SUBSTAINABLE DIET CAN HELP SAVE THE PLANET ?

By: Noëllie Inard Entertainment Editor

It may surprise most of you, but some people decide to stop eating certain foods to align with their environmental values for health concerns or religious reasons. From experience, I know that people sometimes have a difficult time differentiating the different diets or why, at the cafeteria, you should have two different spoons for the food with and without meat.

This article will help you understand how much of an impact your diet has on the environment, as well as the distinction between the different diets that can improve the state of the environment. Suppressing food from your diet just for the environment and keeping you from honoring what you want is not an option, just like you don’t need to eat meat at every meal.

According to www.climate.mit.com, a recent study showed that “a pound of beef produces, on average, around 15 times as much CO2 as a pound of rice, and around 60 times as much as a pound of wheat, corn, or peas.” CO2, or Carbon Dioxide, is one of the most important greenhouse gasses impacting global warming. Its presence in the atmosphere “retains the radiant energy received by the earth from going back to space. Thus, creating the Greenhouse effect” (Britannica, 2023). Moreover, according to www. foodprint.org, we need 104 gallons of water to produce 1/5 lb of Turkey.

Many diets cut back on animal products, the most known being vegetarianism. Vegetarians don’t eat meat, fish or any kind of seafood while there are also people who don’t eat meat but eat fish and seafood which is called pescatarian.

Then, there are vegans, who don’t eat anything that comes from animals. So, they don’t eat meat, fish, seafood, milk, honey and eggs.

Moreover, some vegans not only support the animal cause in their diet but also in the way they consume. For instance, some won’t buy makeup that was tested on animals and they won’t wear any animal fur or skin.

Flexitarian is also a diet, which is defined by people consuming animal products only from time to time. Also, while people can follow a diet for a part of their life, it doesn’t mean that they will their entire life since circumstances change and people have to adapt. If you decide to cut some products from your alimentation, make sure to know how to replace them and how to stay in good health without those products.

Finally, it is worth noting that being able to change your diet and cut on some products and replace them with others is a privilege. Not everyone has the means to stop eating meat and buy plant-based protein. Mrs-everybody who works two jobs and has kids to feed can’t possibly think about the environment, this is not the priority.

However, if you have the means to do so, I hope you take into consideration cutting meat at least one day a week or for one meal a day. Truthfully, you probably won’t be personally affected by the impact of your consumption and will already be dead by the time the earth is not livable, I just hope you won’t have any family that will die when this happens.