge carbon footprint, so that is the recommended diet to follow from the study for people who don't want to cut meat completely out.