Making your diet more planet friendly

The planet needs your help. The climate crisis may seem uncontrollably out of your hands, but what you eat is one aspect you have hold of. Making it the perfect place to start.

We’re all at different stages on our journey to a more planet-friendly diet. You might be a fully-fledged vegan, or maybe you’re taking the first few steps in adopting a flexitarian diet. Wherever you are, making the conscious effort to change your lifestyle for our future is precisely the attitude the planet will surely appreciate.

If you’re thinking about how to further adapt your diet, take a look at some of our tips below.

1. Eat plants, not animals

Animals have a devastating impact on the planet, with 18% of greenhouse gases (GHG) caused by global livestock production (Moran, D. and Wall, E. 2011).  

To highlight the difference between plant and animal emissions, let’s take the example of beef and peas, in terms of global averages. 100g of protein from beef produces 35 kgCO2eq. In comparison, 100g of protein from peas makes just 0.4 kgCO2eq (kgCO2eq refers to the greenhouse gas emissions measured in kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalents per 100g of protein) (Our World in Data. 2020). If you’re thinking animal products are any better, think again, cheese causes the expulsion of 20 kgCO2eq. Thus emphasizing the significant impact that we can have on emissions through replacing meat with plants.  

A diet full of plants can be wrongly assumed to be bland and tasteless. This couldn’t be further from the truth. From nuts and legumes to pulses and beans, there are a plethora of different protein sources out there to start experimenting with. Or, if you’d rather stick with what you know, then supermarkets are packed with excellent meat and dairy alternatives that can easily be swapped into your diet. Especially once cellular agriculture hits the shelves, then there’s no excuse!

2. Eat seasonally and locally

Aubergines in the heat of summer, raspberries in the depths of winter, the selection of fruit and vegetables available to us remains pretty constant throughout the year. Unfortunately, it’s at a cost to the environment.

When thinking about your fruit and vegetable choice, you want to be selecting crops that are in season in your country. Therefore ensuring that they will have been grown outside and nearby, cutting down the need for high energy inputs and fertilizers (EUFIC. 2020). Purely selecting based on location could increase emissions if the crop is not in season, as this often involves the use of heated greenhouses (EUFIC. 2020), a not very eco-friendly option. Therefore, get to know your fruit and veg, find out what’s in season and adapt throughout the year, checking labels to identify where your food is sourced. 

3. Eat it don’t waste it

If food waste was a country, it would be the third-largest emitter of GHGs globally after China and the USA (WWF). A vast output of emissions, all wasted on food that’s never even eaten. A deeply demoralizing thought.

Food is wasted throughout its lifecycle, from spoilage or spillage in the supply chain to being thrown away by retailers, restaurants or consumers. We live in a world where people are starving at the same time as edible food is wasted. It’s estimated that if food waste was reduced by just 15% in the US, it could provide enough food for 25 million people per year (Food Print). 

So if you’ve been guilty of letting perfectly good food go to waste (which from time to time we all have), then here are a few points to bear in mind: 

• Get to grips with the dates. All containing a different formula of similar words, it can be confusing to pinpoint what exactly the date is referring to. What you need to remember is: best-before dates refer to the quality of the product, so the food is still perfectly safe to eat after this point. Whereas use-by dates relate to food safety and are therefore used on more high-risk foods such as meat and fish. 

• Planning ahead is a great way to ensure that you don’t overbuy and that all the ingredients purchased will be eaten. Selecting foods at random may result in a fridge full of food that doesn’t fit well together. Resulting in products being left behind and ending up in the bin. 

• Utilize those leftovers! Not consuming everything certainly doesn’t leave it open to being wasted. Keep some for lunch or upcycle it into another dish; sometimes, a meal even tastes better on day two. 

• Get creative. When fruit and veg start to lose their enthusiasm for life, wilting a little or browning, it doesn’t mean they’re destined for the compost. There’s plenty of life left in them yet! Fruits whiz up to a tasty smoothie, and veg can be thrown into soups and stews. 

4. Eat a variety

Of all the variety that the world has to offer, 75% of our food supply comes from just 12 plants and 5 animals (WWF). With an estimated 30,000 edible plant species on the planet (Shelef, O. et al. 2017), half our plant-derived calories come from wheat, corn and rice (IDRC. 2010). Therefore resulting in mass monocultures and declining diversity. 

Maintaining biodiversity is essential, as the more variety of crops, the bigger the gene pool. Limiting the gene pool of crops leaves them vulnerable to threats from the climate or disease. In contrast, the more variety, the more likely some species will be resistant to these changes or diseases (Food Print. a). The more we diversify our plate, the more diverse the range of crops we grow, which helps maintain higher levels of biodiversity. 

Moulding our diets into a more sustainable shape is essential for the future of the planet. The more people adapt their lifestyle, the more significant the impact we can have. Will you be taking some of these tips on board? 

References 

FAO. 2017. Water pollution from agriculture: a global review. http://www.fao.org/3/i7754e/i7754e.pdf 

EUFIC. 2020. Are seasonal fruit and vegetables better for the environment? https://www.eufic.org/en/healthy-living/article/are-seasonal-fruit-and-vegetables-better-for-the-environment 

Food Print. a. Biodiversity and agriculture. https://foodprint.org/issues/biodiversity-and-agriculture/ 

Food Print. b. The problem of food waste. https://foodprint.org/issues/the-problem-of-food-waste/ 

IDRC. 2010. Facts & figures on food and biodiversity. https://www.idrc.ca/en/research-in-action/facts-figures-food-and-biodiversity 

Moran, D. and Wall, E. 2011. Livestock production and greenhouse gas emissions: defining the problem and specifying solutions. Animal frontier, 1(1), pp 19-25. https://doi.org/10.2527/af.2011-0012

Our World in Data. 2020. Less meat is nearly always better than sustainable meat, to reduce your carbon footprint. https://ourworldindata.org/less-meat-or-sustainable-meat  

Shelef, O. et al. 2017. The value of native plants and local production in an era of global agriculture. Frontiers in plant science, 8. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2017.02069

WWF. No date. 10 Tips for eating for the planet. https://www.wwf.org.uk/what-can-i-do/10-tips-help-you-eat-more-sustainably