It might mean saying "no" to strawberries all year-round, but an easy way to reduce our huge food carbon footprint is to eat only locally produced and in-season fruit and vegetables, say QUT nutrition students whose healthy eating project won the Telstra Environment/Channel 10 award.

Queensland University of Technology final year Bachelor of Nutrition and Dietetics student Courtney Jarrett said she and her fellow students, Beth Rougier, Rdhhi Naidu and Taryn Richardson had developed the Queensland Food Challenge and an accompanying website to show people how to encourage sustainable food production.

"We are advocating a back-to-basics approach to ensure our food supply into the future," Ms Jarrett said.

"We have produced a food wheel so that people can choose fruit and vegetables that are in season and so reduce the number of kilometres food has to travel before it appears on our plate, and save money too.

"We know Australia's agricultural sector accounts for almost 60 per cent of our total methane emissions and food production in total makes up 30 per cent of our overall greenhouse gas emissions.

"That's why our website recommends we try eating kangaroo and emu meat and minimise eating meat from cattle and sheep.

"People might baulk at 'eating the Australian coat of arms' but they are a lower fat choice and are easier on the environment to produce than beef."

Ms Jarrett said 16 Queensland community nutritionists had already taken up the students' challenge and were trialling eating only food that had been produced within a 500km radius of where they live."

Their back-to-basics approach includes a return to drinking tap water because bottled water in Australia takes 314,000 barrels of oil to package and transport each year.

The website contains information on everything from recycling to sustainable fish for the plate. The students will use their $2000 prize money from the Telstra Environment Award to print more copies of the resources and to upgrade and promote the website more widely.

To visit the site click here.