Dairy's Hidden Climate Impact: Why Cheese and Butter Are Luxuries, Not Staples

🌍 One of the big surprises for many people is the high climate impact of dairy. Across the EU, dairy has a bigger impact than all pork consumption.

And the fattier the dairy product, the more milk was needed and the higher the carbon footprint.

This milk conversion ratio is the reason why around 2/3 of all the milk in the EU is used for cheese and butter production.

You could also look at this in a different way. From 1 liter of milk you can get:

🧈 56 g butter (enough around 4-5 slices of bread)

OR

🧀 125 g cheese (ca. 4 slices of cheese)

OR

🍦 160 g cream (ca. 1 pack)

OR

🥣 1 liter of yogurt (ca. 5 bowls)

Let’s say the typical Dutch person eats two butter and cheese sandwiches per day.

It would only take two days to consume two liters of milk in this way.

But to consume two liters of milk in the form of yogurt it would take 10 days of eating one bowl every day.

In other words: cheese and butter are luxury products and not staples for everyday life.

By Frank Holleman

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#milk #climatechange #yogurt