It is lunchtime, and you are going to pick a sandwich from the nearest coffee shop. Which sandwich should you pick if you want to lower your carbon footprint? You probably think that a vegetarian sandwich is always a better option than one with meat. But this is not always the case.

Sandwiches and cheese

Cheese sandwiches are vegetarian, but cheese has a high carbon footprint because they are made of cow’s milk. Raising cows requires a huge amount of land which is why they are the main cause of deforestation globally. Cows also produce methane, another greenhouse gas, when digesting food. From the research below, you can see that chicken and ham sandwiches have significantly less emissions than those containing cheese and beef:

A chicken sandwich                  578g CO₂e

A ham sandwich                         678g CO₂e

A cheese sandwich                   938g CO₂e

A cheese and ham toastie      966g CO₂e

A steak sandwich                       2453g CO₂e

When it comes to choosing a sandwich based on what is best for the environment, it is not a simple trade-off between meat and vegetarian sandwiches.

Which sandwich should you pick?

Try to avoid sandwiches with lots of cheese, beef or lamb. It is an example that being vegetarian is not always the best option for the environment because cheese is like a meat when it comes to carbon emissions. It is more to do with the type of meat and whether products come from cows.

Source: Food and climate change without the hot air by Professor Bridle

*All sandwiches assume to contain butter.