Kerri Waldron
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Researchers ranked six popular diets according to their environmental impact and nutritional value.
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The keto diet had the biggest average carbon footprint and the lowest nutritional ranking.
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The vegan, vegetarian and pescetarian diets scored highest for health.
The keto diet, a low-carb and high-fat eating plan despised by nutritionists, is not only bad for your body, according to recent research findings — it’s also bad for the environment.
Researchers at Tulane University ranked six popular ways of eating, including the keto diet, according to their average nutritional value and environmental impact. Their findings, published March 1 in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, showed a correlation between healthy eating and low carbon emissions.
While the study didn’t touch on every diet trend, the researchers considered the daily diets of more than 16,000 adults surveyed between 2005 and 2010. Then, they split the individual data into six diet groups: keto, paleo, vegan, vegetarian, pescetarian, and omnivore.
They found that the average keto eater generates almost 3 kg of carbon dioxide for every 1,000 calories consumed — that’s four times the carbon footprint of a similarly-sized vegan plate.
“Climate change is arguably one of the most pressing problems of our time, and a lot of people are interested in moving to a plant-based diet,” senior author Diego Rose, nutrition program director at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, said in a
Food systems account for more than one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to a UN-backed study published in 2021. Going keto requires dieters to consume about 70% of their calories from fat and almost no carbohydrates, so many followers of the diet opt for animal products with high amounts of fat and protein. Beef production is a major driver of carbon emissions, so the researchers weren’t surprised that the keto diet had the largest carbon footprint of the diets studied. The keto diet was followed by paleo, a regimen based on what humans were thought to eat before farming. The diet cuts out grains and legumes in favor of lean meats; fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds also make an appearance on the paleo plate. The ancient eating plan was associated with 2.6 kg of carbon dioxide per 1,000 calories consumed. On the other end of the spectrum, the vegan diet was associated with the least amount of greenhouse gas emissions. Other diets low on emissions were the vegetarian and pescetarian diets. Most of the people surveyed were described as omnivores, meaning they eat some combination of plants and animals. The omnivore category was ultimately ranked as a middle-ground option for nutrition and sustainability. But not all omnivore diets are created equal. Omnivores who followed a Mediterranean diet — which calls for a colorful mix of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, healthy fats, and lean protein — were ranked higher on nutritional quality and had smaller carbon footprints compared to others in the group. The same was true for the DASH diet, a heart-healthy plan that limits red meat consumption Pescetarians, who eat fish but not red or white meat, scored highest on the Healthy Eating Index, a measurement that scores the overall nutritional value of a daily diet. However, the environmental impact of cutting out meat and fish entirely cannot be underestimated, according to the study. While personal diet choices don’t impact the environment on an individual level, a mass shift to meatless eating would be good for the planet. The authors concluded that if just a third of the study’s omnivores began following a vegetarian diet, it would be equivalent to eliminating 340 million passenger vehicle miles on an average day. Read the original article on Insider Source: bing.com
How to eat healthier for your body and the environment
