The Green Guide: Tip NO.9 – You Are What You Eat

Tips and tricks for making environmentally friendly swaps today!

I don’t know about you, but I am partial to food. You too? Glad you’re here. Earlier in this blog I introduced sustainability in the kitchen, but what about what we are actually eating? What snacks are sustainable and what is a dietary and environmental no-no. Time to dig in… 🥗

• Plant power – Whether you are vegan, vegetarian or choose to eat meat, increasing your plant based intake has a significant impact on lowering your food carbon emissions. While I don’t advocate for dropping all meat consumption overnight (try reducing slowly over time for longer lasting results), choosing to add more vegetables to your meals, more fruit to your desserts and more plants in your diet will reduce your dependence on high environmental intensity meat products and help you regain your balance in your diet. Start by making one meal at a time more plant based, such as adding vegetables to pasta sauces, then dropping the meat all together from some meals e.g. a vegetable curry. Super yummy and you may find you don’t miss meat as much as you thought. 🥕
• Palm oil – One of the most well known ‘baddies’ of the sustainable food game. While very efficient as an oil, mass plantations of palm oil monocultures (where only one species is grown, seen in many other products such as soya) have had a disastrous impact on deforestation, especially in many South-Asian communities, such as Borneo. The solution is to either buy from brands/products which has been certified as sustainable, certified by the Roundtable of Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO https://www.rspo.org/about – if you have 6 mins, watch the video!), reduce your consumption of palm oil containing products, e.g. by making swaps or making yourself, such as with ready meals and convenience foods or writing to companies which use palm oil but are not certified and demanding action ( yes I did once do this with Cadbury’s…………). More details including scorecard with list of sustainably sourced palm oil companies here: https://www.wwf.org.uk/updates/8-things-know-about-palm-oil 🌴

• Seasonal eating & food miles – Try to choose local and in season foods to your country or region to reduce the distance foods have to travel and the associated carbon emissions. So in the UK, out of season berries in winter wouldn’t be as sustainable as in season apples or using summer berries that had been frozen in the summer in a nice crumble. See what has the British flag on in the supermarket and try local vegetable stores for the freshest seasonal vegetables, as well as researching other foods that are in season that month. 🍽
• Grow your own – Start a mini veg plot in your garden or balcony and reduce food miles by growing your favourites. Could be herbs, fruit or full allotment vegetable patches – whatever floats your boat!
• Sustainable seafood – Another example of checking for sustainable certification before buying, as overfishing is having dangerous consequences on our Earth’s biodiversity. Try eating more variety, less intensively and from sustainably farmed sources. 🐟
• Don’t get trendy – Remember, food trends are just like any other, not around for long, but leave long term impacts in their wake. Avocados, soya, quinoa…………………….. Any food that is suddenly mass produced cannot be sustainable as it uses more land, the farming is more intensive and it can disrupt local food chains. Enjoy, but don’t add extra unnecessary pressure on ‘trendy’ ingredients. 🥑

So there we are – grab a plate and eat up on foods that you know where they have come from, that benefit their environment and that are to be enjoyed without hindering our planet’s future. Bon Appetit! 🍝