Do you need to buy expensive organic food to be eco-friendly? The answer is NO. This is a big myth that needs dispelling. First, it is not clear why organic food is ‘eco-friendly’. Second it is usually significantly more expensive than food that is not organic and does not last as long. No wonder people think adopting ways to reduce their carbon footprint is too expensive and not worth the effort.

The good news is that you can completely ignore whether food is organic or not when it comes to reducing your carbon footprint. One way that organic food is good for the environment is that it uses less pesticides because pesticides reduce the biodiversity (the variety of animals and plants) of fields. Since organic food has less pesticides, it does not affect the biodiversity of the environment as much as conventional farming. But because it produces less food per hectare, more land would be needed to produce the same amount of food. If we went down this route, there would be more deforestation to grow food and cause more carbon emissions. Surprisingly, research has also found that organic food can be worse for pollution in lakes and rivers.

When it comes to reducing your carbon footprint from food, there are three things to think about. What matters most is what you are eating. This means reducing meat, especially beef and lamb, and dairy as well. Ideally you should be eating a plant-based diet where meat only makes up to a third of your diet. What matters second after what you are eating is where it comes from. If you can source as much of your food locally and buy seasonally, this will further reduce your carbon footprint. The third and final thing to do is to eat all that you buy and minimise food waste.

So, when you are in the supermarket next time, don’t be concerned about whether your food is organic from an ‘eco-friendly’ perspective. It does not matter whether you buy it or not.