With climate change conventions and scientific panels constantly warning the world about the ongoing environmental crisis, many people are overlooking one of the simplest ways to reduce their carbon footprint – dietary changes. Many of the conventional food industries that the general public continues to support are pollutive and unsustainable. Superfoods are usually plant-based foods that contain an extraordinary amount of nutrition. Although some supplement and snack bar companies have begun marketing their products as “superfoods,” the best true superfoods are whole foods that come directly from nature. Here are four ways eating superfoods can help save the environment:
1. Reducing Dependency on the Meat Industry
The cattle industry, which fuels the world’s ever-increasing demand for hamburgers, has a terribly negative effect on the environment due to the consumption of fossil fuels used to transport the meat, land and water usage needed to feed the cattle, and the methane produced by the bodily waste of the cows. In fact, some studies have indicated that cows produce more CO2 and are more damaging to the environment than automobiles. Conversely, superfoods like moringa olefeira produce minimum waste and provide maximum nutrition.
2. Sustainably Meeting Agricultural Needs During Climate Change
As climate change and drought continues to create challenges for farmers, there are concerns that there might be an agricultural shortage of food in the coming decades. Superfoods offer a potential solution in that they can provide the most nutrition with the least space used. As the population continues to grow and the demand for food increases, less nutritious crops that waste space and resources will eventually be phased out.
3. Encouraging Self-Sufficiency
Since most superfoods grow on plants, they promote the concept of self-sufficiency through gardening and home farming. If more people start to grow their own superfoods, that will reduce the public’s dependency on the corporate grocery industry, which produces an unbelievable amount of waste while consuming untold amounts of fuel and resources to continually stock supermarkets. Growing your own superfoods is one way to meet your own nutritional needs without relying on massive, wasteful industries that are slowly but surely damaging the planet.
4. Optimal Nutrition Makes People Smarter and Healthier
Finally, another way superfoods can help the environment is by making people smarter through better nutrition. Of course, smarter people will make better dietary and environmental decisions and won’t easily fall for advertising gimmicks and propaganda that has tricked previous generations into becoming gas-guzzling, soda-sipping victims of obesity. Plus, by consuming superfoods regularly, you’ll be maintaining optimal nutrition levels, which means your risk of developing a disease will be lower. Thus, if more people eat superfoods, fewer people would need to rely on the conventional healthcare system, which is another major drain on the planet’s resources.
Be Part of the Solution
With so many people ignoring the environment and their own health, it can be easy to feel like your own actions are insignificant. However, if we all take steps to become a part of the solution then we might actually stand a chance in keeping the Earth from becoming an inhospitable wasteland.
