Eat for the Planet
You don’t have to go on a diet to change your diet. Making a simple commitment to eat more plant-based meals and less meat is one of the most impactful changes you can make to conserve water, energy, and natural lands. Become a “locavore” and eat food grown locally and in season to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions from refrigerating, packaging, and shipping food over long distances. Supporting Suncoast farmers, grocers, and restaurants that are part of the blossoming farm-to-table movement supports our local economy, biodiversity, soil health, and food security.
From land use to water consumption to greenhouse gas emissions, what and how we eat really matters.
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Mom was right: Eat more vegetables! Dishing up more fruits, vegetables, and grains is far less damaging to the environment than meat.
You don’t have to swear off steak forever: simply cutting back on the amount of red meat you eat is helpful (and healthful too). Why not give Meatless Mondays a try and explore tasty recipes that go way beyond a salad?
This calculator generates your water use and greenhouse gas emissions based on the mix of meats that you eat. You can then calculate the impact of substituting high protein vegetables like soy for some or all of the meat in your diet.
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For fresh, local, in-season food strive to find everything you want to eat within 50 miles. Fruit and veggies grown out of season in greenhouses, or grown in other states or countries, require large amounts of water, fertilizer, pesticides, and energy to raise, store, and ship long distances. In Florida, fresh food can be grown in every season and harvested at peak ripeness for maximum flavor and nutrition. Strawberries, lettuce, citrus, tomatoes, corn, squash, and blueberries are among crops grown locally at various times of year. Increasingly, small farms are opting for organic methods that avoid chemicals.
Supporting Suncoast farmers, ranchers, and fishermen in your own community, along with a thriving network of farmer’s markets, food co-ops, and farm-to-table restaurants supports our local economy, biodiversity, soil health and food security. Search for “Fresh From Florida” products and suppliers by location and look for Fresh From Florida labels wherever you shop. Even major supermarket chains are getting into the locally grown groove.
Community Harvest SRQ, a non-profit leader in the local food movement, maintains the Eat Local Guide, the definitive searchable guide to Suncoast-sourced food, including farmer’s markets, grocers, restaurants, community gardens, CSA farms, and U-pick farms.
Farmer’s Markets
Seafood Markets
Livestock Farms
Farm Co-ops (CSA Produce Subscription Boxes)
U-Pick and Farm Stands
If you are a diver, help control invasive Lionfish in our area waters by participating in the local Lionfish Derby. If you don’t dive, you can still help by purchasing lionfish harvested locally from local seafood markets. Because lionfish are voracious predators of juvenile fish, you’ll be helping to preserve our native fisheries. Blackened lionfish tacos sound good? Here are some recipes.
This calculator generates your water use and greenhouse gas emissions based on the mix of meats that you eat. You can then calculate the impact of substituting high protein vegetables like soy for some or all of the meat in your diet.
How many ounces of meat do you consume per week? (Typical serving size is 4oz)
Impact of eating
meat for 1 year
Impact of substituting veg for 50% meat for 1 year
% savings by substituting 50% veg
Total pounds of meat
Number of chickens
Number of pigs
Number of cows
Gallons of water used
Pounds of CO2 emitted
That’s the water equivalent of leaving your faucet running for (x) days:
That’s the GHG Equivalent of:
Ac. of forest growing over 1yr
Tree seedlings grown for 10 yrs
Gas-powered car miles (22.5mpg)
How are these calculated?
Meat Consumption (OECD Data)
Food Availability (Per Capita) Data System (U.S. Dept. of Agriculture)
Meat-Calculator to Evaluate the Environmental Impact of Meat Consumption (Blitz Results)
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Studies have shown that the food on the average American’s dinner plate traveled almost 1,500 miles to get there. Locally grown food doesn’t have to travel nearly as far – sharply reducing use of fossil fuels that expand our carbon footprint. Eating locally preserves farmlands that support wildlife. Local farmers are more likely to plant a diversity of crops and to rotate crop production according to seasons, protecting biodiversity and reducing use of pesticides.
You can absolutely get sufficient protein from plant-based sources. High protein foods include all kinds of beans and nuts, oats and quinoa, along with spinach and artichokes. Dairy foods like eggs, cheese, milk and Greek yogurt are protein-packed as well. Locally caught seafood is high in protein too, yet Americans eat far less seafood and vegetables than dietary guidelines recommend. Even though we eat less meat than we did a decade ago, we’re still consuming about 55 pounds of beef per person per year, second only to Argentina. This comes with a heavy price for our planet: The land, water, livestock food and energy required for meat-centric diets is responsible for about one-fifth of global emissions. Shifting our diets to include more plant-based foods reduces land clearing, fertilizer use, methane from burping cattle, and greenhouse gas emissions. Filling our plates with fresh, local fruits and vegetables is one of the most powerful actions we can take toward a sustainable planet.
Patronizing local farmers markets, farm stands or community farms (CSAs) guarantees you access to fruits and vegetables from local farms. Even major supermarket chains feature some locally grown produce in season. The “Fresh From Florida” state marketing program highlights fruits, vegetables and even seafood harvested in Florida. When dining out, look for restaurants that specialize in farm-to-table dishes or ask servers what’s in season and on their menus. Become a more informed consumer by boosting your own knowledge of what’s in season. This calendar can help.
Eat Local is not a panacea for feeding the world. People living in many places must import their food. Florida is fortunate to have great growing conditions for many types of crops, though not everything we like to eat. In Florida, supporting existing local farms and ranches helps keep those lands in agricultural production providing green space rather than converting to suburban sprawl. Farms and ranches can provide valuable ecosystem services like water storage and filtration, wildlife habitat, and sequestering carbon. Eating locally produced food also contributes to the local economy, builds resilience, and community. But, in order to feed the world’s burgeoning population, we need to increase efficiency and intensity of food production globally and optimize distribution and storage. Increased efficiency and intensity can decrease the total production acreage needed and help protect natural lands from being converted to farmland.
Ultimately, the net environmental impact of where we get our food depends on i) the local growing conditions and the intensity of practices needed to make that farmland productive, ii) how far the food must be transported to market, and iii) what the alternative land use would be for that farmland if it weren’t under production. A full life-cycle analysis is needed to thoroughly understand the dynamics of our local and global food systems. Whatever the calculations, the bottom line is that sustainable agriculture practices are needed on farms large or small, close or far.
There are numerous farmers markets, seafood markets, and local farms and ranches up and down the Suncoast that feature locally grown fruits, vegetables, seafood, and meat year round. Visiting a nearby market or farm is one of the best ways to find what produce is in season and support your local economy.
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