I went vegetarian this year, and I like to think that gives me a pass to sit back and be smug whenever the topic of your carbon footprint comes up.  After all, as Michael Pollan is quoted as saying, "A vegetarian in an SUV has a lower carbon footprint than a meat eater in a Prius."

Unfortunately, it turns out that the carbon footprint of cheese is fairly substantial.  I'm a vegetarian, not a vegan, and I dislike beans, so I eat a lot of cheese.  (As well as eggs from my pet chickens, but that's a different story.)

Cheese has all the carbon footprint down side of raising cattle, albeit without the carbon "cost" of transporting cattle to the feed lot, and from there to the slaughterhouse.  However, there is the cost of shipping their milk to the cheese factory, and the electricity required to make, store, and age the cheese.  Cheese requires very specific temperature and humidity in order to ripen correctly, so no matter where you are in the country, this will involve a great deal of climate control.

(The carbon footprint of cheese is lower in Europe, where they are more likely to take advantage of natural caves, which offer their own climate control.)

To weakly counter these problems, I feel obliged to point out that I buy Tillamook cheese exclusively, which is relatively local.  Tillamook, OR is about 300 miles away from my home, but that's pretty local, considering the national nature of cheese distribution in America.  I imagine most Kraft cheese has been transported several thousand miles in its lifetime before it gets to my neighborhood grocery store.

Of course, I could buy cheese even more locally, because there is an awesome dairy just ten miles from my home.  They dispense antibiotics only when the cows are sick, give each of their cows names, process the milk locally, and free range their cows on grass pasture year round.  

Although I have to admit with a wince that the cheese they sell is really expensive.  I can buy a two pound block of Tillamook cheddar for $6-$8, or an eight ounce wedge of Golden Glen Creamery cheese for the same price.  Don't get me wrong, their cheese is delicious, and I often buy it as a hostess gift or gift basket inclusion.  But it's not an everyday cheese, like a Tillamook baby loaf.

(And now I can't help but wonder, hey, why IS that Tillamook cheese so cheap?)

If you don't have a local dairy (or even if you do, but you want to experiment and/or save money) a fun alternative to mass market national cheeses is to make your own.  I have been messing about with cheesemaking this season, and it is frustrating, exacting, but very rewarding.  So far I have made two failed batches of mozzarella, but the last batch turned out really well.  I will be tackling Neufchatel next.

If you buy the milk from a local dairy (and with the secret unlabeled ultrapasteurization of grocery store milk, which doomed my first batch of mozzarella, you will have to) the carbon footprint of your cheese will be drastically reduced compared to a national brand.  It will take electricity to heat the cheese liquid to the proper temperature, and it will take up some fridge space (and therefore electricity).  But it isn't wrapped in plastic, nor is it going to be shipped about after creation, so it's a definite improvement.  And it doesn't get much more local than homemade cheese!