Is your cheeseburger making the earth cry?

As we gear up for weekend barbecues, the Environmental Working Group offers some food for thought in its “Meat Eater’s Guide” released Wednesday.

The consumer group, best known for its Dirty Dozen list, has used new criteria to calculate the carbon footprint of a wide range of foods from lentils—(the best) to lamb (the worst)—and how individual dietary changes could reduce energy use and emissions.

Some of the findings are startling, including the following: "If everyone in the U.S. ate no meat or cheese just once a day, over a year, the effect on emissions would be the equivalent of taking 7.6 million cars off the road."

While past carbon calculations took into account things like transportation, feed and energy usage, the EWG report lassos in a wider range of production and distribution related inputs and outputs (including food waste) to come up with its numbers that suggest, for instance, that eating 4 ounces of beef equals driving more than 6 miles in a car.  

If you couldn’t guess already, red meat lovers are in for some disappointing news (lamb, beef and pork are three of the worst environmental offenders) while lentil, bean and broccoli lovers will rejoice.  

Still, EWG doesn’t urge all consumers to go vegetarian. Instead, it suggests switching to sensible portions and choosing meats produced in more environmentally sound fashions (pastured, grass fed, non-processed). And vegetarians who eat cheese don't get off the hook either--pork comes out as more environmentally sound than cheese, believe it or not.

While the focus is on food, the group more broadly encourages concerned consumers to go beyond changing their diets to contacting their legislators to support “smarter, healthier, food, agricultural and energy policies.”

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