Wellness
6 Simple Ways to Eat a More Climate-friendly Diet
Aug
What we choose to eat each day not only affects our health and wellbeing but it has a huge impact on the health of our planet. Agriculture produces around a quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE). The carbon footprint can vary greatly between different types of foods. Changing the way we eat, by moving towards a more climate-friendly diet can play an important part in helping stop climate change, and improve our health.
When you follow a climatarian diet you choose foods based on their carbon footprint. This carbon-conscious way of eating involves thinking about where your food comes from and what impact it has on the earth. A climatarian diet includes eating more unprocessed plant-based foods, reducing meat and dairy consumption (particularly beef and lamb), and reducing ultra-processed foods (e.g. junk foods, vegetable oils, and animal products). This diet is a balanced and healthy way of eating focusing more on plant-based foods and less on animal products.
Here are 6 simple ways to eat a more climate-friendly diet.
- Reduce red meat intake:
Meat production, in particular beef and lamb, have the greatest emission levels of all foods. Beef GHGE per kg is around 10 times that of chicken, and 20 times that of legumes, nuts and seeds. One of the simplest ways to reduce your carbon impact is by avoiding beef and lamb or only eating them occasionally. You can start reducing your meat intake by introducing a few meat-free days during the week where you replace meat with a healthy plant-based alternative like tofu, tempeh or legumes. Pork and poultry have a much lower carbon impact so you can still enjoy moderate amounts of organic free range chicken, pasture-fed pork and sustainable fish as part of a climatarian diet. Processed pork products like ham and bacon and other deli meats should be avoided though.
- Reduce dairy products:
Dairy cattle produce large amounts of GHGE and nitrogen-rich manure. Cheese has the biggest carbon footprint of all dairy products. Soft varieties of cheese like mozzarella, brie, feta and camembert, have a lower carbon footprint compared to aged cheeses. Buying your cheese from a local farmer is also better for the environment. Switching to a plant-based milk can also help lower your carbon footprint. Plant-based milks have been found to cause less than half the emissions of dairy milk. Almond and oat milks have the lowest carbon footprint.
- Eat a plant-based diet:
If you want to choose the very best diet for the planet then going vegan is the way to go. According to a study published in Science, GHGE from plant-based foods are on average 10-50 times lower than those from animal products.
While eating a vegan diet has the lowest carbon impact following a vegetarian diet is the next best way to eat to help improve the health of the planet. Enjoying a mainly plant-based diet with some organic eggs and dairy products is still climate friendly. A pescatarian diet including some wild sustainably sourced fish is also considered a climate-friendly way to eat. Choosing truly wild and sustainably sourced fish where you can is ideal as there are concerns with over fishing, and farmed fish having higher levels of toxic PCBs and dioxins compared to wild fish.
- Tea is greener:
Did you know that drinking 4 cups of black tea daily (boiling just the amount of water you need) will equal 30kg of CO2 greenhouse GHGE per year, which is equivalent to driving a car for 64km. Having 3 large lattes a day however emits 20 times the carbon emissions, equivalent to flying half way across Europe.
Researchers have found that the carbon footprint of a cup of coffee is higher than a cup of tea, around 5 to 7 times higher using the ecological scarcity 2006 method, which considers emissions into air, surface and ground water, and top soil; energy resources; natural resources; and deposited water.
When looking at carbon emissions the processing of tea leaves only accounts for 13–15% of tea’s total carbon footprint, it’s the boiling of the water using an electric kettle to brew the tea that accounts for 64–73%. To lower the carbon footprint of your cuppa buy a certified organic tea, just boil the amount of water you need, and skip the cow’s milk or opt for a more carbon-friendly plant-based milk.
- Buy organic, in-season, locally grown produce:
A climatarian diet also focuses locally sourced and in-season produce. Be mindful of where your food has come from and how far it has had to travel. Food that has been transported by air will have a greater a GHGE impact. Shopping at your local market and green grocers will help reduce emissions associated with transporting food across the country or world.
Buying organic produce is better for the environment. A new study published in the Journal Sustainability shows that organic farming produces far fewer GHGE compared to conventional farming, even though organic crop yields are lower. Organic farming can also increase carbon storage and help mitigate climate change. Organic farming also is more efficient in using non-renewable energy, it improves and maintains soil quality, and has less of a detrimental effect on water quality and biodiversity, in relation to conventional farming.
- Avoid waste and plastic packaging:
If you want to help protect the earth you should be trying to avoid food waste where you can. When food is wasted and rots in landfill it produces methane gas. All of the water and energy that has gone into growing, harvesting, transporting and packaging the food is also wasted.
Avoiding plastic packaged goods is also an important element of the climatarian diet. Plastics are extremely durable and very slow to degrade so they accumulate in our environment, ending up in landfill, our waterways and oceans. Plastic waste slowly degrading in the ocean emits methane gas and other climate-relevant pollutants into the atmosphere. You can lower your carbon footprint by avoiding drinks in plastic bottles, foods wrapped in plastic, plastic straws, one use plastic shopping bags and disposable take-away cups.
Written by Lisa Guy, naturopath and founder of Bodhi Organic Tea.
