Ask Pablo: What Is The Carbon Footprint Of Tofu?

Image Source: Sifu Renka Dear Pablo: I eat a lot of tofu as part of my vegetarian diet but it seems to me that this may conflict with my concerns for the environment. What is the carbon footprint of tofu? Tofu is made from soybeans by curdling soy milk much like cheese is made from cow milk. The soybeans require very little, if any, irrigation and they "fix" about 1 pound of nitrogen in the soil per plant because they are legumes. The nitrogen put into the soil by the soybean plants reduces the amount of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer required for the crops, usually corn, that follow in the field's rotation of crops.

We all know that the commercial production of food is dependent on oil and the processing, transportation, and combustion of this oil releases a lot of greenhouse gas emissions. But how much?

How Much Do Soybeans Sequester?
A recent study by Omni Tech International, Ltd with LCA modeling by Four Elements Consulting, LLC that was funded by the United Soybean Board came up with some surprising results. Apparently the sequestration of greenhouse gasses by all of the soybean plants grown in the US in 2009 removed enough greenhouse gasses (in carbon dioxide equivalent units) to be equivalent to taking 21 million cars off the road. Of course this is only the greenhouse gas removal side of the equation, what about the emissions from growing soybeans?