Five Ideas for a More Planet-Friendly Diet

Illustration by Suzanna Stapler of Blushing Planet.

Feeling a little eco-panicked? The UN climate report issued last week has many of us wondering what—if anything—we can do. It’s not too late to get the planet on a better trajectory and lots needs to be done quickly by policymakers. But even those of us not sitting in a policy hot seat have a role to play.

I was surprised to learn a few years ago just how impactful it would be if more of the global population ate less meat. According to Project Drawdown, a non-profit organization that ranked 100 actions that could be taken to reverse climate change, adopting a plant-rich diet is number four—number four!—on the list, even ahead of increasing solar energy or preserving forests. This is primarily because livestock are the leading source of greenhouse gas emissions, at 14.5 percent of the world’s total.

First of all, hats off to all the vegetarians and vegans out there. You are doing a lot of good for the planet.

For the rest of us, becoming part-vegetarians or “flexitarians” can make a big difference…if enough of us do it.

A 2019 study in Scientific Reports concluded that if everyone in the U.S. substituted plant proteins for meat proteins 25 percent of the time, we could reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions by 82 million tons. That is equivalent to taking about 18 million cars off the road every year. Pretty convincing, and pretty achievable.

So, where do we begin, especially if you’re like me…a non-vegetarian who grew up believing a meal is not complete without meat as a centerpiece?

I’ve pulled together the five best tips I know for making this shift to eating less meat:

1.     Set a target. The old business proverb, “What gets measured, gets done,” works for me in all kinds of spheres. So when I decided to get serious about increasing my plant-based meals, I set myself a target. My breakfasts and lunches were already mostly vegetarian, so I focused on dinners and decided to move us from one vegetarian dinner every week (which was inevitably a pasta dish) to three dinners.

Crushed Puy Lentils with Tahini and Cumin. Photo credit: Kath Campbell.

How did we manage this? My fiancé and I started planning our weekly meals on Saturdays for the week ahead and we decided together which three vegetarian meals we would cook. To make this work, we needed to expand our repertoire of vegetarian meals (see point four below). After doing this for more than a year (and succeeding!), we’ve now moved the goal post to four vegetarian dinners a week.

2.     Keep it simple. In his book, We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast, Jonathan Safran Foer argues that eliminating animal products (including dairy) at breakfast and lunch is a relatively painless way for individuals to make a significant dent in shifting their consumption choices. Mark Bittman leads a life in this same vein and wrote a book about it, Vegan Before 6.  

If this works better for you than my choice to focus on dinners, then choose this option. My philosophy is: there is not a one-size-fits-all for adopting a more planet-friendly lifestyle, so pick the option that is easiest for you to implement.

 3.     Make it fun. I always like a game, so when I first decided to increase my plant-based meals and realized my friend, Kath, was trying to do the same, we decided to challenge each other in tracking and increasing our vegetarian meals for a few weeks. Having the accountability—like teaming up with a gym buddy—is always more effective and more fun.

Another fun idea is to create a vegetarian cookalong. Our household repertoire of vegetarian meals needed expanding beyond pesto with pasta sauce, so I also embarked on what I call the “weekly vegetarian cookalong.” Here’s how this works: at the beginning of each month, I pick four vegetarian recipes to make that month—one per week—and, once I make the dish, I compare notes on social media with others to see what we think and to decide whether the recipe is a “keeper.” Even better is when a few friends join by Zoom and we all cook—and eat—the meal together in real time.

A few of our favorites:

Takeout-Style Chana Masala and Sauteed Swiss Chard from Anne-Marie Bonneau’s The Zero Waste Chef

Tagliatelle with Walnuts and Lemon and Crushed Puy Lentils with Tahini and Cumin from Ottolenghi’s Plenty More

 Falafel from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian

4.     Remember: not all animal protein is equal. For example, a kilogram of beef is responsible for 60 kilograms of carbon emissions, but chicken is 10 times less carbon intensive than beef. And a kilogram of wild-caught fish is half as carbon intensive as chicken, i.e. it produces three kilograms of carbon emissions. The more often we choose the less carbon intensive animal protein, the more planet-friendly is our diet.

Adapted from Our World in Data, Environmental Impacts of Food (2018). Illustration by Iona Volynets.

5.     Think of meat as a flavor enhancer instead of the star of the show. Even if you decide not to cook a vegetarian meal tonight, you can choose to add less meat to each dish. If you’re making a Bolognese sauce, for example, you could just add a few tablespoons of meat instead of a full pound (and save and freeze the rest of the meat for a future meal). I make a mean no-recipe stir fry with leftover rice and veggies. I usually add a bit of sauteed chicken or ground turkey.  But the meat doesn’t need to take center stage.

In Milk Street: The New Rules, cook and recipe creator, Chris Kimball urges us to “treat meat as a flavoring.” When you add just a little bit of meat to rice, beans or vegetables, you may get the flavor you are seeking without meat as the main course.

My last tip: If you decide to try any of these ideas, you can have real influence beyond reducing your own carbon footprint by talking about it with your friends and family. You could say, for example: “You won’t believe the meal I made last night…so delicious. I’ll share the recipe with you.” Or “I read the recent UN climate report and decided I can’t change the world, but I can have one more vegetarian meal every week and I know I’m making a positive contribution.”

Every meal is an opportunity to make a difference. So is every conversation.

Note: Every month, I will be setting down a Let’s Normalize This challenge featuring artwork by Suzanna Stapler of Blushing Planet. Suzanna is an illustrator / science communicator with a passion for planets (Earth especially) and creative, sustainable living. We’re excited to team up and spread the word to cultivate sustainable practices.