Devastating droughts, wildfires, hurricanes and other extreme weather have escalated concerns about climate change. Can what we eat make a difference? You bet.
Increasingly, food-related solutions to climate change are on the table. About one-third of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions is linked to food. That’s the impact of agriculture and everything it takes to package and transport the food on your plate.
[See: Top Plant-Based Proteins.]
Diet’s Impact on the Environment
In the People’s Climate Vote 2024, the largest standalone public opinion survey on climate change conducted by the United Nations, 80% of people globally want their government to take stronger action to tackle the climate crisis.
There are things we can do at our dinner tables that could help us get to net zero growth in greenhouse gases. However, many people do not understand the link between their diets and climate change, says Eve Turow-Paul, founder and executive director of Food for Climate League, a women-led nonprofit working to make climate-smart food choices the norm.
Food for Climate League has conducted multiple studies to determine the best approach to encourage Americans to adopt more sustainable diets.
“The dominant narratives around food and climate of less meat and less waste are framed in the negative and do not appeal to a wide audience of eaters,” Turow-Paul says.
She says a more effective approach is to highlight the positive and help people discover the deliciousness of climate-smart eating. Fortunately, food that’s good for personal health is often good for planetary health.
“We need to make it desirable, craveable, exciting and culturally entrenched,” Turow-Paul says.
Instead of focusing on what to remove from your diet, she recommends leveraging many of today’s popular food trends — exotic flavors, third-culture cuisine and heritage ways of eating — that align with sustainable eating.
“We need to stop framing sustainable diets as a loss,” she says. “Eating sustainably means adding new flavors, textures and joyful food experiences to our diets.”
Traditional food cultures, such as the Mediterranean diet and cuisines of Asia and much of Latin America, help rebalance the ratio of meat to plants while focusing on delicious, craveable cooking.
[READ: Bringing Cultural Foods to the Family Dinner Table.]
Add Delicious Diversity to Your Diet
Celebrating cultural foodways and recognizing the concept of biodiversity can benefit your health and the health of the planet, says Kate Geagan, a registered dietitian and co-founder of Food + Planet, a nonprofit charged with empowering health professionals to advance sustainable food systems.
Biodiversity, short for biological diversity, refers to the variety of plants, animals and even microorganisms that make up our natural world. This ecosystem is the foundation of sustainable agricultural production and food security.
The problem is that we rely on a small range of foods globally. Currently, 75% of the global food supply comes from only 12 crops and five animal species. Just three plants — rice, corn and wheat — make up about half the calories we consume globally. Compare that to the estimated 400,000 potentially edible plant species on Earth.
The concentration around just a few plants makes our food system less resilient to threats like disease, pests and climate change, Geagan says.
Expanding the variety of plants grown and eaten around the world can aid farmers in developing countries and help fight global hunger and malnutrition, studies suggest. It also opens up so many delicious new eating experiences.
Plus, the more plant foods you learn to enjoy, the less room there is on the plate for meat. However, Geagan says this doesn’t mean everyone has to eliminate meat and become a vegetarian.
“Many of the world’s evidence-based sustainable diet frameworks emphasize an approach of less meat, better meat,” she says.
She recommends learning about sourcing when buying meat, including brands or producers that support verified regenerative agriculture standards, to the extent possible. Because it is easy to be “greenwashed” (swayed by misleading or vague environmental claims), Geagan recommends third-party verifications like Land to Market when shopping for meat.
[READ: 12 Health Benefits of a Plant-Based Diet.]
Enjoy Environmentally-Friendly Foods
If you want to expand the diversity of your diet and increase the ratio of plants to meat on your plate, the Future 50 Foods is a good place to start. Created by the World Wildlife Fund and Knorr, the report features a collection of diverse plant-based foods from around the world that can enhance the nutritional value of your meals while reducing the environmental impact of our food supply.
