Swapping a Single Food Item per Day Can Make Diets Way More Planet-Friendly

Americans who eat beef could slash their diet’s carbon footprint by as much as 48 percent by swapping just one serving per day for a more planet-friendly alternative, according to a new study.

A Tulane study shows Americans can reduce their carbon footprint by 48% by substituting beef with poultry. This change could lower the overall U.S. dietary carbon footprint by 9.6%. Simple swaps like this, while impactful, should be part of broader climate efforts.

If your New Year’s resolution is to eat better for the planet, a new Tulane University study finds it may be easier than you think.

Americans who eat beef could slash their diet’s carbon footprint by as much as 48 percent by swapping just one serving per day for a more planet-friendly alternative, according to a new study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Real-World Data and Environmental Impact

Using real-world data from a survey of what more than 16,000 Americans eat in an average day, researchers from Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine and the University of Michigan calculated how much of a difference people could make if they swapped one high-impact food item for similar, more sustainable options. They examined how the change would impact two metrics — their daily diets’ greenhouse gas emissions and water scarcity footprint, a measure of the irrigated water used to produce the foods they eat that takes into account regional variations in water scarcity.

Significant Reduction by Swapping Beef

The highest impact item in Americans’ diet is beef and around 20 percent of survey respondents ate at least one serving of it in a day. If they collectively swapped one serving of beef — for example, choosing ground turkey instead of ground beef — their diets’ greenhouse gas emissions fell by an average of 48 percent and water-use impact declined by 30 percent.

Simple Changes Can Make a Big Difference

“People can make a significant difference in their carbon footprint with very simple changes — and the easiest one would be to substitute poultry for beef,” said lead author Diego Rose, a professor of nutrition and food security at Tulane University’s School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.

The study also examined how the change would affect the overall environmental impact of all food consumption in the U.S. in a day — including the 80 percent of diets without any changes. If only the 20 percent of Americans who ate beef in a day switched to something else for one meal, that would reduce the overall carbon footprint of all U.S. diets by 9.6 percent and reduce water-use impacts by 5.9 percent.

Agriculture and Environmental Metrics

Agricultural production accounts for about a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions and about 70 percent of global freshwater withdrawals. For the study, researchers built an extensive database of the greenhouse gas emissions and water use related to the production of foods and linked it to a large federal survey that asked people what they ate over a 24-hour period.

Impact of Swapping Other Foods

Although swapping beef had the greatest impact, they also measured the impact of changing other items. Replacing a serving of shrimp with cod reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 34 percent; replacing dairy milk with soymilk resulted in an 8 percent reduction.

Water Scarcity and Other Substitutions

The greatest reduction in the water scarcity footprint came from replacing asparagus with peas, resulting in a 48 percent decrease. Substituting peanuts in place of almonds decreased the water scarcity footprint by 30 percent.

Although individual substitutions were the focus of the study, Rose said that addressing climate change must involve more than singular actions.

Collective Efforts for Climate Change

“The changes needed to address our climate problems are major. They are needed across all sectors and along all levels of human organization from international agencies to federal and state governments to communities and households,” Rose said. “Many individuals feel strongly about this and wish to change our climate problem through direct actions that they can control. This, in turn, can change social norms about both the seriousness of the problem and the potential solutions that can address it. Our study provides evidence that even simple steps can assist in these efforts.”

Reference: “Single-item substitutions can substantially reduce the carbon and water scarcity footprints of US diets” by Donald Rose, Amelia M Willits-Smith and Martin C Heller, 13 January 2022, The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
DOI: 10.1093/ajcn/nqab338

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