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What you do on a daily basis-how you live, what you drive and what you buy-can make a difference in the environment around you. It’s no surprise that a message stressing the importance of reducing your carbon footprint is spreading, and more people are looking for easier ways to be less destructive to the Earth.
Try This:7-Day Vegan Meal Plan: 1,200 Calories
How a Plant-Based Diet Impacts the Earth
Three times each day, you have the choice of what to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Through these seemingly small decisions, ranging from asking for almond milk in your latte to asking for no bacon on your salad, you have the ability to impact the environment in meaningful, sometimes dramatic, ways.
“We have to be mindful of our activities. Eating is something everyone on the planet does, and everybody has the ability to have some control over it,” says Joan Sabaté, M.D., Dr.P.H., a professor of nutrition and epidemiology at Loma Linda University who also directs the school’s environmental nutrition research program, which focuses on the impact human diets have on the planet. “A plant-based diet as opposed to a meat diet uses much less natural resources to produce.”
Try These:Veggie-Packed Vegetarian Meals
A decade ago, the United Nationsreportedthat meat production produces more greenhouse gas emissions than the entire transportation industry, and recommended governments set targets for reducing meat consumption.
A Less-Meat Approach Is Helpful Too
If you like the idea of eating greener but you’re not keen to give up all meat and animal products, don’t worry. You can still help the environment without removing entire food groups.
“The good thing is that it is not an all-or-nothing endeavor,“Sabaté says. “Reductions in meat consumption, whether in frequency or amount, have benefits.”
Read More:9 Healthy Tips to Help You Start Eating a Vegan Diet
The Health Benefits of a Plant-Based Diet
If you’re on the fence about reducing your meat consumption, then consider taking the plunge for another important reason: yourself.
“[Plant-based diets] may lower the risk of certain diseases, such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease and certain cancers,” Sabaté says.Benefitsof going vegan can include weight loss, better heart health and an overall longer lifespan. The Mediterranean diet has very similarbenefitsto veganism, with the added bonus of it boosting brain health and providing anti-inflammatory properties.
How to Start Eating Less Meat
To keep your meat consumption in check, for the health of the planet and yourself, you can implement one or more of these strategies:
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