Eating to fight climate change

Many of us feel there’s little or nothing that we can personally do to fight climate change, and that sense of helplessness can make things worse. But it turns out that one thing we could do would have a major impact, and yet it’s actually quite simple: Change our diet.

The video above from Vox is part of a growing series of videos produced with other organisations, in this case, UCLA’s Climate Lab. This particular video, the most recent in the series, looks at how eating a more vegetable-based diet can dramatically cut the amount of greenhouse gases a beef-based diet would create.

But it’s actually not that hard to do. To paraphrase Maya Almaraz, a postdoctoral researcher at University of California , Davis, who is featured in the video, all the things we’re being told are good for us are also good for the planet. In fact, one of the best options for most people is the so-called “Mediterranean Diet”, which is often prescribed by doctors for heart health.

I was introduced to the Mediterranean Diet following my hospital adventure and have been following its principles most of the time. There’s still room to improve, and although we generally have red meat only once a week, we could cut that back even more, and eat more entirely vegetarian options, too.

Up until now, the dietary changes I made were mostly to keep my heart healthy and to prevent any future problems developing. Now, I have the added incentive that it could help the planet. That’s a pretty good deal all around.