What is a Sustainable Diet?
As public awareness of environmental sustainability is increasing, there is growing interest in what sustainable eating should look like. About a year and a half ago the British Dietetic Association (BDA) published One Blue Dot toolkit providing insight into what a sustainable diet is.
Globally, up to 30% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are linked to agriculture and food production. The environmental impact of the food we eat is one of the key changes we can make to tackle the issue of climate change. By adopting sustainable dietary patterns, we could see reductions of GHG and land use by 70–80%, as well as 50% water usage. But what are sustainable dietary patterns? Published in 2019, the EAT Lancet report is one of the biggest studies into sustainable diets in recent years.
The recommendations from the EAT Lancet are not too dissimilar from the UK Eatwell guide. The main differences can be seen here, as well as some practical tips on how to implement them in everyday routine in order to make more sustainable changes.
Practical tips
Shop Locally. Reducing miles can have positive environmental impacts; local fruit and veg shops and butchers where goods are sourced and sold locally. There are an increasing number of shops who offer ‘refills’. You can take along containers from home and fill how much you need and pay by weight. These are an excellent way of cutting down on packaging and reducing your recycling waste.
Buy seasonally. Fresh fruit and vegetables bought in season are more likely to be local. When they’re in season they’re at their best. http://eatseasonably.co.uk/what-to-eat-now/calendar/.
Choose a diet that is rich in fruits, vegetables and plant-based proteins (beans, pulses and nuts). Click here for ideas on how to make your meals more environmentally friendly by implementing simple swaps.
Moderate meat consumption. Increasing reliance on plant-based foods lowers carbon footprint significantly. Reducing meat portions to 70g is recommended. You can also try having some meat free days in the week,
Avoid processed meats and highly processed, high-fat-high-sugar foods.
Aim for 2x 100g portions of fish per week, one of which should be oily. Choose fish from sustainable sources. Look out for fish with the Marine Stewardship Council certificate (MSC).
What about meeting requirements of different age groups? More information on how sustainable eating should not compromise on the balance of one’s diet focusing on macro and micronutrients such as protein, iron, calcium, zinc, B12, Omega 3 and Vit D can be found in my next blog post.
Just remember, every little change, makes a big difference, just like Anne Marie Bonneau said about food waste ‘We don’t need a handful of people doing zero waste imperfectly, we need a million people doing it imperfectly’… Same applies to sustainable eating, we don’t need the whole population to follow a sustainable diet perfectly, we just need more people to become more aware about how what we eat impacts the earth.