You don't need to sacrifice your favorite dishes!
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| | | | The holidays are here again, which means I'm back to my annual struggle of trying to figure out what to eat on Thanksgiving and Christmas. The thing is, I really enjoy the traditional holiday fare — turkey, gravy, pies — but most (if not all) of it contains animal products, which tend to be much more resource-intensive to produce than plant-based foods. And I prefer to eat a sustainable diet as often as I can. | | So, in hopes of decreasing my holiday dinner carbon footprint as much as possible while still enjoying the foods I love, I looked into some achievable sustainability practices. Below, I share what I found. | | | | Eat up!
Ginger Wojcik
Newsletter Editor, Healthline | | | | |
| |  | | Written by Ginger Wojcik
November 15, 2024 • 3 min read | | | | | | | |
| |  | | | How to eat more sustainably this holiday season | | As you might know by now, raising animals for food requires large amounts of land and water. It also contributes to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions — the driving force behind the climate crisis — through animal feed, manure, and methane. | | On the other hand, minimally processed plant foods like vegetables, fruits, legumes, whole grains, and olive oil tend to have much lower environmental impacts. | | It's for this reason that one year on Thanksgiving, I skipped the turkey and ham and made a lentil loaf instead. Lentil loaf is exactly what it sounds like: a loaf made mostly from lentils. Although it was totally edible, it lacked the grandeur of a perfectly roasted turkey, to say the least. | Luckily, there are some measures you can take to eat more sustainably without giving up animal products altogether. - Limit lamb and beef: According to 2022 research, these types of meat had the most significant environmental impact.
- Buy local: Farmers' markets are a great way to meet producers from your region without straying more than a few miles from home.
- Choose meats that are grass-fed or pasture-raised: Although these cows may have higher lifetime methane emissions than conventionally raised cattle, the overall impacts on the local ecosystem are much lower — and potentially even positive.
- Invest in a meat share: Local farms may offer meat shares that let you purchase and pick up a package of sustainably raised meat each week, month, or quarter.
- Eat smaller portions of meat: Experiment with making meals that are mostly plant-based but feature small amounts of meat. This could look like salads with beans as the main protein source plus a few slices of chicken or stir-fries with plenty of veggies and grains and a small amount of beef.
- Focus on adding new plant foods to your diet rather than restricting meat: Look for plant-forward recipes and make it a goal to try a new dish each week. Want some ideas? Check out Healthline's Recipe Hub!
Other ways to consider the environment are to shop for sustainably grown fruits and veggies from a local farm or small business. This means they avoid using potentially harmful pesticides and fertilizers during the production process, which can support the healthfulness of your food, improve soil quality, and better protect local wildlife and plants. | | You can also aim to minimize food waste by calculating how much food you will need to feed everyone (and how many leftovers you might actually eat before you need to throw them out). This can help reduce unnecessary spending and wasted resources at the same time! | | 🎤 Over to you. How do you mitigate the environmental impact of the food you eat? Let us know at wellnesswire@healthline.com. (Heads-up: We might use your response in an upcoming newsletter.) | | | | | | |
| | | | Stay warm | | | | | | |  | | GiNT 34Oz Thermal Coffee Carafe | | I live in a rustic old building with single-paned windows and minimal insulation, so it tends to be chilly, especially in the mornings. This inevitably means that when I make coffee, it cools down way faster than I want it to. And there's nothing I dislike more than a lukewarm cup of coffee. To protect myself against that injustice, I like to put my coffee in this insulated carafe after I make it. My drink stays hot (and I mean hot) for hours. It also comes in handy when camping or hosting a house full of people. | | | Every product we recommend has gone through either Healthline's or Optum Store's vetting processes. If you buy through links on this page, we may receive a small commission or other tangible benefit. Healthline has sole editorial control over this newsletter. Potential uses for the products listed here are not health claims made by the manufacturers. Healthline and Optum Store are owned by RVO Health. | | | | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | *It can not be combined with your health insurance. Healthline and Optum Perks are owned by RVO Health. By using this Optum Perks service, we may receive a tangible benefit. | | | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | Thanks for reading, everyone! Morgan will be back on Monday with some ingredient swaps to make healthier desserts. See you then! | | | | | | |
