Taking actions that influence on the climate crisis requires structural measures, but there are also spaces where we can contribute in our day-to-day lives. What we eat is one of these spaces, as some options have much less impact than others.
Plant-centered. More so, switching to plant-centered or plant based nutrition would help further. For example, local, organic, mushrooms, pulses, and vegetables are great sources of nutrition and proteins and have one of the lowest impacts on the planet.
Damage to the environment. Our current food systems are taking a significant toll on the environment. These systems, including the production, processing and transport of all our food, are responsible for between 20% and 35% of greenhouse gas emissions, meaning our food system is a key driver of climate change and all its knock-on consequences. Research shows that food production of meat and animal products, for example, is one of the most impactful, and therefore its steady reduction would make a positive significant impact.
Food is cultural and affective. Learning about the origin of our foods can help us re-contextualize how we understand our current eating patters, rethinking our connection to hegemonic, consumer-oriented diets, and finding new paths.
Excessive food waste is also contributing to the climate crisis. About 6% to 8% of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced if we stopped wasting food. That’s because of the wasted emissions used to produce and transport the food that then doesn’t get used — as well as the emissions produced by rotting food sent to landfill. Buying more food that we can consume, and getting to consume it at the right time before it spoils, is one of many reasons that contributes to food waste. We can also learn how to better store used items and discover ways to use old foods to create new meals. In this way, we help ensure that food is more abundant and, at the same time, we are helping to mitigate the food shortage crisis.
Our future food supply is uncertain. Food production is a key driver of climate change and biodiversity losses, both issues could, in turn, threaten our future food security a measure of the availability of food and individuals' ability to access it. The biodiversity that is crucial for our food and agriculture is disappearing by the day.
Eating balanced is not just about incorporating the right combination of vitamins, minerals, proteins and fats in our foods. It also means balancing our needs with our impact on the planet. Research shows that eliminating foods, or even reducing meat and dairy, is one of the best ways to reduce our impact on the planet.
Social change. That said, things that appear to be simple are not necessarily easy. If we are struggling on social assistance or a minimum-wage job, if we are low-income parents, if one doesn’t have adequate cooking facilities or anyone to share a meal with, if one is managing a chronic disease or trying to prevent one, eating well can often seem out of reach. Community meals and cooking programs can reduce some of the barriers that stand in the way of making healthy changes.
Changing eating habits require changes to our food environments. In the words of West, it requires to think in parallel of “the collective physical, economic, policy and sociocultural surroundings, opportunities and conditions that influence people’s food and beverage choices and nutritional status.” It means proposing measures that support individuals and groups of people fostering opportunities of addressing the food dilemma both personally and collectively. Such changes could also pay attention to communal solutions for eating.
Hegemonic diets. This could mean as well, as Laborde reminds us, rethinking what is called the ‘Western’ diet and how it is based on an abundance of meat products and processed foods, refined sugars, saturated fats and carbohydrates. Further, this diet is also connected to the experience of the tastes of other worlds. The satisfaction of this desire has increasingly become an adventure of the self, into which people invest their money, their cultural capital, and above all the search for their own identity. For this purpose of experience, shipping foods around the world became a possibility that was opened with the colonial project. Something which was sedimented in what Haraway and Tsing describe as the Plantationocene. Nevertheless, these food practices leave an enormous ecological footprint.
Other practices of eating. And yet, these practices that we have become well accustomed to have not always been so. And so, it is worth rethinking our diets, letting ourselves be inspired by other ways of eating. Keeping what works from our current practices, and reducing forms of eating that ultimately harm us all.
Interdependence. Finally, eating implies engulfing the bodies and matter of other beings, and in that sense, it is a reminder that we need others to survive. But also, that their production of life through the form of fruits and produce, is work. This perspective, can help us to think of the social life and contribution of non-human beings and with it, of our interdependence to survive.
🌱 Demand political and social structures that assure that food that is free of harmful pesticides, that is sourced locally, and that is conducive to less greenhouse gas emissions, is available to all. Food systems and eating practices for a good-life for all.
🌱 Reduce consumption of animal products.
🌱 Consume food that is free from pesticides.
🌱 Consume food that requires less transport wherever possible to reduce food mileage.
🌱 Avoid excessive food waste and spoilage.
🌱 Make natural, whole foods, or minimally processed foods the basis of your diet.
🌱 Center eating around pulses, mushrooms, whole grains, nuts, vegetables, and fruits.
🌱 Use oils, fats, salt, and sugar in small amounts when seasoning and cooking.
🌱 Eat regularly and whenever possible, in company.
🌱 Develop, exercise and share cooking skills.
🌱 Plan your time to make food and eating important in your life.
🌱 Acknowledge the work of life-reproduction of plants.