Hi! Welcome to Planet Plates!
Have you heard of low carbon meals? They are a tasty way we can help look after the environment…but they can be tricky to spot.
Will you help me learn about planet-friendly plates? Let’s try to spot them together!!
Let's Play Planet Plates!
Almost everything we do leaves a carbon footprint, from driving a car on the way to school to cutting down trees to make paper…even making the food we eat!
Carbon footprints measure the amount of greenhouse gases an activity puts into the environment.
And across the world, our food has one of the biggest carbon footprints! Eating the actual food doesn't emit much, but the steps behind it do.
Every step adds to the carbon footprint, from the tractors to plant the seeds and harvest the crops, to the feed for the animals, then the cow‘s digestive process, and even that final step of processing food, packaging and transporting it. The more steps involved, the bigger the carbon footprint.
Carbon Footprint Size ranks meal’s carbon footprints from 0 to 100 – highest/worst wins
Highest Emitting Ingredient ranks ingredients so highest carbon footprint value wins
Lowest Emitting Ingredient ranks ingredients so lowest carbon footprint value wins
What is carbon?
The air around us contains tiny invisible balls of carbon. For millions of years there has been a natural carbon cycle – where carbon is absorbed by plants, then eaten by animals and put back into the air by bodily processes (yes that includes cows farting!). There are some other ways that carbon moves around in the cycle, but we don’t need to worry about them right now.
Every step adds to the carbon footprint, from the tractors to plant the seeds and harvest the crops, to the feed for the animals, then the cow‘s digestive process, and even that final step of processing food, packaging and transporting it. The more steps involved, the bigger the carbon footprint.
Moo-ve over, cows! Lots of the steps to make roast beef have big carbon footprints. So, to still enjoy a tasty roast you could have less slices of roast beef and some extra crunchy potatoes, or eat local meat to remove some of the travel along the way and have a smaller footprint.
Did you know: British beef is some of the most sustainable in the world, so eat local if you can.
Yay! The humble fish finger bap has a small carbon footprint, with the bap bringing down the numbers.
We love a cheese sandwich here in the UK. It’s middle of the road in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, with cheese linked to higher emissions than bread.
Bad news for the veggie cheeseburger, which was the least popular in our school survey, but slightly better for the environment than the victorious cheese sandwich.
When you make a meal you add together all the different foods to have a carbon footprint for that meal.
Top Tips for a smaller footprint:
• less distance
• less processing
• less animal products
You can mix and match to make a smaller-footprint meal that is tasty!
Everything you can do to remove a step along the process is better, so eating local produce is often a good way to reduce your footprint.
Most fruits and veg have a lower carbon footprint.
Processed veg like crisps, have a bigger footprint because of the extra steps of slicing, cooking and packaging the potatoes.
Any animal products like cheese and milk have a higher carbon footprint.
Processed meats like sausages have a bigger footprint because of the steps of making the sausages.
Beef and lamb have big footprints because cows and sheep are so gassy!
To score a point against the computer, choose the best stat from your card, out of 100.
Wow! When it comes to plating up for the planet, you know your stuff!
You correctly identified the foods that have the biggest and smallest effects on our food’s carbon footprint.
Your knowledge of greenhouse gases is pretty good.
You correctly sorted some of the meals by popularity and environmental impact. Have another go to improve your score.
Whoops! It was a valiant attempt but you might want to try again.
Think about how each meal ingredient is produced and how the steps might greenhouse gas emissions.
Cheese sandwich
Cheese Sandwich
Cheese Sandwich
