Nutrition
CO2: Is Eating Eggs Still OK?
A critical examination of eggs' carbon footprint and the role of the individual. Why these numbers need context and how the current debate lacks reflection.
Nutrition
A critical examination of eggs' carbon footprint and the role of the individual. Why these numbers need context and how the current debate lacks reflection.
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When you first really grapple with large numbers, it can make you dizzy. In everyday life, we usually don't deal with large numbers.
We tend to wonder whether we should put two or three apples in the shopping cart. If we buy a house, some of us get nauseous. Most people never deal with even larger numbers in their lifetime.
But when we talk about Switzerland, for example, the numbers skyrocket. Because everything we do as individuals suddenly multiplies by a factor of 9,000,000!
Even this number is barely conceivable to us. The dimensions that follow – at the global level – are even more unbelievable.
Therefore, we can almost understand journalist Merlind Theile, who in an article on ZEIT ONLINE asks whether we can still eat eggs in good conscience. This is part of the ZEIT's "Climate Excuses" series, where "popular climate protection excuses are regularly examined."
Oh dear, oh dear. For Frau Theile, this "examination" looks like this:
"Eating meat is bad for the climate. Everyone should know that by now. But what about eggs?" (...)
They are "more burdensome for the climate than the production of many plant-based foods: Up to 2 kg of CO2 equivalents are generated per kilogram of eggs produced. With a total of 19.3 billion eggs consumed in Germany per year, that adds up to quite a lot."
This very large number is linked with an emotionalizing side note that male chicks are simply sorted out and ground up.
Fact is: 19.3 billion is a huge number that we ordinary people can't wrap our heads around. Is it even okay to argue this way?
No – and the reason is that humans and our way of thinking only function through relationships and proportions. You can't simply throw numbers at people to illustrate magnitudes without at the same time providing them with a frame of reference.
And here's what that looks like for eggs: A single egg weighs about 50 grams. In production, approximately 2 kg of CO2 are generated per kilogram of eggs. An egg weighing 50 grams therefore accounts for about 100 grams of CO2. Let's scale that down to Switzerland: around 1.8 billion eggs are consumed per year here. That comes out to roughly 180,000 metric tons of CO2 for all eggs combined.
Switzerland emits approximately 45 million metric tons of CO2 equivalents annually within its borders (the consumption footprint including imports is around 105 million tons). Even at the narrower domestic figure, egg consumption works out to roughly 0.4 % by simple math.
So we've taken an incomprehensibly oversized number and put it into proportion. Now we can finally understand what impact egg consumption actually has on CO2 emissions. Virtually none.
To put it very clearly: the egg consumption of an average Swiss person accounts for just a promille of their personal carbon footprint!
Whoever examines CO2 emissions will find that Switzerland too has substantially reduced its domestic emissions over recent decades.
That's good. But this was achieved primarily through the industrial and especially the energy sector. The reason is that these two sectors account for a significant share of total emissions. Substantial reduction in these sectors produces substantial overall reduction.
This also makes sense from a meta level: to have any positive CO2 balance at all, something must be released that wasn't there before. For many decades, this happened primarily through energy generation from coal, oil, and gas – CO2 that was stored in the ground and suddenly released.
If you break down the statistics on Swiss total emissions to the individual level, you'll find that the food sector accounts for only about 16-21% of emissions. And only a fraction of that comes from current meat consumption.
Meanwhile, a Swiss citizen emits about as much CO2 from flights as from meat consumption. But by far the largest sector of personal CO2 emissions is "consumption" – clothing, household appliances, restaurant visits, and so on.
The ecological or carbon footprint, along with the CO2 calculator, was "invented" in the mid-2000s by oil giant BP. Cleverly done, because this allowed the company's PR department to shift responsibility onto the individual.
And many of us fall into this trap. Because as an individual, you have no chance of doing anything meaningful for CO2-caused climate change through extraordinary sacrifice, even if we live as sustainably and eco-consciously as possible.
That the trap snaps shut is also evident from the fact that journalists – like those at the ZEIT – completely unreflectively and mantra-like repeat something that's simply not true. Neither average egg consumption at 0.25-0.4% nor meat consumption at perhaps 5% of CO2 emissions are responsible for climate change.
And equally, an individual will not stop climate change by, for example, avoiding one of the most nutrient-dense foods we humans have on our menu: eggs.
Therefore, it is actually absurd and impudent that numbers-overwhelmed journalists take the privilege of explaining to other people what is a "climate protection excuse" and what isn't.
Sure, someone who eats no eggs and no meat can pat themselves on the back – this amounts to a reduction of about 5% under current consumption.
But the Swiss Federal Council aims for net zero by 2050. Such a reduction illustrates how demands and ideas clash with practical reality.
We're constantly told these climate and climate goal-wise irrelevant numbers with phrases like "strong emission reductions from vegetarian and vegan diets." In reality, the local consumption of animal products has almost nothing to do with achieving these goals.
None of us would think to remove the apple from our diet first when on a diet. But when it comes to politics and, above all, morality, any means seem justified.
Humans must eat nutrient-dense foods – they unfortunately cannot live on air and love alone. Research shows us: the most nutrient-dense foods for humans – usually animal products – tend to produce more CO2 during production.
Unfortunately, many people lack the sense for understanding such connections. They also struggle to put numbers into context.
This is precisely where great misunderstandings arise, like this ZEIT ONLINE article. It suggests to people not only that they can become climate saviors if they give up this or that.
The mantra-like repetition that meat and animal products are terribly bad also creates guilt in many people, perhaps robbing them of the most nutrient-dense foods from their diet.
With the result that they make themselves sick. For nothing and nothing again. This kind of self-mortification is anything but healthy – and perhaps represents a reflection of the inner life of those people preaching this to us.
For the current blog post on this topic, go here.
