How our food preserves the environment?

We live at a time when all fruits and vegetables become available at any period of the year. In the majority of the world, supermarkets and farmers’ markets are full of foodstuffs from all over the world and people have a selection of food and products as never before.

The quantities of food we need, the fast production, the variety and the need for rapid distribution leave permanent consequences on nature. In order to meet the demand for food, the environment suffers huge damages: huge quantities of fossil fuels are burned and pollute the air, water is polluted with large quantities of fertilizers and pesticides, forests are cut in order to create new farming areas, rivers and lakes are dried for irrigation purposes, while agrological diversity is reduced in order to produce monocultures that are the basis for production of various food products.

Even though it seems that people individually can change very little in these major global developments, they still have control over how and what they eat. If we want to continue eating healthy and have a minimal impact on the environment, this is what we can do:

Eat locally

This is a very old proverb, but now more than ever it has a specific meaning. This means a diet with locally sourced products, ideally local varieties and types of fruit and vegetables that require very little resources for transportation, unlike imported products. And most importantly, food produced by the local community.

Read labels

 The source and the composition of food are very important if we want to take care of nature. Even though we cannot have knowledge about all technological food processes, it would be sufficient to know the origin of the food and the producer.

Avoid packaging and plastics

Waste is an important aspect of food production. That is why we should always choose products with as little packaging as possible or with packaging that is easily recyclable.