5 Ways to be a Climate-Friendly Eater in 2016

Lydia O'ConnorGeneral Assignment Reporter, The Huffington Post, 12/30/2015 05:40 pm ET

If you're one of the 25 percent of Americans who's extremely worried about the threat of climate change but not sure how to lower your own carbon footprint, consider starting with your diet this new year.

The type of food you buy and eat doesn't just affect your health; it also shapes a global food system that's responsible for more than one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions. For instance, animal products have a higher carbon footprint because of the methane some animals produce, the inefficiencies of growing livestock feed and the vast amounts of land needed to raise animals. The world's livestock industry emits more greenhouse gases than all cars, planes, trains and ships combined, according to United Nations University.

Here are five New Year's Resolutions you can make to reduce your own demand for food that has a negative impact on the environment -- thus becoming part of the solution to the Earth's rising temperatures. 

1. Become a climatarian

A climatarian is someone who eats with climate change in mind, generally by cutting out food whose cultivation contributes to global warming. Here's how The New York Times defined the term in its list of new food words from 2015:

CLIMATARIAN (n.) A diet whose primary goal is to reverse climate change. This includes eating locally produced food (to reduce energy spent in transportation), choosing pork and poultry instead of beef and lamb (to limit gas emissions), and using every part of ingredients (apple cores, cheese rinds, etc.) to limit food waste.

Climates, a climate-focused social network that's credited with bringing the term into prominence, identifies climatarians more specifically, defining them as "meat eaters who don’t eat ruminant meat - beef, sheep, goat and deer." Ruminant animals are identified by their unique four-compartment digestive tract, which through an anaerobic fermentation process emits startling amounts of methane and nitrous oxide. To put it less elegantly, these animals are farting and burping out destructive greenhouse gases.

"While we all need to eat less meat, you don’t have to give up meat entirely and you can still enjoy pig meat, poultry and fish for an easy mixed diet," Climates explains in its guide to being a climatarian. 

Read the full article here.