Why You Should Embrace the Carbon Diet for Yourself and the Planet

The Carbon Diet is a relatively new trend that is based on reducing the environmental impact of the foods you eat. The name of the diet is based on the concept of reducing your overall carbon footprint due to the things you choose to add to your plate at every meal.

When you decide to take on the Carbon Diet, the idea is that you are not only choosing to take better care of yourself by opting for more healthful foods, but that you are also taking better care of the planet as a whole because the production of those nutritious foods will have less of a negative impact.

Many people who hear about the Carbon Diet for the first time are surprised to discover how destructive food production can be when it comes to environmental impact. This is especially true in terms of raising various kinds of meat such as beef, pork and chicken, among others. This has caused many to start to look into the sources of their foods and what those sources are doing to the world before the delicious looking meal arrives on the dinner table.

The following are some of the most common reasons that people embrace this eco-friendly eating strategy:

• It’s a healthful way to eat – This dieting strategy automatically reduces many of the types of foods that are most harmful to our health. It also naturally boosts the number of fruits and veggies we eat, particularly those that are grown locally because they require the consumption of less fuel in order to transport it to our tables. This means that the foods we’re eating are fresher and, therefore, higher in nutrients. This can help to prevent or even reverse chronic disease and other health struggles.

• It conserves large amounts of water – Over half the water consumption in the United States is as a result of animal farming. The dairy and meat industries are actually behind about one third of the fresh water consumption of the entire world. Considering that we’re headed toward a global water shortage crisis, this type of inefficiency and wastefulness may soon be considered a thing of the past. Today it is still a choice, but that may not be the case for long.

• It will slash greenhouse gas emissions – A shocking 18 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions are from animal agriculture. If you combine the exhaust from all types of transportation, it is not responsible for as much as raising animals for meat and dairy. If every person across the U.S. reduced their consumption of chicken one day per week, it would be the equivalent of taking 500,000 cars off the road that day. A fully plant-based diet cuts the associated carbon emissions in half.

Amazingly, those are only a small handful from a long list of reasons this type of diet is picking up in popularity. As the world pays greater attention to issues like climate change, this trend is only expected to grow.