Some of the most environmentally-friendly food categories include:
— Pulses
— Mushrooms
— Leafy greens
— Algae
— Tubers
— Vegetable-like fruits
Pulses
If there’s one food to start eating more often, it would be pulses, which include beans, chickpeas, lentils and dry peas. These legumes have been called environmental superheroes because they are good for soil quality and draw in nitrogen from the air, which reduces the need for fertilizer. Pulses are also incredibly nutrient-dense, providing protein, fiber and B vitamins.
A steak results in more than 20 times the greenhouse gas emissions compared to a portion of beans. While you don’t need to give up that steak entirely, consider swapping beef for beans once a week.
If every American swapped beef for beans once a week for a year, 75 million metric tons of greenhouse gases would be kept out of the atmosphere, reveals a study in Climate Change. The researchers suggest this single substitution could help achieve up to 74% of the reductions needed to meet greenhouse gas targets established by the U.S.
This potential environmental impact is behind the Beans is How campaign that aims to double global bean consumption by 2028.
Some of the pulses featured in the Future 50 Foods report include:
— Lentils
— Adzuki beans
— Black turtle beans
— Fava beans
— Mung beans
— Bambara beans
— Cowpeas
— Marama beans
You can expand your usual bean routine with some of these different varieties.
Beans are a staple in cuisines around the world, yet most Americans do not eat the recommended 1½ cups of pulses a week. Make burgers with beans, and use beans instead of beef in chili, tacos, burritos and enchiladas. Simmer a stew with lentils instead of sirloin. Get inspired by two current TikTok trends: brothy beans and dense bean salads.
Mushrooms
Mushrooms are another smart sustainable choice because they require little water, land and energy to grow. Mushrooms also grow where many other foods would not, including on by-products recycled from other crops.
While there are 2,000 edible varieties of mushrooms, many people are only familiar with the white button mushroom commonly found on salad bars. Some of the mushrooms in the Future 50 Foods report are enoki, maitake and saffron milk cap mushrooms.
Mushrooms are rich in vitamin D, B vitamins, selenium and fiber, and studies have revealed multiple health benefits. Technically classified as fungi instead of a vegetable, mushrooms have an appealing texture and umami flavor that make them an ideal substitute for meat.
The Mushroom Council has created Mushroom Monday to encourage a mushroom meal at least once a week, including three mushroom pizza, mushroom ragu and shredded mushroom carnitas. The Mushroom Council’s recipes can help you get started if you’re new to cooking with mushrooms.
Leafy greens
Leafy greens are one of the most versatile and nutritious vegetables you can eat. They are also climate-friendly because they are fast-growing and require fewer inputs (such as pesticides and fertilizers) compared to many other foods, says registered dietitian Sharon Palmer, the “Plant-Powered Dietitian” and co-founder of Food + Planet.
Cultivated leafy greens can include using the whole plant, from root to stem to leaf, which means more production efficiency.
You may be most familiar with spinach and kale from this group, but explore some additional options:
— Beet greens
— Broccoli rabe
— Moringa
— Bok choy
— Pumpkin leaves
— Red cabbage
— Watercress
Leafy greens are rich in vitamins and minerals, along with beneficial carotenoids. Cruciferous greens, such as broccoli rabe and watercress, also contain sulfur compounds that are linked to numerous health benefits.
In addition to enjoying raw leafy greens in salads, bowls and sandwich fillings, Palmer suggests sautéing sturdier greens, such as beet greens, spinach and kale, with olive oil, garlic and lemon juice for a delicious side dish.
Palmer also recommends adding leafy greens to soups, stews, pasta and grain dishes. Or puree leafy greens into smoothies, pestos and sauces, she says.
Algae
Algae are responsible for half of all oxygen production on Earth and all aquatic ecosystems depend on them, according to the Future 50 Foods report. The two varieties of algae featured in the report are laver and wakame seaweed.
Laver is a variety of red algae known for its link to Japanese cuisine. You may know it as “nori” which is used for wrapping sushi rolls.
“You can use nori sheets to wrap hand rolls and sandwich fillings, or add sliced dried nori to noodle salads, grain bowls and breakfast dishes for a mild umami flavor,” says Palmer. She also suggests blending dried nori to make a nori dust for adding to dressings and marinades.
