Skip to main content

Good for you, Good for the Earth

As we prepare to celebrate Earth Month in April and Stop Food Waste Day on April 27th, many of us will focus on making choices that improve the health of our planet. An added bonus is that several of the strategies that shrink our carbon footprint can also help improve our health.

Shrink (or Share) Your Portions Starting with smaller portions has been shown to decrease the amount we eat – saving us important calories. Smaller portions also tend to decrease the amount of food we end up throwing away. This strategy is a win-win for the planet that both reduces waste and reduces the demands of producing more food than we really need. When eating out, if smaller portions aren’t available, share dishes with friends. You’ll get to taste a variety of foods without the added calories or waste.

Choose More Plants
Plant foods like fruits, vegetables and grains require substantially less energy, land and water to produce than do animal foods like beef and eggs. Reducing how often you eat resource demanding animal products is a great way to contribute to a more sustainable food system. Replacing some of the animal foods in your diet with plant choices is also a great way to improve your health by increasing health promoting nutrients like fiber and reducing those associated with disease risk such as saturated fat.

Plan Ahead
Last minute food decisions often lead to the “my eyes were bigger than my stomach” result. Planning ahead can help ensure better choices for your well-being, and that of the planet. Meal planning for the week prevents waste and keeps your nutrition goals in check. Create a meal plan for the week, have a grocery list ready and only shop for the things you need. Some stores have apps with built in lists that automatically sort by area of the store.

Small changes add up to make a big difference in the fight against food waste! Ready to commit?
Take the pledge to make every day stop food waste day – visit StopFoodWasteDay.com

RESOURCES:
1. Freedman MR, Brochado C. Reducing portion size reduces food intake and plate waste. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2010 Sep;18(9):1864-6.

Written by Jennifer M. Roberts, MS, RD.
April 2018

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

4 Tips To Avoid Stress Eating During Finals

It's the week of finals and suddenly there's so much to do and not enough time to do it. With projects, papers, studying, all-nighters, and early wake-ups, indulging in your favorite (and maybe not so good for you) foods seems like the perfect way to relieve some of that finals stress. When we turn to food to relive stress, it tends to be food that comforts us and makes us feel good, which a lot of times is a carton of ice cream, a slice of pizza, or your favorite piece (or bag) of candy. The truth is, finals may not only be a stressful time of the semester but a time where weight gain occurs in stressed out students. The combination of a large amount of sedentary time studying and test taking, little to no exercise, and stressful or late-night eating is a recipe for weight gain. Another truth is that we may not even recognize that we are in fact stress eating due to being completely preoccupied. So how do we avoid this stress eating before it takes place? Here are four tips to...

To Juice or Not To Juice?

Depending on who you talk to, juice is either part of the latest health trend or on the list of things to avoid. Understanding what juice does and doesn’t offer can help you decide if it is right for you. The Up Side: Fruits and vegetables offer a variety of health-promoting nutrients, many of which are still available in the juice squeezed from them. Juices can be a convenient and tasty way to get those nutrients. Juices also offer a way to get fruits and vegetables that you may not usually eat in the whole form. For example, cranberry juice is a popular alternative to whole cranberries and a great way to get some important antioxidants. People who don’t normally eat spinach may find that when juiced with other vegetables and fruit, they enjoy it. The Down Side: With about 50-115 calories per cup, fruit and vegetable juices are not low calorie drinks. For that reason, drinking a lot of juice could potentially make weight management more difficult. Research suggests that people who dri...

Plant Forward

A New Way of Eating There’s a relatively new term buzzing around the food world that you may or may not have heard of, plant forward. What does that mean you ask? Plant forward focuses on more vegetable centric dishes with meat playing more of a supporting role. Think blended burgers, stir-fry’s or grain bowls where meat is almost like a condiment. Flavors are bold and it’s all about the dish’s deliciousness whether it happens to be vegan or vegetarian, or not. Diners aren’t interested in completely removing meat from their diets so embracing a diet that is mostly plants with some meat here and there provides a comfortable middle ground. The Challenge with Red Meat Conventional animal agriculture is resource intense and less than stellar for the environment. Ruminant animals release methane gas into the atmosphere which is about twenty five times more intense than carbon dioxide. Let’s face it, our country’s enormous appetite for beef is not so great for our health and the heal...