A healthy environment goes hand-in-hand with a healthy lifestyle. There are many ways to go about supporting the environment while eating nutritious foods. Every meal you eat has an environmental impact, from the pollution caused by farming to the carbon footprint of delivering it to your home. There are some simple steps you can take to help the planet and to be sure that your environmentally friendly eating actually helps the environment.
So, here we put together a few tips that will help you start your environmentally friendly way of shopping and eating:
1. Eat Sustainable Seafood
Fishing is one of the most significant drivers of declines in ocean wildlife populations. Overfishing not only damages the marine environment, but billions of people rely on fishing for their income or for protein. Fishing is not inherently bad for the ocean, except when is done in size that can recover – overfishing. Overfishing and climate change are negatively affecting the fish population.
As CTVNews pointed out here, the Bluefin tuna population has fallen 97 percent from its historic levels. In the last few years, many governments have introduced regulations to help fish recover, but it is important the consumers to understand what steps they can take to ensure they are buying seafood that is not raised in any way that hurts the environment.
2. Buy Local
When you buy from stores that feature local products, like the food at farmers markets, you help the environment, because these goods were not shipped to you and no fuel has been used and cause less environmental harm. The ‘Buy local” movement is growing, you have to understand the environmental benefits of buying local. Understanding how is your local produce grown is important to keep in mind. For example, if you buy local produce from a greenhouse gas perspective compare to grown in fields you may not be doing any good to the environment. So if you want to support the local economy, understand how the local produce is grown.
3. Don’t Waste Food
The global volume of food wastage is estimated at 1.6 billion tonnes of “primary product equivalents.” Total food wastage for the edible part of this amounts to 1.3 billion tonnes.
The movement to reduce food waste is gaining traction. France has introduced legislation preventing grocery stores from wasting food, new apps can connect retailers with consumers willing to buy food near expiration, and people are becoming more aware.
Photo by Clem Onojeghuo from Pexels
4. Consider Food Packaging
Packaging not only protects food quality and safety, but also brings damage to the resources and the environment, and even leads to serious ecological problems. Most of the things we use at home and at work are produced somewhere else so that they have to travel to get to us. Consumers benefit from packages because they protect products as they travel, whether fast food or refrigerators, no matter how far they have to go.
It is important to recognize the potential reduction in pollution that would result from reusing and recycling containers. A new system is needed in which consumption is decreased, and materials are reused and recycled.
5. Reduce Meat Consumption
Eating less meat is better for animals, people and the planet. Sustainably produced meat is slightly more expensive than that from animal factories, reducing the amount of meat you eat will also mean you save money.
You can reduce your overall meat intake by eating some vegan or vegetarian meals and by reducing the amount of meat you eat in each meal.
Check out these tips if you don’t know where to start.
Photo credit: Anikona – Freepik.com
