Rice vs Tofu: carbon footprint
Rice4.45kg CO₂e / kg
vs
Tofu3.16kg CO₂e / kg
Rice or Tofu? Here's what each one costs the climate, measured per kilo over its whole life.
Rice runs about 4.45 kg CO₂e a kilo. Tofu runs 3.16.
Rice is the heavier choice, about 1.4× Tofu.
Swap Rice for Tofu and you cut about 1.29 kg a kilo, near 29% off.
Per kilo, that gap is a 8 km drive in a diesel car.
Rice: Modest. Fertiliser, the field itself, and a bit of milling.
Tofu: Tofu and soy milk hand you protein at a fraction of beef's footprint. The swap that actually moves the needle.
Per-kilo numbers skip portion size and how the food was farmed, so take them as the shape of things, not the last word.
More match-ups
Figures from OWID / Poore & Nemecek 2018, licensed CC-BY 4.0.
How we get these numbers: Methodology.