5 Ways Your Healthy Eating Habits Can Save the Planet

In honor of Earth Day, easy ways to make life here a little healthier for everyone
by Julie Upton, RD

Thanks in part to factory farming and our national appetite for processed convenience foods, scientists say one calorie requires seven times that much fossil fuel. In other words, your 400-calorie breakfast of cereal, fruit, and milk required 2,800 calories worth of oil. No wonder our food costs are soaring along with OPEC's oil prices.

In honor of Earth Day today, April 22, I plan to decrease the carbon footprint my lifestyle makes with these five pledges. Making them will mean that I'll be eating more delicious seasonal, plant-based foods as well.

1. Swear Off Bottled Water
I'll be using my reusable CamelBak bottle, which is also free of harmful bisphenol plastics. I'm also mixing more Crystal Light and other flavored drinks myself instead of guzzling sodas that come in bottles or cans. Sure, you can recycle, but the EPA estimates that less than one third of plastic soft drink bottles are recycled, so why not try to reuse instead?

2. BYOB
Paper or plastic? The answer is neither, because both bags require huge energy inputs to create, and both contribute to pollution. The best option is to use a bag made of cloth or canvas that you can reuse. I keep several reusable shopping bags in the trunk of my car so I have them handy when I make quick stops at the supermarket. If I do take a plastic or paper bag from the store, I reuse and recycle them.

3. Support Local Farmers
I'm going to support farmers more by shopping at the local farmer's market whenever possible to cut back on the energy required for transporting food. Spending my money at farmer's markets means that I'm supporting local or regional farmers that help to keep farmers farming—instead of becoming real estate agents for the next suburb.

4. Packaging Points
Foods that require processing, packaging, and then shipping across the U.S. or world are sucking up precious limited fossil fuels. My pledge is to buy more foods in bulk and shop the perimeter of supermarkets, where the foods are often less processed. I'll skip products that come individually packaged and look more closely at food packages to support companies that are using recyclable packaging.

5. Eat Lower on the Food Chain
According to the University of Michigan's Center for Sustainable Systems, a diet that gets 28% of its calories from animal-based products (meats, poultry, dairy) uses twice as much fossil fuel as a vegetarian diet. In adddition, livestock produce an estimated one billion tons of earth-polluting waste each year. Bottom line: It's better for the earth for you to eat grains and legumes, rather than the animals that feed on them.