How much benefit can a small change in our diet bring to the planet?

The food we eat every day keeps us alive, but it can also lead to significant health and environmental costs such as heart disease, carbon emissions and soil degradation. A Recent research Was announced in Nature food We have discovered that small changes in food choices made by Americans can have significant benefits to both health and the planet.

Many health-intensive foods, such as processed meats and lean meats, also have high environmental costs, so switching to just a few of them (about 10% of your daily calorie intake) is a food-based environmental footstep. You can reduce prints as follows: More than 30 percent, research says.

“The really good thing is that for many foods, not all foods, healthier and more nutritious foods tend to be more environmentally sustainable, which ultimately benefits both sides. “. Michael clarke, Oxford University Food Systems Researchers are not involved in the study.

Between growing, packaging, moving, cooking, and often wasting it, food production accounts for about one-fifth to one-third of all annual greenhouse gas emissions in the world. increase. In the average American home, Food occupies about the same part of the greenhouse gas footprint As electricity. Food production is a major source of water quantity and quality problems, requires herbicides and pesticides that endanger biodiversity, and causes forest and wilderness losses when land is converted to agriculture.

“The impact is considerable,” he says. Olivier Joliet, An environmental scientist at the University of Michigan and one of the authors of the study. “Houston, we have a problem and we need to take it seriously. So far, the United States is not serious about it.”

He emphasizes that it is not the responsibility of a single person to resolve national or global health and environmental crises. But insights like those developed by him and his team can help people, institutions, and even governments understand where to direct their energy to reach their full potential quickly.

See two things at once

To learn how to reduce the negative effects of food production and consumption on the planet and the body, researchers first assessed food-related damage. But understanding where apples came from, not to mention their impact on the planet, is becoming an increasingly complex issue as the world’s food system evolves. For example, researchers at the Stockholm Environment Institute took years to unravel the supply chain for crops such as: Cocoa and coffee, Even if they come from a single country.

Therefore, over the past few decades, scientists, including Jorie, have said, “Lifecycle analysisFor certain items (for example, broccoli heads and cornflakes boxes), take into account all steps from farm to storage and include hard numbers that indicate environmental impact, such as greenhouse gas emission estimates. Assign to. Or the amount of water needed for their production.

At the same time, epidemiologists and public health scientists were doing similar analyzes of the human body. They carefully examined the relationship between food and health, and how different diets and even specific foods affect the risk of illness, general health, or life expectancy. They assigned strict numbers to those risks.

For years, researchers and governments have considered the issue separate: health researchers focused on their priorities, and environmental scientists focused on their priorities (1970). Scientists were already linked in the decade Planetary health and dietary choices).But it has become increasingly clear that what we eat is closely related to planetary health, he says. Sarah Reinhardt, Experts on the food system and health of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

For example, global demand for beef is increasing the demand for soy protein to supply cattle, and in response to that demand, The vast Amazon belt is deforested every year To create space for new soy farms and cattle Forests that absorb carbon and have biodiversity..

“Agriculture is a big part of the climate puzzle, and agriculture, food and diet are all intricately related,” says Reinhardt.

So Jorie and his colleagues investigated the health and environmental impacts of certain foods and built a system that integrates both concerns.

They previously worked with other researchers to create a vast database that quantified the health burden of dietary choices, such as too much processed meat and too little whole grain. .. A team at the University of Michigan converted these dietary risks into “disability-adjusted life years” or DALY estimates. This is a measure of life expectancy that someone can lose or gain by changing their behavior. The team delves into what can affect DALYs by choosing to eat or abandon certain foods, not just categories such as vegetables, and learn more about the benefits and harms of some foods. explained. The impact of others if someone’s baseline diet changes. For example, eating lots of lean meat is associated with diabetes and heart disease, but eating lots of vegetables can help reduce your risk of heart disease. However, their analysis warns that it is not necessarily related to individuals, but to the entire population. Each person has a unique set of health risks that can change their susceptibility to dietary changes.

To determine that, the Michigan team examined the nutritional composition of nearly 6,000 foods, from hot dogs to chicken wings, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and beets. Hot dogs will probably cost someone about 35 minutes to live. Eating most fruits may help someone get a few minutes extra. A sardine cooked in tomato sauce may take 82 minutes. By calculation, apple pie is almost neutral. There are boosts from apples, butter, flour and losses from sugar.

There was nothing particularly surprising in this analysis. Epidemiologists have long known that processed meats, lean meats, and highly processed high-carbohydrate foods are associated with an increased risk of many diseases. However, by analyzing the potential impact of so many products, researchers can rank and order them and gain a detailed understanding of how a particular habit affects consumers. I can do it.

In parallel, the team evaluated the environmental impact of those thousands of foods. They considered 15 different ways in which the environment absorbs the effects of food production, from the impact on the surrounding water system to the rare earth minerals needed to grow and package products, as well as carbon costs. Local air pollution Caused by production.

When researchers saw both problems at the same time, an encouraging pattern emerged. Many of the foods that are good for people’s health are also relatively environmentally friendly. Not surprisingly, sustainable seafood, not greenhouse-grown, beans, vegetables, and catfish, fell into what they called the “green” zone. rice field. Foods in the “amber” zone, such as milk and yogurt, egg-based foods, and greenhouse-grown vegetables have balanced health and environmental costs.Foods in the “red” zone, such as beef, processed meats, pork and mutton, were healthy. When Environmental cost. The beef stew servings they calculated have a carbon cost to drive about 14 miles.

This pattern applies to most environmental indicators except water use. Foods such as nuts and fruits have considerable health benefits, but they are often grown in water-scarce areas such as California. “When we talk about the foods we are eating now and the foods that“ should ”like nuts and fruits, the use of water has a huge impact,” says Reinhardt. “It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t eat them more, it does mean it’s a problem we have to solve.”

I can’t stop eating, what should I do?

For some climate issues, there are relatively simple fixes. For example, renewable energy sources can already replace much of the energy needed to power buildings, cars, and so on.

There is no substitute for food, but shift what It is possible to eat.If everyone on the planet eats vegans, we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions from our food system. More than halfThe vegetarian planet will reduce food emissions by 44 percent. If you stop eating “food” as we know it, Laboratory-grown nutritional slurries rather than soil or waterAccording to a recent paper examining a unique thought experiment, it was possible to prevent future warming by about 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit).

“The content of this work is as follows. Hey, look, we can still get a pretty big win without making these really big changes to the dietary composition,” says Clark. .. “I think it’s really powerful because many people don’t want to make these really big dietary changes for many reasons.”

Although vegetarian and vegan diets are becoming more common in the United States and Europe, “it’s absolutely ridiculous to think that everyone will eat a vegetarian diet in 30 years,” he said. say.

Food choices are personal and deeply related to culture, religion, emotions, financial concerns and more. “It’s much better to try a choice than to dictate,” he says. Nagra Ael Abadi, Tufts University Food, Nutrition and Environmental Researcher. This approach is intended to inform people so that they can make choices that suit their needs and values. Overall, these choices can benefit both human health and the planet.

To do so, she emphasizes that it needs to work in tandem with large-scale efforts to restructure the production of industrial foods.

But choosing to eat every day is not trivial, says Clark, “all of us don’t have to be vegan overnight,” he says. “Small changes can have a big impact.”