Have you heard about the "Low-Carbon Diet?"  A handful of corporate foodservice operators in California and in pockets across the country have begun adopting "low-carbon" meals on their menus in attempts to reduce their carbon footprint.  It sounds like a good idea and makes for clever headlines, but upon close inspection this diet is misguided.

The Low-Carbon Diet suggests that consumers should consider reducing their consumption of meat and dairy products as a step toward saving the Earth.  We're all for taking care of our planet, but we are also adamant about telling the truth. As experts on the carbon footprint of the California dairy industry, we strongly refute this gimmicky diet's claims.

In the United States, animal agriculture is responsible for less than 3 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's 2008 inventory of such emissions. That's all of animal agriculture, of course, so the share of dairy farms is smaller, about 0.7 percent, again according to the U.S. EPA. The story is even better in California, where the state has set and the state's dairy farms comply with, the nation's toughest environmental regulations. As a result, California dairies make a smaller emissions contribution than those in other states while continuing to produce 21 percent of the nation's milk supply. The California industry is proactively working toward an even more rigorous 25 percent emission reduction by 2020.

The complementary concern of the Low-Carbon Diet is that there is a significant nutritional downside to removing dairy from one's diet.  Omitting entire food groups from our diets is unnecessary and, in fact, could lead to nutrient deficiencies.  Milk and dairy foods' nutrient contributions include calcium, vitamin D, potassium and magnesium, which are all crucial to a balanced, nutrient-rich diet.