The diet that could save the earth

With global warming, diet is no longer just about aesthetics and nutrition. It's no longer about losing weight, but about saving the world. Here's how dietary changes can impact the planet and your health.

Here's the situation: livestock farming is jeopardizing the world's natural resources, and the solution lies in changing our diet to a sustainable one. This dietary shift aims not only to improve people's health but also to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and our carbon footprint. As ambitious and simple as it sounds, this is what numerous global health and environmental organizations are proposing.

Livestock and water  

According to the World Health Observatory, water scarcity is a global problem as serious as AIDS or overpopulation. Although the Earth is primarily composed of water, only 2.531 trillion cubic feet of the world's water is fresh, and most of that is inaccessible to us.

What has raised alarms in recent years is that, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), agriculture uses 701,000 cubic feet of freshwater resources. Part of this goes toward irrigation (to produce better and more abundant harvests), but livestock farming is the one that bears the brunt of the problem.

Industrial livestock production often pollutes water through waste management, pesticide use, and other additives such as hormones and antibiotics. Furthermore, over a third of arable land is used to grow animal feed instead of food for people.

The figures make it clearer. To produce one kilogram of meat, 15,400 liters of water are needed. In other words, to make the meat for a 100-gram hamburger patty, the kind you'd eat at any fast-food restaurant, 1,540 liters of water are used. In contrast, 37 liters are needed for 1 kilogram of broccoli and 7.5 liters for 1 kilogram of mushrooms.

So far, the impact is only reflected in the water, but the gases emitted by livestock farming also cause profound damage. Returning to the example of hamburger meat, during its life cycle (production, transport, processing, and cooking) 2,826 grams of CO2 (carbon dioxide emissions) are emitted, compared to 352 grams for spaghetti with tomatoes or just 54 grams for lentil soup.

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