Healthy Low CO2 Diet

Changing your diet for whatever reason can be challenging as well as satisfying and rewarding. Food is an emotional issue, it's essential to everyday life, its connected to how we socialise and the general routine of each day. Whether you change your eating habits because of a food intolerance, to lose weight or to become more eco friendly it's useful to make realistic changes, start small and build on the changes you do manage. Here are some simple guidelines....

Use the food pyramid, the food pyramid is as useful for a low carbon diet as for a health diet. Which is good!!! Changing your diet to a low carbon one is actually a healthy choice. So if you want you could just follow this one rule and you would make some decent steps towards a low carbon diet. Reduce the amount of meat, fish and dairy you eat. Cows burp methane (it's not their fault!!), methane is a greenhouse gas which contributes to climate change. Plus we feed grains to farm animals, but to grow grain first of all we chop down rainforest to make space for the grain!!! Bad news for the planet as the trees release carbon as they decay. Add on the food miles and emissions from storing, refrigerating, processing and packaging all this stuff and you get the picture!!! Opt for local food where possible, if it's imported it's better to avoid air freighted food, even if it’s organic. Buy seasonal. Seasonal food will not need to be stored or refrigerated as long as out of season food will, plus it's likely to be fresher.

Buy organic. Organic is good for so many reasons, less reliant on fossil fuels because it is pesticide and oil based fertiliser free. Organic farming supports biodiversity and has better animal welfare standards. It tastes so good!!! Grow your own, or if you can't do that join the student veg garden and grow there or get your weekly vegbag from the Vegbag Cooperative! Growing your own is as local as you can get. Walk or cycle to the shop, its not that far :)

Interested in finding out more about the impact your food choices? Come along to one of our Carbon Conversations meetings. Carbon Conversations is 6 meetings about climate change, one of the sessions is focused completely on food and water. It’s a chance to talk about the issues and the type of practical changes you can make to reduce your footprint. 

Email climatechangeproject@abdn.ac.uk for more info.