The Guardian article explores how it can be more efficient to buy food that has a lot of food miles if the production methods are less energy intensive than if the food was produced with only a few food miles but used a lot of energy to be produced.

The article also points out that beans cooked at home can produce more carbon emissions than beans cooked in a factory because the energy used at home is far less efficient than that used in the factory. These are both valid arguments and ones that I was thinking of exploring.

The article even looks at a possible solution. Presenting the full carbon costs of the product on the packaging. It continues to explain how even this information would be skewed due to the method used to cook the produce. However this does not seem so complicated to me. Simply provide a base carbon cost and a carbon cost with an average that includes cooking.

What really bugs me about the article though, is that, the suggested solution is being run by a supermarket rather than an independent body. The idea that a supermarket can create a fair system that represents carbon emissions is ridiculous. It is simply not in their interest to do so. It is in their interest to be seen to be doing something about environmental issues, and so representing carbon costs on their packaging. But how accurate are these figures. It has to be an independent body that creates them if they are to be accurate.

Also – does the carbon cost on the tin include the supermarkets carbon costs as opposed to buying the food from a local supplier?