Six Diet Tweaks to Help Safeguard the Environment

Food is fundamental to life. Do we realise that the things we eat are causing some of the greatest threats to human survival? The Industrialised food production systems cause pollution, which contributes to climate change and loss of biodiversity. In order to safeguard the environment, making some changes in your diet is a good place to start.

Here are 6 Simple tweaks you can make to your diet:

• Eat a Plant Rich Diet – Adopting a plant-rich diet dramatically helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions, require less water and improve biodiversity. Add different flavours and choices to your diet. Focus on eating vegetables, beans and nuts. You can opt for plant based sources of protein such as legumes, nuts and seeds instead of solely depending on animal based protein.
• Eat Local foods – Buying and eating locally produced food helps lower fuel emissions, and fight pollution associated with transportation of food through vast distances. Eat more locally produced products like eggs, poultry and dairy, seasonal fruits and vegetables to minimise your carbon footprint.
• Waste less food – Wastage of food is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. Reducing food wastage is the easiest way to protect your environment. Planning your meals ahead, buying only what you need, and storing leftovers are some of the ways to cut down on food waste.
• Eat less meat – Reducing your meat intake is one of the best ways to reduce your carbon footprint. The most popular meat today is chicken. You can try to limit eating meat to One meal per day or going chicken-free one day of the week. Instead opt for some plant based sources of protein in place of meat.
• Eat less Dairy – Dairy cattle and their manure is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. Cutting back on milk, cheese is an easy way to help protect your environment. You can start by eating less cheese and replacing dairy milk with almond or soy milk.
• Avoid plastic packaging – Food packaging ends up polluting the land and sea. Single use plastic is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. You can start to protect the environment by switching to unpackaged foods, sustainable or minimally-packaged food products, carrying your own cloth bag to the store, avoiding plastic water bottles and storing foods in glass containers.

Over To You:
By making simple changes in your diet, you can help reduce your carbon footprint on the environment. These changes may seem small but can have a huge impact over time. Try to influence your friends, family and neighbours to make these tweaks in their diet as well.