A new research from the Carnegie Mellon University claimed that while healthy food choices like fruits, vegetables, dairy products and seafood may be good for a person's health, they are unlikely not for the environment. The new study contrarily found that these nutritious foods require higher resource use and greenhouse gas emissions per calorie. In short, they are threefold more harmful compared with consuming untoward non-healthy foods like bacon.
Scientists looked into the food supply chain to find link between obesity and the environment. They particularly studied how much energy and water use and greenhouse gas emissions are expended during the entire food process -- from food growing, processing and transporting to sales, services and finally household storage.
The authors scrutinized the data and arrived at three different "dietary scenarios." First, chopping down caloric intake without modifying meat and food types reduces emission, energy and water use combined to about 9 percent. Second, maintaining caloric intake but totally changing to a healthy diet will shoot energy and water use and greenhouse gas emissions by 43 percent, 16 percent and 11 percent, respectively.
And lastly, even if people follow the diet recommended by the USDA to minimize meat and caloric intake, increased environmental impacts are still probable with 38 percent and 10 percent likelihood in energy and water use and 6 percent in emissions.
"What is good for us health-wise isn't always best for the environment," co-author Michelle Tom said. "That's important for public officials to know and for them to be cognisant of these trade-offs as they develop or continue to develop dietary guidelines in the future."
At another perspective, Mr Froggatt of Chatam House said that "we do know there is a global overconsumption of meat, particularly in countries such as the US... Looking forward that is set to increase significantly, which will have a significant impact on global warming."
