Curbing carbon emissions and eating healthier may start at the dinner table. Just changing your eating habits - using chicken instead of beef and plant-based milk instead of cow's milk - can greatly reduce carbon emissions and increase the healthiness of your diet. Making simple substitutions, such as switching from beef to chicken or drinking plant-based milk instead of cow's milk, could reduce the average American's food carbon footprint by 35% while improving diet quality by 4-10%, according to a new study co-authored by a Tulane University researcher and published in the journal Nature Food.

The findings highlight the potential of the "small change" approach, which researchers believe could encourage more consumers to adopt climate-friendly eating habits. Food production accounts for 25-33% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions, with beef production being the main source.

"This study shows that reducing carbon emissions from your diet can be done and it doesn't necessarily require changing your entire lifestyle," said Diego Rose, the study's senior author and director of the nutrition program at Tulane University's School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. "It can be as simple as ordering a chicken burrito instead of a beef burrito when you're dining out," says Diego Rose. "When you're shopping at the grocery store, move your hands and reach for soy milk or almond milk instead of cow's milk. That's a small change that can make a big difference."

The study analyzed dietary data from more than 7,700 Americans to identify commonly eaten foods that have the greatest climate impact and modeled replacing those foods with nutritionally similar, lower-emitting foods.

"For us, substitutions include swapping a beef burger for a turkey burger, rather than swapping a steak for a tofu hot dog," said first author Anna Grammon, an assistant professor of pediatrics and health policy at Stanford University. "We're looking for alternatives that are as similar as possible."

The biggest reductions in emissions are expected in mixed dishes: wraps, pasta and similar popular dishes, where beef can easily be replaced with proteins with a lower environmental impact.

This study expands on previous research to include dietary data on children. Grammon said it may be more effective for adults to focus on protein switching, while switching children to plant-based milks can "have a meaningful impact on the carbon footprint" and help establish active lifestyle habits earlier.

Identifying healthy alternatives to high-carbohydrate foods was not the original intention of this study. However, after switching to low-carb foods, "the healthiness of the diet has improved significantly." While these alternatives are not a panacea for achieving climate goals or personal health goals, they are proof that small changes can have a big impact.

"There is an overlap between sustainable eating and healthy eating," Grummon said. "Our research shows that changing just one ingredient, making a swap, can create a win-win that can lead to meaningful changes in both climate outcomes and the healthfulness of our diets."

Compiled source: ScitechDaily