Tofu vs Wheat & rye: carbon footprint
Tofu3.16kg CO₂e / kg
vs
Wheat & rye1.57kg CO₂e / kg
Tofu or Wheat & rye? Here's what each one costs the climate, measured per kilo over its whole life.
Tofu runs about 3.16 kg CO₂e a kilo. Wheat & rye runs 1.57.
Tofu is the heavier choice, about 2.0× Wheat & rye.
Swap Tofu for Wheat & rye and you cut about 1.59 kg a kilo, near 50% off.
Per kilo, that gap is a 9 km drive in a diesel car.
Tofu: Tofu and soy milk hand you protein at a fraction of beef's footprint. The swap that actually moves the needle.
Wheat & rye: Modest. Fertiliser, the field itself, and a bit of milling.
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.