BlocCarbon

Food footprint

By the BlocCarbon methodology team · Published 3 August 2026 · Last updated 10 August 2026

This food carbon calculator measures the CO2e of what you eat using two official government-backed databases: Agribalyse (ADEME/INRAE, France) and The Big Climate Database (CONCITO, Denmark). Beef has one of the highest footprints per kilogram of any food, while lentils and other pulses are among the lowest — the calculator makes those differences visible line by line.

TL;DR — Enter foods by weight or pick a diet pattern; every line uses a factor from Agribalyse or The Big Climate Database, labelled with its source, and diet-pattern days use peer-reviewed per-day figures (Scarborough et al. 2014).

Step 1 of 2

Running total: 0.00 tCO2e

Start with your diet

Pick the closest match and how many days to cover — a whole year in one answer (365), or fewer if you'll itemise some of it below.

Diet profile

Your overall diet × days to cover

How is it calculated?

  • Itemised foods: per-kg factors from Agribalyse 3.1 or The Big Climate Database 1.2, source-labelled per line.
  • Diet patterns: per-day factors from Scarborough et al. 2014 (Climatic Change), for days not covered by your itemised shop.

Every calculation uses the current official factor set and records the factor behind each line — see our methodology.

Frequently asked questions

Why do food footprints vary so much between databases?
Databases differ in system boundaries (farm gate vs retail vs plate) and national supply chains. We label every line with its database so you can see exactly which source produced each figure.
Which foods have the highest carbon footprint?
Ruminant meat leads by a long way: beef and lamb are typically tens of kgCO2e per kg. Cheese and farmed fish sit in the middle; plant staples like bread, tomatoes and lentils are usually below 2 kgCO2e per kg.

Emission factors used