Wakame seaweed has been cultivated for centuries by sea farmers in Korea and Japan. It is commonly sold dried and then rehydrated. Palmer suggests mixing rehydrated wakame with a flavorful soy sesame dressing, along with shredded carrots and edamame, to create a classic seaweed salad.
Wakame can also be chopped and added to soups or fried and thrown into salads, stir-fries and side dishes.
Algae is incredibly nutrient-rich, including omega-3 fatty acids. Many types of fish are good sources of these beneficial fatty acids because they eat algae in the ocean.
Tubers
White potatoes are the most common type of tuber eaten in the U.S., but the Future 50 Foods report makes a case for branching out beyond this popular spud to enjoy lotus root, ube or purple yam, jicama and red Indonesian sweet potatoes.
“Tubers are nutritious plant foods that are prominent in many foodways across the world, serving as a staple in many traditional diets,” says Palmer. They can be prepared in multiple ways, including roasted, baked, boiled and mashed, she says.
Lotus root is native to Asia and the Middle East. This tuber may look similar to a potato, but when you slice it open you’ll find lacy geometric holes. Try sliced lotus root in stir-fries and soups, or batter and deep fry for tempura-style lotus root.
Ube, hailing from the Philippines, is wonderful cooked and mashed or folded into breads and desserts, says Palmer. In fact, this vibrant purple yam has gone viral on Instagram and TikTok where it is featured in ice cream, cheesecake, donuts and other baked goods.
Red Indonesian sweet potatoes, also known as Cilembu sweet potatoes, can be sliced and roasted with seasonings, says Palmer. Try mashing the steamed sweet potatoes and combining them with coconut milk, flour and sugar, and then forming into balls and deep-frying to make a classic Indonesian street food.
Vegetable-like fruits
These are plants that are technically classified as fruits but are eaten like vegetables, including orange tomatoes, okra and pumpkin flowers, which are featured in the Future 50 Foods report.
Other “fruit vegetables” include squash, eggplants, sweet peppers and zucchini.
Tomatoes are incredibly nutritious and come in many hues from red and orange to yellow and green, says Palmer. Eating less common varieties of vegetables, such as orange tomatoes, drives demand that will increase the variety of crops grown, which helps make the food system more resilient.
Palmer suggests many ways to prepare orange tomatoes, such as sliced in a salad with olive oil, basil leaves and black pepper, stirred into a sauce to serve with pasta, cooked into chilis or stews, and incorporated into curry dishes, such as chana masala.
Okra is a nutritious vegetable that has traditional uses in dishes from Africa and India, as well as in the Southeastern U.S., says Palmer. It is delicious served in jambalaya, or simply breaded and fried, she says. Use it in a traditional Indian curry dish or a West African okra stew.
Pumpkin flowers, as well as zucchini flowers (from the same family), are commonly used in Italian cuisine, says Palmer. They can be stuffed with a savory filling then baked or fried, or you can simply top pasta or a pizza with these colorful flowers, she says.
Additional Climate-Smart Foods
Some of the additional environmentally-friendly foods featured in the Future 50 Foods report include:
— Nuts and seeds: Walnuts, flax seeds, hemp seeds and sesame seeds
— Ancient grains: Amaranth, buckwheat, millet, fonio, khorasan wheat, quinoa, spelt, teff and wild rice
— Sprouts: Alfalfa sprouts, sprouted kidney beans and sprouted chickpeas
— Root vegetables: Black salsify, a parsnip-like root vegetable, parsley root and white icicle radish or winter radish
— Cacti: Nopales, also known as prickly pear or cactus pear
While there are multiple ways you can help play a role in fighting the climate crisis — including reducing food waste, cutting down on single-use plastics and eating seasonally — adding diversity to your diet with more plant foods and adjusting your ratio of plants to meat can have a major impact.
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How to Eat in a More Sustainable Way: Top Environmentally-Friendly Foods originally appeared on usnews.com
