Sustainable Eating: The Big Three
No one likes to be told what to eat. What we put into our own mouths to grow our own bodies is the most personal of choices.
At the same time, what we eat and drink doesn’t just affect our own bodies—most of us don’t grow and brew everything we consume. Collectively, our diet choices have a profound influence on many people’s livelihoods and planetary well being.
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Drink More Water
Carbonated beverages were invented before the war. Long before World War II. Before the First World War. Before the Civil War. In fact, before the Revolutionary War!
By the 17th century, Parisian street vendors were selling a noncarbonated version of lemonade, and cider certainly wasn't all that hard to come by but the first drinkable man-made glass of carbonated water wasn't invented until the 1760s.
In 1970, plastic bottles for soft drinks were introduced. This innovation allowed the industry to grow to almost incomprehensible size. In 2023, the soft drink industry was estimated to generate $328,100,000,000 in revenue in the United States, and $850,000,000,000 worldwide. By comparison, the global solar power industry is expected to reach $373,840,000,000 in revenue by 2029. In other words, we spend almost three times as much to drink flavored sugar water than we do to solarize our energy supply.
One of the appeals of carbonated beverages is that they are an affordable luxury product. No one needs carbonation in their beverages, but it’s fun. Tap water is boring.
I admit that even though I know how much money I can save and waste I can prevent by refilling my stainless steel water bottle or serving filtered water at family meals at home, it’s hard to avoid the temptation to enjoy a sugary, caffeinated or alcoholic beverage from time to time.
I’ve found that adding ice cubes and a squeeze and wedge of fresh lime or lemon really helps me stay on track with plain old water, making it a little more exciting. And reserving a glass of wine, beer or even lemonade for special occasions makes it all the more enjoyable and meaningful when I choose to splurge and pay 3,000% more than tap water to meet my hydration needs.
Eat More Plants
Broadly speaking, eating more plants means eating algae (including seaweed), grass seeds (including corn and wheat), tree and ground nuts, leaves, roots and tubers, fruits and flowers. There’s a lot of variety in the plant kingdom.
Many lines of evidence suggest that a plant-based diet is a healthy one for most people. It is also planet healthy for a simple reason: all food on Earth comes from plants. If you eat an animal or a fungus, that organism has had to eat another animal, fungus, or plant to grow. It’s more efficient for us to eat the plants directly rather than indirectly.
Efficiency is a big deal because that means we can grow more food in less time for less money on less land using less fertilizer less labor and less money, leaving more of everything for other pursuits, such as reading and writing articles like this one.
What happens when you eat more plants? In general, you eat less fish, meat, eggs and dairy. And you tend to save money. My son just returned from study abroad and found himself short on cash while traveling through the airport. He discovered that in terms of calories per Euro, it’s hard to beat peanuts.
Avoid Beef
By most measures, beef has by far the worst sustainability score of any commonly eaten food.
The most important insight[…]: there are massive differences in the [greenhouse gas] GHG emissions of different foods: producing a kilogram of beef emits 60 kilograms of greenhouse gases (CO2-equivalents). While peas emits just 1 kilogram per kg.
Overall, animal-based foods tend to have a higher footprint than plant-based. Lamb and cheese both emit more than 20 kilograms CO2-equivalents per kilogram. Poultry and pork have lower footprints but are still higher than most plant-based foods, at 6 and 7 kg CO2-equivalents, respectively.
People who grow cattle, not surprisingly, are keen to find ways to market beef as sustainable. Groups like The Nature Conservancy are devoting resources to help the beef industry improve its sustainability. These efforts have a very long way to go. In the meantime, with the resources required to make one real beef hamburger, we could make ten plant-based Impossible burgers.
What About…
Focusing on just three big ideas might seem too easy if you’ve spent much time in the trenches with the vegan vanguard. Let me know what diet works for you, and if you’d like me to dive deeper into the rich dirt of sustainable agriculture in future articles.
Thanks for reading Fred Horch's Field Notes for Sustainability! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.