Lower-carbon diets good for both planet and health

Washington: A new study that examined the carbon footprint of what more than 16,000 Americans eat in a day brings good news for environmentally conscious consumers.
The study, by Tulane University, finds that diets that are more climate-friendly are also healthier.
The research, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, is the first to compare the climate impact and nutritional value of U.S. diets using real-world data about what Americans say they are eating.
“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,” said lead author Diego Rose.
Since food production is a major contribution to climate change, researchers from Tulane and the University of Michigan sought to learn more about the impacts of Americans’ daily dietary choices. They built an extensive database of the greenhouse gas emissions 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.
Researchers ranked diets by the amount of greenhouse gas emissions per 1,000 calories consumed and divided them into five equal groups. Then they rated the nutritional value of foods consumed in each diet using the U.S. Healthy Eating Index, a federal measure of diet quality, and compared the lowest to the highest-impact groups on this and other measures.