Climate-Friendly Eating: 5 Ways To Eat More Plant-Based
For Ontario and parts of the northeastern United States, once again, our summer has been plagued with devastating wildfires; reducing the quality of our air, and creating conditions that can impact your health long-term. For some, when the smoke is at its highest, it makes it difficult to breathe, prompting stay-indoor warnings, event cancellations and more. The changes in our climate that have caused the earth's temperature to rise have contributed to more wildfires each year. This year alone, several Indigenous First Nations communities in Ontario have been forced to leave their homes, making them the most impacted by the devastation.
While officials continue to battle the smoke and draft emergency preparedness plans, we still can play our part individually to help better protect the environment and the burning of our forests. The United Nations explains the ways in which modern-day food production has an impact on our climate. Food production, preparation and distribution all release greenhouse gases into the air, causing the earth's temperature to rise. This includes the ways in which we as a society grow our food and use our land. It even boils down to the amount of meat we collectively consume and how we manage food waste. According to a 2021 report, a third of all greenhouse gas emissions were caused by our food systems. While it may not seem obvious how the foods we purchase can both make a difference to the planet and the health of our bodies, thoughtful consideration about what we eat can help reduce further impact to the environment, as well as improve diet choices we make on a regular basis. This is known as climate-friendly eating.
What is climate-friendly eating:
Climate-friendly eating focuses on eating foods that have a smaller carbon footprint. Foods such as red meat, certain cheeses, and dairy have a larger carbon footprint due to how the food is produced, processed and packaged. The production of "animal-based foods" produce higher level of greenhouse emissions than plant-based foods. Moving towards more plant-based options such as beans, legumes, and soy can reduce negative impacts to our climate. For instance, instead of red meat, a climate-friendly substitute could be chicken or eggs, which have smaller environmental footprints. Additionally, plant-based beverages like almond, oats, rice, soy, hemp, pea, coconut, cashew and quinoa have lower carbon footprints compared to dairy milks. Even plant-based dishes from around the world such as : Dosa, Tabouleh, Sadhya, Shakshuka and Injera offer up nutrient-dense options that that don't include meat at all, that still contain amino-acids building blocks of protein needed for balanced meal.
To get started, you can begin by trying one plant-based meal in a week. Google and YouTube are my best friends; there are so many recipes online that you could try and modify for your requirements. My favourites searches are "plant-based on a budget", "climate friendly meals" and "easy plant-based ideas". A great recipe you can "plant it up" are tacos! For your next Taco Tuesday, you can consider using cooked lentils in your meal. Remember the entire meal doesn't have to be plant-based, you can add lentils to your meat of choice, going 1/2 lentils and 1/2 meat.
As Dietitians we are poised to lead the charge of helping clients transition to more sustainable, healthful diets to improve the health of the planet but also the people we serve. Climate-friendly eating is just one way we can do our part to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that is leading to a rapidly changing climate. It also helps support the diversification of our protein consumption, and encourages us to get creative with our meals or possibly even return to our traditional, cultural foods that don't always reflect the meat-centred nature of North-American diets.
Tracey is a Registered Dietitian and contributor to the Curated By Britt Blog, providing expert and professional advice on nutrition and healthy eating habits. She is the genius behind the That Black RD community where she shares engaging, fact-based information on food and culture.