Are Your Eating Habits Environmentally Sustainable?
Most of us have consistent eating habits. We rely on the same collection of food products from the same collection of brands for most of our nutrition. Your eating habits have managed to keep you alive and healthy enough – but have you thought about whether your diet is environmentally sustainable?
While there are no set rules for what qualifies a food as “sustainable,” precisely, there are some easy measurements you can conduct to gauge whether your eating habits are environmentally sustainable.
Environmental Sustainability in Food
Environmental sustainability in food is a nuanced subject, and sometimes a controversial one. That’s because there are many potential things that could make a food more or less sustainable, and not everyone agrees on what the baseline requirements for sustainability should be.
Choosing a product with slightly less packaging than a rival brand is an example of making a sustainable decision, since you’ll be reducing your environmental impact, even if only slightly. But some environmentalists demand much more if you ever want to label yourself as a sustainable eater.
Rather than trying to neatly categorize eating habits and food choices into the binary categories of sustainable or not sustainable, we will be focusing on the most important factors to consider when evaluating the sustainability of your eating.
Your Brands
First, it’s a good idea to take a look at the brands that are responsible for creating and distributing your foods. Companies like Griffith Foods place sustainability at the core of their identity. For these types of companies, sustainability is a consideration with every food product they develop, and they do everything they can to practice sustainable agricultural methods, sustainable food product development, and even sustainable packaging and distribution.
For example, meat is almost always a less sustainable choice than a comparable plant product. That’s because livestock require significant plant matter for their growth and development, ultimately costing many calories of plant food for each calorie of meat food produced. Fruits and vegetables that are in season tend to be more sustainable than those that are not in season, since produce not in season usually needs to be shipped across vast distances before it reaches your store shelves.
Accordingly, it shouldn’t be hard to discern whether your favorite food brands are engaging in environmentally sustainable practices.
This doesn’t mean that you’re only allowed to eat foods that come from brands that have mass marketed themselves as sustainable – but it does mean you should consider doing your research before pledging brand loyalty to an institution.
Your Foods
You should also think about the individual foods that you’re buying. Some foods are much easier to develop than others. Foods that are difficult to develop tend to require more resources for their development, such as more water, more calories of energy, and even more fuel for shipment and distribution.
Fruits and vegetables that are in season tend to be more sustainable than those that are not in season, since produce not in season usually needs to be shipped across vast distances before it reaches your store shelves. It takes much more energy to create and transport produce items that aren’t in season.
Your Shopping Locations
Where are you getting your food? And where are those stores and restaurants getting their food? The closer you are to the source of the food, the better. It’s much better to shop a local farmer’s market, where you can see and engage with the people who grew your food locally, than it is to shop at a supermarket that is possibly pulling food from all over the world. An even better choice is to grow your own food whenever possible, utilizing your own backyard or indoor hydroponic gardens for at least some of your nutritional needs.
Food Waste
Your food sustainability also depends on how much food you’re wasting on average. Every year, consumers in the United States are estimated to discard 80 billion pounds of food, representing 30-40 percent of our total food supply. Smart planning and purchasing can help you avoid most of this food waste.
Packaging Waste
Less packaging is more sustainable. Think carefully about the foods you buy, and consider avoiding those that rely on multiple layers of plastic, paper, and other materials to protect your food.
So is your diet environmentally sustainable? That question is partially up to you. Sustainable eating has the potential to reduce your environmental impact, improve your personal wellness, and bring you personal satisfaction, but it’s also not a legal or ethical requirement.
However you feel about environmental sustainability, and however you feel about the food you eat on a regular basis, you should take the time to do your research and take a closer look at all the foods you intend to purchase.