Eat More Plants to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint

More and more studies reveal that the best diet for the environment—and for you—is one packed with plants and light on animal foods. This is intuitive, as it takes less resources—water, fossil fuel, acreage—to cultivate plant foods, such as legumes, grains, vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds, compared with animal foods, which consume large amounts of grains, seeds, and water before they become animal proteins, such as meat and cheese. In addition, animal agriculture creates other environmental concerns surrounding issues, like excess manure and methane emissions.

Further evidence about the eco benefits of plant-based eating emerged from a review of data from the Adventist Health Study-2, which included more than 73,000 participants. Published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, a study from Loma Linda University in California found that plant-based dietary patterns lower greenhouse gas emissions by almost one-third, compared to non-vegetarian diets. Even switching to a semi-vegetarian diet, with limited amounts of meats, reduced green house gas emissions. This eating style is also good for human health—the same data pointed to a 20 percent lower mortality rate for vegetarians and semi-vegetarians, compared with non-vegetarians.

—Sharon Palmer, RD, Editor, EN

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