You misunderstand. It's not the CO2 of the plants that are eaten, but the heavy equipment necessary to grow the food, the tractors, and everything else involved in growing food.
That's why produce is so expensive - it takes a LOT of energy to grow it.
Re:The Fake Factory That Pumped Out Real Money
by Retric on Monday July 18, 2016 @11:58AM
(#12115831)
Produce is expensive because it's minimally subsidized and it takes a lot of people, land, and care instead of a lot of energy. Dry corn is extremely hardy, fresh lettuce wilts.
At the extreme end, roses are not actually much plant matter, they are expensive in large part because you can't treat them like bricks. On that continuum Produce is closer to flower than grains.
The real issue with emitted CO2 is not the quantity at the exhaust-pipe versus the quantity exhaled by a cyclist. The CO2 emitted by the cyclist was absorbed by plants in the preceding months. The CO2 emitted by the car was absorbed by plants in a previous era of the earth. The cyclist allows you to leave the oil in the ground keeping the contained carbon out of the atmosphere.