{"id":29208,"date":"2019-01-24T16:14:27","date_gmt":"2019-01-24T21:14:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/?p=29208"},"modified":"2022-03-16T09:45:40","modified_gmt":"2022-03-16T13:45:40","slug":"eat-veggies-it-will-make-you-and-the-earth-healthier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/eat-veggies-it-will-make-you-and-the-earth-healthier\/","title":{"rendered":"Eat Veggies! It Will Make You and The Earth Healthier"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eating a diet of poultry, whole grains and vegetables isn\u2019t just beneficial to your health; it is also better for the environment!<\/p>\n

By assessing the carbon footprint of what more than 16,000 individuals consume in a day, researchers from Tulane University and the University of Michigan have found that environmentally-conscious eaters also have healthier diets<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“People whose diets had a lower carbon footprint were eating less red meat and dairy — which contribute to a larger share of greenhouse gas emissions and are high in saturated fat — and consuming more healthful foods like poultry, whole grains and plant-based proteins,” Diego Rose<\/a>, a professor of nutrition and food security at Tulane University’s School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine and lead author of the study, said in a statement.<\/p>\n

This research comes at a pivotal time, as the world is in desperate need to find sustainable ways to limit greenhouse gas emissions.<\/p>\n

\u201cGlobal climate change is real and happening much faster than scientists originally suspected,\u201d Rose said. \u201cLivestock alone accounts for 14 percent of worldwide emissions, with beef and dairy contributing the majority of this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Encouraging people to eat less red meat and dairy would lead to a healthier earth and population.<\/p>\n

The study<\/b><\/h2>\n

To conduct the study, the researchers built an extensive database showing the unique carbon footprints of many different types of foods. By linking this information with data from a nationwide survey that asked people what they ate over a 24-hour period, the researchers were able to calculate the greenhouse gas emissions created by different people\u2019s diets.<\/p>\n

They then ranked the diets by the amount of greenhouse gas emissions per 1,000 calories consumed. They also rated the nutritional value of the foods using the U.S. Healthy Eating Index.<\/p>\n

They concluded that Americans who ate diets with the lowest carbon footprint were also eating healthy.<\/p>\n

However, there are a couple of outliers. Some foods, such as sugars and refined grains, carry a small carbon footprint, but they aren\u2019t as healthy.<\/p>\n

A paper describing the full study is published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What can be done on college campuses?<\/b><\/h2>\n

As pioneers pledged to educate upcoming generations of people, colleges and universities have a responsibility to encourage environmentally friendly eating habits.<\/p>\n

\u201cStudents can raise awareness of these issues among themselves and among those that run the campus dining halls,\u201d said Rose.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are many interesting ways to get involved,\u201d he continued. \u201cFor example, in the Tulane University dining halls, they started to offer vegan and vegetarian stations, where students who were motivated by these concerns would have tasty and healthy options.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tulane isn\u2019t the only school that has taken action.<\/p>\n

Dining halls at other universities have started making more dishes with chicken instead of beef and serving blended burgers, which include 80 percent beef and 20 percent mushroom, Rose said.<\/p>\n

\u201cConsumers can’t tell the difference, but the end product is healthier and more climate-friendly,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n

On a larger scale, the World Resources Institute has started The Cool Food Pledge<\/a>, an initiative that dining services at schools, hospitals and other public facilities can sign on to in order to mitigate climate change.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s next?<\/b><\/h2>\n

The researchers\u2019 work isn\u2019t over.<\/p>\n

In future research, they plan to test how much water usage different diets require, and they will look at the effects of the simple solutions consumers can make to limit their individual carbon footprints, Rose said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we can find simple changes that make a difference, we’re hoping that they would be more likely to be adopted,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eating a diet of poultry, whole grains and vegetables isn\u2019t just beneficial to your health; it is also better for the environment! By assessing the carbon footprint of what more than 16,000 individuals consume in a day, researchers from Tulane University and the University of Michigan have found that environmentally-conscious eaters also have healthier diets. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":45274,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[661,662,620,641,233,665,678,622,230,229,520,521,522,243],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ace-college","category-ace-high-school","category-body","category-climate-change","category-sustainable","category-health-wellness","category-health-wellness-ace-high-school","category-nutrition","category-news","category-lead-stories","category-university-of-michigan-ann-arbor","category-university-of-michigan-dearborn","category-university-of-michigan-flint","category-health"],"aioseo_notices":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/veggies.jpg",830,533,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/veggies-224x144.jpg",224,144,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/veggies-300x193.jpg",300,193,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/veggies.jpg",830,533,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/veggies.jpg",830,533,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/veggies.jpg",830,533,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/veggies.jpg",830,533,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Jackson Schroeder","author_link":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/author\/jackson-schroeder\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Eating a diet of poultry, whole grains and vegetables isn\u2019t just beneficial to your health; it is also better for the environment! By assessing the carbon footprint of what more than 16,000 individuals consume in a day, researchers from Tulane University and the University of Michigan have found that environmentally-conscious eaters also have healthier diets.…","featured_media_src_url":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/veggies.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29208\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}