Research about food consumption was published by Michelle Tom and colleagues at Carnegie Mellon University in the journal of Environment, Systems and Decisions. The conclusion of this report was that a higher environmental impact per calorie consumed comes from fruit over all other foods.
The authors looked at current average caloric intakes in the US, and then developed three calorie intake scenarios:
A) Keeping the same mix of foods, but reducing overall calories;
B) Keeping the daily calories the same, but shifting to a USDA-recommended mix of foods; and
C) both reducing calories and shifting to a USDA-recommended mix of foods.
To make things more representative, their analysis included an estimate of the amount of food that's wasted in the US each day in each food category.
They then meticulously estimated the energy, blue water use (fresh water needed to produce food), and greenhouse gas emissions associated with each calorie within each food group.
It's pretty widely known ? or at least assumed ? that beef (for instance) takes a massive toll on the environment for each pound that ends up on the dinner plate. Yet the end product is calorie-rich. Fruit on the other hand have a lower impact per item ? but also typically contain less calories per pound.
