Making the right food choices affects both you and the planet.

Is what you eat really that important? The answer is, of course, yes. That’s the easy bit. Explaining why, on the other hand, is much harder. Conversations about healthy eating can quickly get confusing – and personal. 

But it is possible to cut through the noise.

The key message here is: Making the right food choices affects both you and the planet.

First of all, what you choose to eat directly impacts your health. Biochemists and nutrition scientists agree that up to 80 percent of chronic diseases can be prevented through healthy lifestyle choices. Obviously, your diet plays a large role in this. 

But there’s more. What you buy at the supermarket also directly impacts the planet. Currently, the way we produce food is very harmful to our land, sea, and air. The food industry creates a lot of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide, which directly contribute to climate change.

We’re now producing more food than ever before, and it’s helping in the global battle against hunger. Over the last 23 years, the rate of hunger in developing countries has fallen by more than 10 percent. 

But we’re also wasting food on an epic scale. Every year, around 1.3 billion tons of perfectly edible food are thrown away. And it’s not just about vegetables and meat. It’s also a huge waste of money, resources, and energy.

So what does this all mean? Well, for one, we should be more aware of what we’re eating. And two, we need to be more mindful of how much food we need, where it comes from, and how it’s produced. Every time we buy food we’re making choices – and whether or not we’re consciously thinking about them, these choices reflect our personal values about the world we want to live in.

We theoretically know how to produce enough food to feed everyone on the planet. We also have the technology to build sustainable, eco-friendly food systems. So what are we waiting for? Now is the perfect time to reconsider the kind of food systems we’re supporting with our current food choices.