What are you eating?

Food is kind of the most important thing we do as humans, it creates community, helps or hurts our personal health and even affects our moods!

Translation: its impact on our planet is extraordinary.

Think about what you regularly buy…

When you grocery shop, how much of the food is processed vs unprocessed? The more processed a food product is the more effort and resources went into that product which inherently creates a bigger impact (i.e., emissions, land, human power, and materials).

Here’s some food for thought, ⅓ of the corn grown in the US goes to livestock, i.e. food feeding your food, and 40% of the food produced in the US is wasted, from production to consumption.

Most of the foods lining store shelves are processed, sugar injected, industrialized “sustenance”. Think ‘cheese product’ ...Gross. That’s a hard pass.

Food is an amazing way to explore and understand global systems. It is one of the biggest impact areas of an individual.

What is a sustainable diet?

Sustainable diets have a low environmental impact contributing to the nutritional security for healthier lives today and future generations...They seek to address the comprehensive food system from undernourishment to obesity, as well as modern phenomena such as climate change, loss of biodiversity, and land degradation.

Note: I’m are not talking about weight loss when we say “diet”, we are talking about what you eat daily and how to make smart decisions so that your diet is not using more resources than the world can actually provide for you.

Sustainable diets do not harm or exploit beings or resources to get food from nature to your stomach. They also support local food systems to nourish local economies as well as reduce food miles.

When it comes to emissions, 10-30% of a household’s carbon footprint comes from the food they eat (or waste), typically a higher portion in lower-income households. Looking at food as an entire industry the production of food accounts for 68% of food emissions, while transportation of food accounts for only 5%.

As a consumer, you have power over the impact of your diet. Making small changes to your diet will affect your spending habits and can significantly reduce your footprint.

Who you buy from, what you buy, and how much you buy can significantly improve your diet to be more sustainable.

Check out this video: The diet that helps fight climate change by Vox: