Every food should be enjoyed in moderation, except for food allergies or religious diets. A lifetime of eating intuitively and prioritizing whole foods is possible with this mindset.
In the August 2021 issue of Nature Food, a new study found that if you replace beef and processed meats with fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes, and fish, you can reduce your daily carbon footprint by 33% and gain 48 minutes of “healthy time.”
Scientists at the University of Michigan classified 5,800 foods into three categories: “red zone” (low nutritional value and high environmental impact), “yellow zone” (in the middle) and “green zone” (high nutritional value and low environmental impact) (beneficial nutritionally and little negative environmental impact). A few seafood items, along with processed meats, are in the green zone.
Each food was scored according to its dietary risk factors, including healthy and unhealthy nutrients, and how that influenced disease risk. “They used the score to calculate the minutes per food serving.”
According to the researchers, consuming a hot dog “costs 36 minutes of healthy life.” A 1-ounce serving of nuts can add 26 minutes to your day.
“They assigned a high, medium, or low impact score to each of the 18 environmental factors they evaluated. The’red’ or high-impact category was defined as more than 3.2 minutes lost per serving, while the intermediate was defined as 0 to 3.2 minutes lost per serving, and so on, “Ball enlarges.” Then they added up the nutrition and environmental scores. There are some general conclusions about food and health for people and animals that may not be applicable to everyone “” Planet.
I think it’s important to stress “applicable to everyone.” It depends on how hungry you are and how much sodium you need. Also, about 1% of Americans are allergic to tree nuts, making them a bad choice for them. Also, genetics, smoking status, physical activity levels, and other lifestyle choices all affect life expectancy.
Eating more plant-based foods and less meat is good for us and the planet. (If you’re interested, here are 9 foods linked to longevity.)
Dr. Katerina Stylianou, a researcher, told University of Michigan News that dietary recommendations “generally lack specific and actionable direction to motivate people to change their behavior.” “Plant-based vs. animal-based foods has been a common theme in previous research. However, both plant-based and animal-based foods perform well. “
Using these findings, the researchers propose:
Eating less highly processed meats, such as beef, shrimp, pork, lamb, and greenhouse-grown vegetables, which cause health and environmental harm,
Eating more nutritious foods like field-grown fruits and vegetables, legumes, nuts, and low-impact seafood will help reduce your carbon footprint.
Professor of environmental health sciences at the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health, Olivier Jolliet, Ph.D. No major dietary changes are required to achieve significant health and environmental benefits, according to our findings.
Less beef and bacon and more broccoli and beans would be beneficial to all. Enjoy these healthy habits to help you live to 100 years old while we wait for more research on nutrition, the environment and lifespan.