Eco-Friendly Diet

It’s impossible to ignore all the news about climate change, and yet you might not realize that one thing all humans do can have an enormous impact on the health of the planet—eating. The foods we choose to cook and consume have economic as well as environmental costs, and it’s important to take them into account. Author Michael Pollan’s famous diet advice is as solid as it is succinct: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” In other words, choose real foodstuffs over processed foods, don’t overdo it, and prioritize plant-based foods over meat. The industrial food system is responsible for a whopping 1/3 of greenhouse gas emissions, and nearly half of that comes from animal agriculture. Reducing meat consumption is a great way to lessen your diet’s environmental impact. And before you purchase fish, consult the Seafood Watch website or app (seafoodwatch.org/recommendations) to make sure you’re not about to buy something on the “avoid” list. Vegan and vegetarian diets can be extremely eco-friendly, but even an entirely plant-based diet has potential environmental drawbacks. Transporting fresh zucchini to, say, Minnesota in January has a huge carbon footprint. Eating what’s in season where you live is always the best option. Look for farmers markets or a local Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) resource. Local Harvest has directories for both farmers markets (localharvest.org/farmers-markets) and CSAs (localharvest.org/csa). Some of our favorite things, like chocolate and coffee, can have negative environmental impacts when produced on an industrial scale—but simply choosing fair-trade chocolate and coffee reduces that impact in a big way. Palm oil is increasingly hard to avoid these days, as it’s found in a huge variety of everyday foods, but its production devastates tropical rainforests. Read the labels on foods before you buy and try to avoid anything that doesn’t clearly indicate the type of oil it contains (corn oil, sunflower oil, etc.)—if it’s not stipulated, it’s probably palm oil. It turns out that an eco-friendly diet is not only healthier for the planet—it’s also healthier for us.