Originally posted at Right Truth

Bon Appetit, a food services company, has gone “green”, serving only “low carbon” foods. That’s NOT low carbohydrates, that low CARBON. They won’t serve pineapple because it has to be shipped to the United States. I wonder if they serve coffee or tea with the meal? Both must be shipped to the US. Forget about bananas, forget about anything that is out of season, like tomatoes.

Carbon Neutral Journal:

Promoting Food Services for a Sustainable Future, Bon Appétit will be introducing a new low-carbon diet to its clients in celebration of Earth Day 2007. But Bon Appétit’s newest initiative isn’t just jumping on the latest bandwagon. The food service provider’s online pressroom is chock full of stories about sustainable food projects–like their recent Eat Local Challenge, which showed 200,000 diners at 400 Bon Appétit cafés across the U.S. what a meal made entirely of food grown within 150 miles of a restaurant looks and tastes like.

Agriculture accounts for one-third of greenhouse gases. In many ways, food choices are more important than car choice. It was clear we had to do something. In St. Louis, you can’t get tomatoes year-round locally. We might stop serving tomatoes with every hamburger in winter…The overarching message is that conscious food choices reduce climate change.

Livestock production accounts for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions…If you currently have a hamburger four times a week, could you cut back to three and reduce carbon emissions by 25 percent?

Bananas are a very high-carbon item. They are grown far away and must be brought rapidly back so that they don’t spoil…do you have to have a banana every day, or can you eat dried cranberries?

These aren’t major trade-offs but are small things that can have a really big impact. (Student Life Newspaper)

Last year in the UK, via TreeHugger:

Hot on the heels of the imminent arrival of Green Green Tea, the first carbon neutral food product, we have news of Britain’s first carbon neutral restaurant. The Independent newspaper recently reported on Barny Haughton’s newest project in Bristol. Haughton, one of the UK’s most respected organic chefs, is working on Bordeaux Quay which will be a restaurant, bar, bistro, shop, bakery and cookery school that aims to reduce it’s impact on the environment.Bordeaux Quay aims to be zero-waste and carbon-neutral and to source the vast majority of its produce from within 50 miles. “Overall, we aim to be carbon neutral - in both the construction and the running of the restaurant.

TreeHugger reports that Terroir Restaurant on the North Norfolk coast has been Carbon Neutral for three years. Everyone’s jumping on the global warming bandwagon. There are carbon neutral hotels, too.

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