Soybean oil vs Tofu: carbon footprint
Soybean oil or Tofu? Here's what each one costs the climate, measured per kilo over its whole life.
Soybean oil runs about 6.32 kg CO₂e a kilo. Tofu runs 3.16.
Soybean oil is the heavier choice, about 2.0× Tofu.
Swap Soybean oil for Tofu and you cut about 3.16 kg a kilo, near 50% off.
Per kilo, that gap is a 18 km drive in a diesel car.
Soybean oil: Pressing a whole crop into one bottle concentrates the footprint, so oils punch above their volume.
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.