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Environmental
concerns affect some eaters
August 17, 2006
Suzanne Havala Hobbs
Do
environmental concerns affect your food choices?
Last week I examined how ethical or moral issues inform some
people’s decisions about what to eat. For a growing
number of people, environmental issues also play a part in
determining what to put on the dinner plate.
Two new books, both written by well-known consumer advocates
with substantial expertise in the areas of diet and health,
examine some of the issues – and point to ways we can
improve our health and the health of our planet through our
food choices.
In “Six Arguments for a Greener Diet,” Michael
Jacobson, director of the consumer group Center for Science
in the Public Interest, looks at the evidence linking diet,
health, and environment, as well as food and agriculture policies
and animal welfare.
He advocates a “greener” diet centered around
fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts and beans, and less
emphasis on animal products.
Among his reasons for “going green” with your
diet:
* You’ll lower your risk for cancer, heart disease and
diabetes and be healthier overall. According to Jacobson,
the saturated fat and cholesterol in beef, pork, dairy products,
poultry and eggs cause more than 63,000 fatal heart attacks
each year.
* You’ll lessen your chance of foodborne illness. Animal
products carry most of the bacteria and viruses that cause
life-threatening foodborne infections, and factory-farms increase
the risk of flu epidemics. The government’s food safety
system is “perpetually underfunded and riddled with
holes,” he points out.
* You’ll help preserve the soil. Feed crops for livestock
deplete topsoil and cause erosion. Half of the fertilizer
produced in the U.S. is used on crops fed to livestock, and
the energy used to make the fertilizer could otherwise provide
power for one million Americans every year, Jacobson says.
* Eating green would result in more and cleaner water. Jacobson
notes that agriculture uses about 80 percent of the freshwater
in the U.S., and fertilizers, antibiotics, pesticides, manure,
and soil from eroded land pollute the water.
* Green food equals cleaner air. Livestock manure and fertilizer
are the largest sources of noxious ammonia releases. Methane
gas produced by livestock and manure in the year 2000 contributed
as much to global warming as the carbon dioxide produced by
33 million cars.
* A green diet is a kinder diet. While the book doesn’t
push a vegetarian diet for everyone, it does make the case
for policies and practices that would reduce the suffering
of animals raised for food.
It ends with recommendations for individuals who want to change
their diets as well as suggestions for government policies
that would support a greener national lifestyle.
Take this short but thought-provoking online quiz to find
out how green your diet is: http://www.cspinet.org/EatingGreen/score.html.
Where “Six Arguments” ends, Marion Nestle’s
“What to Eat” begins, with practical guidance
on choosing foods. The book’s subtitle, “An Aisle-by-Aisle
Guide to Savvy Food Choices and Good Eating,” explains
what this book is: a tour of the supermarket that takes readers
from the produce section and the meat and dairy cases to the
packaged food shelves in the middle. The book tells you what
to put into your basket and why.
Like Jacobson, Nestle helps put into perspective a wide range
of factors to consider in deciding what to buy, including
taste, cost, health, and social and environmental issues.
Readers get help deciphering food labels, making sense of
nutrition and health claims, assessing portion sizes and understanding
the politics and policies that affect what we eat.
Read more about Nestle’s book at http://www.foodpolitics.com/index.htm.
If you wonder what you can do to help our planet, give more
thought to what you eat. Both “Six Arguments for a Greener
Diet” and “What to Eat” can help.
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