ecobirmingham are here to help you take steps to live a greener lifestyle. Let’s talk about food.
Did you know that over a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions comes from food, with over half of those coming from animal products?* Meat production causes great damage to the environment via greenhouse gases from livestock and deforestation for grazing land and growing feed for animals. By making a few small changes to your diet you can have a huge impact on our planet.
The biggest lifestyle change you can make is to switch to a plant-based diet. This means cutting out all animal products such as meat, eggs, dairy from your diet. Switching to a plant-based diet involves a high intake of fruit and vegetables, getting protein from beans, lentils and wholegrains, including nuts and seeds, and if you like, introducing the increasing range of meat-free, often soya based alternatives such as Quorn or Linda McCartney. Some of the packaged meat alternatives used to be more pricey but they are becoming more affordable.
For some this may be a hard transition, but small changes can make a huge difference to not only the planet, but your health and your wallet! To start with, how about have one vegetarian day a week and one vegan day, then slowly reduce meat and dairy consumption over time? Why not try it as a household? Why not try it as friends?
There are hundreds of blogs and recipe guides for those that need some inspiration, here are a few to spark your interest:
- Meat Free Monday
- Deliciously Ella
- Minimalist Baker
- Vegan Richa
- Green Kitchen Stories
- Cookie and Kate
Want to find out more about the carbon footprint of your food? Check our the BBC’s food calculator here to learn more about your environmental impact.
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*Source: Poore, J., & Nemecek, T. (2018). Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers. Science, 360(6392), 987–992.
Image by liz_com1981 used under a Creative Commons license.