Buying Healthy Meals Gives Us the Power To Improve Climate Change

Welcome to part 2 of our mini series on Conscious Buying Decisions to Help Climate Change. Last time we covered ‘How to Buy Healthy Food and Help Climate Change’. This time we’re looking at ‘Buying Healthy Meals Gives Us the Power To Improve Climate Change’, which is also part of our series on Eating Sustainably.

You can find all content in this mini series at Mini Series: Conscious Buying Decisions to Help Climate Change.

If you already know that you have the power to help climate change and improve your health and happiness, here are the options to make conscious decisions when buying healthy meals:

1. Check out #VoteWithOurMoney with 6 Steps to Help Stop Climate Change
2. Try the Sustainability Roadmap with 40+ Solutions to Climate Change
3. Use the Company Directory to Help You Grow, Eat, and Live Sustainably

If you want some more facts before making any decisions about healthy meals, let’s get into the details:

Before we get started, it’s worth saying that this mini series is based on the Kiss the Ground Purchasing Guide. Many of the facts come from the book called Drawdown.

Find the Book Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed To Reverse Global Warming by Paul Hawken That You Can Find Here on Amazon*

Food Produced Using Regenerative Agriculture Has a Lot of Benefits:

1. Tastier food that can make us healthier
2. Cleaner air and water
3. Sucking carbon out of the air and storing it in the ground
4. Improve the health of our planet to ensure our children have a good future

What is Regenerative Agriculture?

Regenerative Agriculture is a way of farming that gives back more than it takes out.

Regenerative Agriculture:

1. Increases biodiversity
2. Enriches soils
3. Improves the land’s ability to absorb water, and feed streams and rivers
4. Enhances ecosystems
5. Captures carbon in the soil and plants
6. And, reverses the amount of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) in our atmosphere

You can think of regenerative agriculture as having all the benefits of organic farming—without the use of artificial fertilisers and toxic chemicals—plus farming practices that improve the land and environment every year.

Check Out the Soil Story by Kiss the Ground:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvAoZ14cP7Q

If you want a deep dive into regenerative farming and healthy meals you can check out our page on Regenerative Agriculture.

Buying healthy meals that have been produced using regenerative organic agriculture is where we all have the power to Vote With Our Money by eating food that improves our health, and encourages farmers, businesses, and governments to transition from conventional to regenerative agriculture.

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If we buy organic foods, we’ll encourage more farmers to switch to regenerative practices. By encouraging more farmers to switch to regenerative we’ll help to lower the cost of organic foods, making healthy meals accessible to as many people as possible.

2 Ways To Think About Healthy Meals and Helping Climate Change

There are two main ways to think about eating healthy meals for the climate.

1. Reducing Carbon and Greenhouse Gases, Called Mitigation

Things to consider:

• Is the food produced in a way that releases carbon from the soil?
• How much nitrogen from artificial fertilisers is lost to the atmosphere?
• Was the farmland originally forest?
• How much energy was used (pumping water, producing fertilisers, tractors and farm machinery, production of food, packaging)?
• Has the food traveled a long way before getting to your home?

Agriculture and land use changes are responsible for almost a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions; primarily from deforestation, irresponsible livestock management, soil degradation, and synthetic fertilisers. When you also consider greenhouse gas emissions caused by the distribution and refrigeration of food, the system becomes one of the largest contributors to global warming.

The widespread use of conventional farming practices is damaging soil ecosystems, reducing biodiversity, and heating up the planet. However, we all have the power to change this by switching to regenerative organic food and regenerative farming practices that restore ecosystems and rebuild soils.

By stopping deforestation, integrating soil health principles into crop and livestock management, and creating localised food systems, we can decrease our nonrenewable energy needs, regenerate the earth’s arable land, and sequester carbon in the soil and plants to help reverse global warming.

2. Removing Carbon From the Atmosphere and Storing It in the Soil and Plants, Called Sequestration or Carbon Drawdown

Things to consider:

• Was your food produced in a way that captures carbon in the soil and plants?
• Does the farm that grows your food increase biodiversity, water holding in the soil, and cycling nutrients from the soil, to the plants, and back to the soil?

What I found most inspiring about food and regenerative farming is that this is an area where people can get more and better food at the same time as giving back and improving the planet. It’s a win win like no other. We don’t need to use more and more toxic chemicals that are being proven to be bad for our health, and a trigger for chronic diseases.

