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What diet is best for the planet?

January has come around fast! While there are plenty of people trying to figure out what New Year’s resolutions to create, the majority will land on some sort of diet restriction. However, this year, we suggest you forget the choice between going ketogenic or palaeolithic and opt in for some eco eating instead. Did you know that our diets are potentially the planet’s biggest issue? From previous blogs, we know that 24% of our individual carbon footprint is attributed to the food and drink we consume. So, let’s see how we can reduce this in the most effective, but least intrusive way possible.



Eco eating with less red meat 

Let’s start where we know we can make big savings. It’s no secret that after years of research, the meat industry has a huge negative impact on greenhouse gas emissions. While millions have adopted a vegetarian or vegan diet, some of us, still want to eat meat. At Greenredeem, we don’t see anything wrong with that! However, we do want to make a difference and reduce our diet’s impact so we’ve adopted a few small changes. 

When we purchase our meat, we try and get it locally sourced, that way we reduce the carbon emissions attributed to its transportation to our homes. We also try to purchase it without plastic packaging from a meat counter or butchers, this way we create less waste. Finally, we minimise the amount of meat we eat. We’ll have a few vegetarian meals each week, full of veggies. Not only does this reduce our carbon footprint, it also makes us feel as though we’re having healthier meals during the week. Eco eating doesn’t need to be restrictive, just adaptive.  

Seasonality is eco eating 

If you’ve already kicked plenty of meat out of your diet, you may be wondering what else you can do. Well, eating seasonally is the perfect next step. Technology has been great for ensuring that there’s plenty of food all year around, however, this has also led to greenhouses using a significant amount of energy to create artificial environments. These artificial environments mean that popular fruits and vegetables are available all year round, but they’re growing at the expense of our planet.

If we all ate in season we’d remove the need for these artificial environments, therefore significantly reducing the number of carbon emissions attributed to our diets. If you’re unsure about the seasonality of your food, you can always check online. We also love doing this because it brings great variety to our meals all year round. 

The biggest issue with your diet 

If you really want to embrace eco eating, then you need to stop wasting food. There are several steps to take to perfect minimising your food waste. Start these in order, perfect one, then move on to the next, after you’ve managed all of them consider yourself a food waste master: 

  1. Plan your meals and buy only the ingredients you need to make them 
  2. Freeze any leftovers you may have or use them for lunch the following day 
  3. Any extra ingredients you can’t use, donate them to a local food bank or freeze them 
  4. Upcycle any food scraps into new fun recipes like using potato peelings for crisps 
  5. The few scraps of food waste remaining should go in the food waste recycling bin for collection 
  6. If you don’t have a food waste collection, compost it at home 

At this point, your food waste should be reduced to the bare minimum. You’ve perfected reducing the impact of food waste and you’re eating an eco-diet. So, what’s left?



We feel that the final step in living the ideal eco diet lies in reducing the packaging of your food. Of course, your diet choices and food waste production have more impact, but this is the cherry on top. Removing the plastic packaging that’s difficult to recycle and replacing them with zero waste options is your final step to creating a positive diet for the planet. Go check out a local refill or zero waste shop, see what you can purchase from there and then replace it from your weekly shop. In some cases, products will be cheaper but they will always be better for the planet.

15 Responses

  1. I am concerned by one of the ads on the, “What diet is best for the planet” page. The ‘Ecobuddy’ one is blatantly a scam which people will fall for in this current climate.

    Is there any way this can be removed as being on your website which is members only, people may be more trusting of ordering this item which has false claims and will not heat up the room as claimed.

    https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/ecobuddy.com

    1. Hi Angie, these ads are Google ads, not put here by us. They appear based on an algorithm that is in place – taking data from your internet browsing. We hope this helps, if you have any more questions please do get in touch

    2. Hi Angie, I share your concerns. The best thing to do is use the little cross in the top right corner and report “ad is inappropriate”. It’s probably useless but the more of us that report it, the more likely that Google will remove it.

  2. > Hi Angie, these ads are Google ads, not put here by us.
    So what you are saying is that it is OK to host criminal scam adverts because you didn’t make them, it was done by Google so that makes it OK?

    1. Hi George, no that is not what we’re saying, but we do not have total control over the ads shown to you. We remove as many as we can each week but depending on what the user does, limits how much action we can take

  3. can you not put a disclaimer alomg the lines of ‘these ads are independent ads and not necessarily recommended by Greenredeem – this ad is rubbish

  4. Great article about how our dietary choices may have a detrimental effect on the environment. Sadly, lots of people refuse to acknowledge this and will use a thousand excuses not to make changes.
    Perhaps a little more information on exactly how intensive animal agriculture is poisoning our waterways and the greenhouse gasses emitted from massive hen houses, dairy/pig/cattle farms etc. I am not pushing a specific agenda here, just trying to put an idea forward on how to educate people a little more on an environmental issue that will effect us all in the long term. Maybe with a little more information people might consider making changes.
    Thanks for all you do.

  5. I keep getting ‘playing Error’ so I can’t get to the video’s; they used to play ok. iOS 16.3 iPhone 13 safari and in the app

  6. Became a vegetarian years ago, my body and I have never regretted it. Never throw food away either, but we do have rather fat garden birds!

  7. The link on the previous page says “Blog – Get active and stay eco-friendly” and when I clicked read more it took me to thus page about “What diet is best for the planet?”, which I’ve already read. Please can you fix? Thanks in advance, Allie

  8. Great article, most of it is common sense, which is so very uncommon. we can either choose to consciously watch our diet and food habits to reduce the continuing damage, or we close our eyes and ears to these issues and continue on the path of destruction !

  9. Eat less meat not every day eat more fish and veg. Experiment more with veg and salad recipes.

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