In Finnish supermarkets, chocolate cost approximately HK$285 per kilogram. Being a poor student there, I rarely bought chocolate. As Finland is an expensive country, I think it's reasonable that chocolate was expensive. But when I am back in Hong Kong, chocolate is still one of the most expensive items in supermarkets. Then I know the cost is solely due to the very high energy input used in the production of chocolate. If saving energy means saving the earth, everybody can save the earth by buying foods required less energy input.

Let's consider some points as follows:

1. Do you really need so much?

We tend to buy more due to some discount offered exclusively for mass purchase. We are confident to eat all food before the due date, but it is untrue. Eventually the food is wasted as well as our money. This causes more environmental burden to the landfill. More importantly, it is unfair to people in developing countries who suffer from starvation.

2. How long does food miles take?

Food miles is the distance food travels from field to plate. It shows the environmental impact of the food we eat, according to BBC. Take our favorite Swiss chocolate as an example. We regarded the candies are from Europe and that's all. However over 65 percent of cocoa butter comes from Western Africa. The cocoa butter first needs to be transported from the plantation prior to manufacturing facilities of major chocolate makers. Then the chocolates are transported overseas to chocolatiers. And different chocolatiers make and package to their own design. The end product bears different sources of transport due to the feedstock, packaging, wholesale and retail. This consumes tons of fossil fuels and emits uncountable amount of greenhouse gases especially by air-freighting. Transport by plane forms 177 times more greenhouse gases than shipping does. The same issue happens to all foreign food and beverages. By the way, it's easy to leave out the fact that the food we eat clocks up extra miles on the drive to the supermarket and back. The longer and more complicated the food miles, the more tremendous the greenhouse effect will be.

3. Is the food from greenhouses?

According to the book Factor Four, growing 1 kcal of greenhouse vegetables requires 30 kcal of external energy, which is 3.3 times of the vegetable cultivated normally. It needs the same amount of energy for producing 1kcal of meat, the most energy-intensive item of all food to produce. A 2005 Defra report claimed that importing tomatoes from Spain to Britain by lorry wastes less energy than growing them in a heated greenhouse in the UK.

4. Is this the right time?

Growing fruit and vegetables outside their natural season also lead to climate change. Even locally grown vegetables can be kept frozen for months and energy is required for refrigeration. When total carbon emissions were calculated, lettuce grown out of season in Hong Kong compared adversely with salad from the Chinese mainland.

5. Is the food canned?

Food is precooked and boiled before canning. During this process, a lot of heat energy is used but most of the nutrients in the food are lost.

Although serving canned food is convenient and easy, it is unhealthy.

Moreover, once we dispose the steel food cans, the non-renewable metallic resources such as iron are wasted. All steel food cans can be easily recycled to reform new steel products. Producing steels using recycled material consumes much less energy and emits much less carbon dioxide.

However, it has been unpopular to recycle food cans in Asia compared to Western countries. Consequently, the highly polluted mining activities are still encouraged to maintain the supply of metal. Both the mining of iron ores and production of steel cans consumes fossil fuel energy and produce carbon dioxide which aggravates the global warming, according to the Canned Food UK.

There are still many chances for us to make a difference NOW. Our life can be still decent without Swiss chocolates, Japanese greenhouse cantaloupes or Russian caviar. Our confidence and decency comes from our understanding and respect of our dear planet but luxury.

Greensense provided the article.

(HK Edition 05/19/2008 page1)