By If we all did one thing, we could positively impact the planet
If we all made one small change, we could positively impact the planet. Part of my decision to become vegan/vego was to help create a sustainable environment and eliminate the need to kill more animals. Although I’m only one person making a difference, those who swap one meat meal daily do a great job. It’s not those large gestures that create change; we little guys here are trying to make a wave of change in our home. The planet as we know it is in dire straights. Look around you and notice the temperature and weather changes plaguing our world. In Sydney, we’ve seen an increase in flooding, not to mention those devastating bush fires just before the first wave of COVID hit. How can I forget the images of burnt koalas and wildlife crying out for help? It broke my heart. We can all do our bit to cut our small carbon footprint and encourage our family and loved ones to do the same. You can swap one serving per day for a more planet-friendly alternative. These findings are brought to you by The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. A survey of what more than 16k Americans ate during an average day then calculated how much of a difference people could make if they swapped one high-impact food item for similar, more sustainable options. Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine researchers bring these findings to you. The highest impact on the American diet was (no surprise) beef. Respondents ate beef at least once per day. In addition, research subjects swapped beef with ground turkey, and their greenhouse emissions fell by an average of 48 per cent, and water usage declined by 30 per cent. That’s a pretty startling percentage that one meal can make with the effort of one single person! If Americans would only substitute poultry for beef, they would reduce the overall carbon footprint of all US diets by 9.6 per cent while reducing water usage by 5.9 per cent. Some other carbon footprint swaps that help are the following:
- Replace shrimp with cod for a 34 per cent decline in greenhouse gas emissions
- Replace milk with soy for an 8% reduction
- Replace Asparagus with peas for a 48% reduction
- Replace peanuts with almonds for a 30 per cent reduction
If you feel strongly about making sustainable changes to decrease your footprint, then adopt those changes above and start spreading the word to your sphere of friends and family. What about setting up a workplace greenhouse emissions game, where we have to be sustainable at home and in the office. Please check out the following paper to read more about this.
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