A growing number of consumers are paying attention to how their decisions about food affect the planet's wellbeing.
Eating well isn’t about choosing what’s good for your body alone; it’s also about choosing what’s good for the planet. These two concepts have been separate for a long time, but are quickly becoming intertwined as more consumers realize the necessity of taking the environment into consideration when making decisions about food.
“It’s all connected,” says American dietician Kate Geagan, author of Go Green, Get Lean. “You can’t tackle hunger and obesity and the paradox of the obesity crisis among hungry children without tying it to food waste, the farm bill and how the food system has been set up in this country.”
Indeed, pressure is on for the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to include environmental considerations in its new dietary guidelines that will be released by the end of this year. The USDA’s advisory panel recommended that the guidelines “factor in whether or not a food is good for the planet when deciding whether it’s healthy” (The Guardian). This advice has created uproar within the food industry, which says that the USDA would be stepping beyond its rightful jurisdiction with such recommendations.
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