> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.smdp.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Learning the secrets of a low-carb diet - URL: https://www.smdp.com/learning-the-secrets-of-a-low-carb-diet/ - Published: 2008-07-31T15:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-24T20:24:39.000Z - Author: Guest Author - Tags: Health, Santa Monica, #archive-import *Carbon footprint can be minimized* *By ALEXANDRA BISSONNETTE Special to the Daily Press* MAIN LIBRARY There is a new reason to feel guilty about eating those juicy cheeseburgers and it has nothing to do with dreaded love handles or the slaughtering of a cow. Instead, it’s the environment that’s at stake. Whether you’re having brie with Bordeaux, a cheeseburger with bacon, curried lamb and rice, or a shrimp cocktail, odds are your carbon footprint is a few sizes larger than you imagined — even if you buy organic and sometimes even when the food is “locally” grown. Helene York, director of Bon Appétit Management Company Foundation, a nonprofit think tank aimed at educating consumers, was at the Santa Monica Library on Tuesday evening spreading the word about sustainable eating. “I’m here to give you something new to chew on,” York told an audience of environmental activists eager to learn more about sustainable eating. The “going green” trend has been spreading across the nation, leading consumers to think more about how their decisions are impacting their environment. Reusable plastic bottles are increasingly popular, people are bringing their own shopping bags to the grocery store, and the gas crisis has led many to buy a hybrid or pick up a bike. But the fact is, even if you ride your bike to a local restaurant to get your quarter-pound cheeseburger, you are contributing to greenhouse gas emissions. It’s not coming from your bike, but it’s definitely coming from the cow. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimates that roughly 18 percent of global greenhouse emissions comes from the livestock sector. That number looks at emissions down the chain, or as York put it, “from feed to fill.” To illustrate how these numbers are identified, York used the example of a simple purchase of brie. The French cheese comes, obviously, from a cow. The cow is first fed grain — that’s where the feed comes in — and that field of grain has been fertilized with herbicides and pesticides. That means that so far, the carbon footprint of the brie includes those pesticides, the mechanical process of harvesting the grain, and the methane emissions from the cows — and it hasn’t even become cheese yet. Trucks have to take the cow’s milk to a factory where it is made into brie, then a truck takes it to an airport where it is loaded onto a plane. The cheese is then trucked to your local supermarket and kept cold in highly inefficient open refrigerated containers. “You feel very good about taking your energy-efficient car to the grocery store,” York quipped.“But then of course the cheese eventually goes bad and some ends up in a landfill. You will never look at brie the same way again.” Beef and French cheese are not the only foods that lead to a large carbon footprint, other food items made the top of the “big impact” list as well including lamb, shrimp, and a surprisingly serious offender — rice. In fact, agriculture is responsible for about 1/3 of global warming and climate change worldwide, York said, with rice paddy fields alone contributing to around 10 percent of global methane emissions. Next on the big impact list was food waste. “Thirty percent of food in the U.S. is wasted,” York said. “That is equal to the carbon footprint of Bangladesh, a country with 150 million people.” The problem with food waste is that food that ends up in a land fill instead of, say, a compost pile, is compressed anaerobically — without oxygen — causing it to release methane gas. Methane’s effect on global warming is actually 23 times higher than carbon dioxide, York said. Third on York’s big impact list was what many people imagine would be first: transportation. However, it is not the commonly referenced “food mile” that matters so much as the transportation mode. Air freights leave the biggest carbon footprint, York said, so knowing how your food travels is as important as how far. York also warned the conscious consumer that the word “local” can be misleading, recalling a time when she bought “local” tomatoes that had actually been grown in a hot house using propane tanks from Holland. She also mentioned that “organic” labels might seem to imply socially responsible food, but that is not always the case. “Organic sometimes means far away, near slave labor, mechanical farming,” she said. Buying seasonal and regional food can have a huge impact on the environment. That includes limiting salads in the winter and kissing year-round bananas good-bye. While all of these facts and numbers might seem disheartening to those who love meat, fresh Maine lobster, and French cheeses, York has a few suggestions that might make the hard facts easier to swallow. “It can be debilitating,” York said. “We don’t want to do that.” Among things that the average consumer can do to lessen his or her impact are reducing intake of beef and sea food, making vegetables the main ingredient in meals, trying quinoa instead of rice as a side, buying seasonal and regional produce, and simply eating left-overs and composting waste. “Cutting down on food waste and buying smaller portions has the highest impact without changing the food you eat,” York said as advice for those not ready to drop their Big Macs. “I eat left-overs for breakfast if I made too much.” Most important is an awareness of what goes into the foods we eat, and how our actions are shaping the environment. “I think a little goes a long way,” audience member Donna Benton said. “You just take one or two things and do what you can.” During the final moments of the presentation, York stressed that eating sustainably does not mean giving up or restricting yourself from eating delicious food “Flavor first,” she said. “It’s about introducing new flavors in a more strategic way.” Although York’s audience seemed to be made up of socially responsible environmental activists, even they felt they were leaving with new ways to reduce their carbon footprints. “I hardly ever eat beef or lamb,” said one man who frequents Sustainable Santa Monica events. “But I’ll definitely eat less rice.” *Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 31, 2008.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/073108.pdf?ref=smdp.com)