How Dietary Choices Affect the Environment

The food people consume is necessary, but it does put a strain on the environment. Between shipping items and the resources that go into making the food, the environmental impact of a meal isn’t negligible. However, you can lower your impact by learning what dietary choices have the most negative effects on the environment.

Local Food Choices

One of the easiest changes and most impactful is buying all your produce locally. Shipping food across the world to your local stores adds a lot of greenhouse gasses to the environment, which increases your effect on the world. Buying from your local shops minimizes travel distance and gas emissions since the food doesn’t have to be transported long-distance.

Sustainable Food Options

Not all food regrows, and eating it puts a strain on the local environment of the food and reduces the amount of that food. That’s why buying from places that use sustainable practices is important for the environment. For example, one of the reasons sustainable fishing in Alaska is important is so that people can continue to make a living decades into the future.

Eating Less Red Meat and Plant-Based Food

Meat can put a big strain on the environment, especially if it’s red meat. Lowering the amount of meat you consume can help alleviate some of the environmental pressure that comes with so many people ordering red meat. Additionally, switching to plant-based foods can help lower your environmental impact as the plants take less time to grow than many other foods and are easy to grow locally.

Food Seasonality

A lot of foods only grow in certain climates and seasons, but you’ll still see them in the market when it’s not their time of the year. That’s because out-of-season food can still grow in various places around the world, and you can still buy it as sellers ship it to your nearby stores. This increases greenhouse gas emissions, so changing your diet to buy foods during their season can help the environment.

Lowering your environmental impact is always a good thing, as you help yourself and future generations enjoy a healthier world. Even doing something as simple as changing when you buy food and where you shop can greatly help the environment, in part improving the world.