I’m not a perfect role model for a healthy or sustainable diet.
Posted on September, 25, 2024 at 03:14 am
I’m not a perfect role model for a healthy or sustainable diet.
I know I should eat more fruits and veggies and less red meat. Once, a climate team colleague reporting on the massive greenhouse emissions that come from beef emphatically told me: “Cows are the coal of food.”
So I was reassured to learn from a team of respected scientists that you don’t have to quit meat cold turkey to help the planet and improve your own health. You don’t even have to swear off burgers.
The biggest change most people would have to make is eating some more legumes, nuts and whole grains.
That’s according to a team of medical researchers, environmental scientists and policy experts who crafted a loose set of food guidelines they call the “Planetary Health Diet.” If everyone ate this way, scientists say it would shave about 5 percent off global greenhouse emissions and prevent more than 7 million premature deaths per year from illnesses such as heart disease and diabetes.
“If consumers were to adjust their diet … that would have huge implications on carbon emissions and climate change,” said Klaus Hubacek, a Dutch environmental scientist who was not involved in designing the Planetary Health Diet, but published a paper estimating food-related emissions would fall by a sixth if people followed it.
Here’s how you can work these guidelines into your weekly meal plan — and a round up of recipes that can help you get started.
First off, this isn’t a fad diet designed to help you lose weight or gain a six-pack. A team of scientists assembled by the Lancet, one of the world’s top medical research journals, and a Norwegian food science nonprofit called EAT, came up with these guidelines after reviewing reams of medical and environmental research.
They had three goals: They wanted to find a way to feed the billions of people on Earth, while minimizing environmental damage and limiting deaths from diabetes, heart disease and other diet-related illnesses.
They found that people — especially in North America — eat an unhealthy amount of red meat and don’t get enough protein from nuts and legumes such as lentils, beans and peas. They also found that people eat too many starchy vegetables like potatoes, and not enough whole grains.
The scientists came up with guidelines on how many calories should come from each food group in a day. But they stress that these ranges are flexible, and that people can work within them to eat food that makes sense for their culture and circumstances.
“This is a flexitarian diet,” said Fabrice DeClerck, EAT’s chief science officer. “It’s going to vary if you’re a marathoner versus a pregnant woman versus a 5-year-old child.”
The researchers aren’t trying to stop anyone from eating a hamburger. But DeClerck said it would be healthier for you, and better for the planet, if you limit your red meat consumption to about a burger a week. (Americans, on average, consume more than a pound of beef a week, according to USDA data — which is enough for about three burgers.)
Throughout the rest of the week, he said, you might have poultry two or three times and fish two or three times. That’s about half your lunches and dinners. For the other half, he said, you should try to get your protein from legumes and nuts.
You can get a sense of what this looks like from a week’s worth of recipes that EAT published on its website.
But to give you some more inspiration, we asked The Washington Post’s food team to dig up their favorite recipes that highlight legumes, nuts and whole grains, the food groups people tend not to eat enough.
Legumes, including beans, lentils, peas and soy, are a good source of protein, according to the researchers. Eating legumes is correlated with lower cholesterol, blood pressure and risk of coronary heart disease compared to red meat.
Aside from these health benefits, legumes are also delicious in chili, pastas, casseroles and soups:
Source: Washington Post