only 10 percent of the carbon footprint of food comes from transportation, whereas 80 percent comes from production, so what type of food you buy is much more important than whether that food is produced locally or internationally. Cutting out red meat and dairy for one day a week achieves a greater reduction in your carbon footprint than buying entirely locally based food. In fact, exactly the same food can sometimes have a higher carbon footprint if it’s locally grown than if it’s imported: one study found that the carbon footprint from locally grown tomatoes in northern Europe was five
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