To get the low down on conventional food, toxic chemicals, modern lifestyles, the epidemic of chronic diseases, and the benefits of regenerative organic food, check out this Rich Roll interview with Zach Bush (it’s absolutely amazing and SOOOOOO inspiring):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWgnkgYtqnw&t

The good news, actually it’s one of the reasons I was compelled to leave my job to help inspire others, is that food can be grown in ways that improve the health of the soil, which increases the amount of nutrients and water that’s consumed by plants that are eaten by animals and people, as well as taking carbon out of the atmosphere and storing it, called sequestering, in plants and the soil.

That’s, basically, the process of photosynthesis: Nature working together for 500+ million years to become the abundant and life-giving planet that we know today.

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“Plants use energy from the sun to convert carbon dioxide (CO2) and water into oxygen and carbohydrates (sugars). Plants then release some of these sugars into the soil to feed microorganisms. In turn, the microorganisms make, otherwise inaccessible, nutrients available for plants! More carbon in the soil = less carbon in the air!”

— Kiss the Ground

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You can read more on this in the article Soil Can Reverse Climate Change.

Did You Know This Fact About Healthy Soil?

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“There are more microbes in a teaspoon of healthy soil than there are people on the planet!”

— Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming, Composting, page 62

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Find the Book Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed To Reverse Global Warming by Paul Hawken That You Can Find Here on Amazon*

7 billion+ microbes in a teaspoon of healthy soil shows that it’s very easy to harm the health of the soil!

Instead of working against nature, trying to trick nature with artificial fertilisers and kill pests with toxic chemicals that end up in our bodies affecting our health, we need to get back to working with nature.

The way to farm like nature, produce nutrient-dense foods, and give back more than we take, is through regenerative agriculture, which we’ll take a look at next.

That’s it for this piece. You can find the next piece ‘The 6 Principles of Regenerative Agriculture’ as well as all articles in this 10 part mini series at Conscious Buying Decisions to Help Climate Change.

Want To Get Updates About This Mini Series?

You can get updates about this mini series by Subscribing to Our Newsletter, Subscribing to Our Podcast, or Subscribing to Our YouTube Channel.

Suggested Reading

If you like the topic of this mini series, you might be interested in these reading suggestions with links to each book on Amazon.

Find Kiss the Ground by Josh Tickell Here on Amazon*

Find Soil Will Save Us by Kristin Ohlson Here on Amazon*

Find Soil, Grass, Hope by Courtney White Here on Amazon*

Find Dawn Again: Tracking the Wisdom of the Wild by Markegard and Doniga Here on Amazon*

Find Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming by Paul Hawken Here on Amazon*

Find Diet for a Hot Planet by Anna Lappé Here on Amazon*

Find Cows Save the Planet: And Other Improbable Ways of Restoring Soil to Heal the Earth by Judith D. Schwartz Here on Amazon*

Find Growing a Revolution: Bringing Our Soil Back to Life by David Montgomery Here on Amazon*

Here Is What You Can Do

• Use this mini series to help you buy products that help people and planet
• Check out #VoteWithOurMoney with 6 Steps to Help Stop Climate Change
• Try the Sustainability Roadmap with 40+ Solutions to Climate Change
• Use the Company Directory to Help You Grow, Eat, and Live Sustainably
• Be inspired. We can help climate change if we do something about it
• Talk to your friends and colleagues
• Share this with others

Want to Continue Your Journey?

VOTE

6 Steps to Start Helping Climate Change

Learn More

ROADMAP

Solutions to Help Stop Climate Change

Learn More

DIRECTORY

Companies to Help You Live Sustainably

Learn More

Where Next?

There is so much inspiring information to give you ideas of how to help climate change by growing, eating, and living sustainably, you can:

1. Read Our Articles
2. Sign-Up to Our Free Email Newsletter
3. Get Started and Vote with Your Money
4. Try the Sustainability Roadmap
5. Use the Company Directory
6. Support Nafford Junction

Help Us Inspire Others

If you are passionate about helping climate change, please consider supporting Nafford Junction, you can:

1. Become a Patron to Give Regular Contributions
2. Buy Me a Coffee to Make a One-Off Contribution
3. Create for Us and Publish Thought Provoking Content
4. Become an Inspiring Leader and Advertise with Us
5. Go to NaffordJunction.co.uk/support

Production Notes

This was produced by me, James Walters, as a personal project to help stop climate change by inspiring others to grow, eat, and live sustainably.

Any advice given is the opinion of those involved and does not constitute medical, financial, or legal advice.

* We include links we think you will find useful. If you buy through those links, we may earn a small commission. It’s one way to support our work and to inspire as many people as possible.