The 8 Worst Foods for the Planet
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Last month the Ségolène Royal, the French Minister of Ecology, called for people to stop eating the popular spread Nutella calling it “a scourge on the environment,” because it is made with rainforest-displacing palm oil. In fact, many popular foods have a hidden environmental impact that’s little known. And while “anything we eat has an environmental footprint, says Rebecca Shaw of the Environmental Defense Fund, "some foods have a larger impact than others.” Here are the worst offenders — food you should either avoid completely, such as Bluefin Tuna, or make sure to find the best version of, like organic grass fed beef.
Related: The Best and Worst Foods For You
Sugar
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Sugar is taking a toll on health — and the planet. According to the World Wildlife Fund more than 121 countries produce sugar turning out over 145 million tons annually. The large amount of water required for production (on average over 88 gallons of water are needed to produce 5 pounds of sugar), the extensive use of fertilizers that leech into waterways (directly impacting several species of sea turtles), and the ever-expanding destruction of pristine habitats (vast tracts of the Mekong Delta in Vietnam have been converted into sugar plantations) make sugar a leading problem crop for the environment.
What to do: Skip added sugar everywhere you can. You probably get too much of it as is.
Related: 10 Bad Foods That Get a Healthy Rap
Factory Raised Beef
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According to the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization, a whopping 18 percent of the world’s greenhouse emissions come from beef. A cow requires more land, uses more water, and produces the equivalent manure waste of 20 to 40 people annually. They also eat 10-14 pounds of feed per pound of flesh. Millions of acres of tropical forests have been cleared to plant corn and soy. “The reality is that global demand for meat is increasing nearly two-percent a year. As incomes rise, so does demand for animal protein. The bottom line is we need to make beef production as sustainable as possible,” says Rebecca Shaw of the Environmental Defense Fund.
What to do: Look for beef that grass fed, local, and organic. But, most importantly cut down your consumption of beef, we eat more than is necessary.
Related: Is Red Meat Bad for You?
Palm Oil
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Palm oil is the cheapest cooking oil in the world, thus it is rapidly finding its way into more and more of our processed foods. Look on the labels of your favorite chips, cereals, candy, crackers, and canned goods, chances are Palm oil is one of the main ingredients. To feed growing demand, companies are rapidly expanding plantations into virgin rainforest across the globe. “Large tracts of tropical rain forest are being obliterated simply to grow palm oil,” says Bob Schildgen aka Mr. Green of the Sierra Club. In Indonesia two-thirds of land outside protected areas are leaded to Palm oil companies according to the National Academy of Sciences. As the plantations expand wildlife disappears in some of the most fragile environments across the planet.
What to do: Read ingredients labels for “palm oil,” “sodium lauryl/laureth” or Elaeis guineensis’ and go for coconut oil instead.
Bluefin Tuna
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It’s pretty simple; if we don’t stop eating Bluefin pretty soon there won’t be anymore. Overfishing is sending this huge, and delicious fish towards a crash. Part of the problem is they routinely live to 100-yrs old and cannot replenish their rapidly depleting numbers fast enough. Some reports list their numbers at 96 percent down in the last century. To find out what fish to eat use this handy tool from the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
Related: The Five Safest Fish to Eat
What to do: Order wild Alaskan Salmon instead.
Conventional Coffee
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According to the International Coffee Organization demand for this caffeinated beverage will increase by nearly 25 percent over the next five years. Our coffee drinking has already led to a massive expansion of coffee farms across the globe, many in environmentally sensitive areas. The substantial use of pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and fertilizers used at a majority of farms is causing wide spread damage. Add in the damage done by K-Cup machines and this is a problem that shows no signs of abating soon.
Related: Two Cups of Coffee a Day May Keep Erectile Dysfunction Away
What to do: Buy organic shade grown coffee certified by the Rainforest Alliance.
Bottled Water
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According to the website Ban the Bottle, Americans used about 50 billion plastic water bottles last year. The U.S.’s recycling rate for plastic, however, is only 23 percent, which means some 38 billion water bottles are wasted each year. Not only does bottled water produce trash, it uses over 90 million barrels of oil annually to produce and transport them each year — and that is just in the U.S.
Related: How Safe Is Your Drinking Water?
What to do: Buy a water filter for in home tap and fill your own reusable bottle.
Soy
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Long a staple for livestock feed, soybeans have now made their way into ever more human food, contributing to a rise in demand for this crop. The problem lies in the fact that due to cheap land and labor costs soy production is rapidly leaving the U.S. and heading into Brazil and Argentina — places where rainforests are being cut down to make way for new crops.
What to do: Replace your soy milk with alternatives made from coconut, oats, or hemp.
Related: 11 Tips for Your Next Detox
Lamb/Sheep
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Best estimates are that there are over 1.8 billion sheep across the planet; consistently pitting them against cattle as the most damaging animal alive. According to the Environmental Working Group for every two-pounds of lamb produced 2,314 gallons of water are needed, even worse for every pound of lamb produced 20 kilograms of CO2 are released into the atmosphere. That’s equivalent to driving twenty-eight miles in your car.
What to do: Eat more lentils; they have one of the lowest carbon footprints on the planet.
Farmed Chicken
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The huge factory farms that feed our growing demand for chicken pose a myriad of problems; one of the biggest is pollution. According to a report on the PBS show Frontline chicken farms on the Chesapeake Bay are responsible for wide scale pollution that is damaging the water. The culprit is the massive amount of manure these farms produce that flows mostly unregulated into the waterways.
Related: Is Chicken Always the Healthiest Protein?
What to do: Free-range organic chicken might be pricey, but it’s better for you, and the globe.
By Hudson Lindenberger
