There’s no doubt about it: how we feed ourselves has a huge impact on the Earth. Of course it does: we’re over 8 billion mouths eating multiple times a day, food production determines how we use over a third of all land, and agrifood systems as a whole produce about a third of global greenhouse gas emissions. That’s why what’s on our plates may be one of the most powerful tools we have to support planetary health.
Vote with your dollar
As powerful as the food industry may be, it still responds to supply and demand dynamics. The more we consciously choose organic, for example, the more land will be converted to production without synthetic fertilizers and pesticides that damage the health of workers, waterways, and ecosystems. The more we choose regenerative, the more soil will be tended responsibly, water conserved, and biodiversity restored.
And if we want a robust regional food supply where local growers can steward the land and make a living while feeding us with locally adapted, nutritious, and low-transportation foods, we have to support them with our dollars.
Best practices
As much as our hearts are often in the right place, the time and funds we can put toward our food are often limited. How can we exercise our agency as eaters and do right by the planet without overwhelming ourselves with pledges we can’t sustain? Consider these jumping-off points for turning eco aspirations into effective, daily actions:
Waste not
In Canada, 63 percent of the food we toss away at home is perfectly edible, translating nationwide to 2.3 million tonnes wasted annually. Think of all the land use, labour, inputs, transportation, packaging, refrigeration, and money that went into getting those calories to us—all for nothing.
From a strictly carbon-production perspective, each tonne of food that we avoid wasting is equivalent to taking one car off the road for a year. Without even changing our diets, then, we can lighten the agricultural pressure on the planet by simply eating, saving, or giving away every precious morsel.
Forego packaging
Packaging accounts for about 20 percent of fresh produce’s emissions footprint and a third of our household garbage, plus it contributes to microplastic pollution. So we can make a significant dent in our dietary environmental food-print just by whittling down the amount of food we buy wrapped or otherwise contained.
Certainly, we can choose bulk fruits and veggies over those in clamshells or netted sacs (bring your own bag or go bagless), but we might also try baking granola to replace bagged cereal or making yogurt at home to spare all those plastic tubs.
Be discerning about protein
Choosing vegetarian proteins is a solid move for the planet, since they demand fewer resources and produce fewer emissions than their animal counterparts. Still, the type of animal protein matters. For example, if you have access to local beef grazed in a way that enhances the health of native grassland ecosystems, that’s far different than industrially raised cattle fed corn and soy from land that could otherwise feed humans directly.
Seafood is generally a lower-impact animal protein than its terrestrial counterparts, but being choosy about the species is important: herring, mackerel, pink salmon, Alaskan pollock, and perch are high-nutrient, climate-friendly options, while shrimp, scallops, sole, and basa tend to have higher environmental impacts.
Prepare more food at home
Making it a habit to prepare foods yourself rather than relying on pre-made options can automatically improve your environmental impact. For instance, popping a local, free-range chicken in the oven or crockpot takes barely more effort than buying a rotisserie bird from the store—and you eliminate the plastic case, support a producer whose practices you trust, and are less likely to waste any. Cooking from scratch needn’t be complicated to be eco-friendly; it just requires a willingness to be creative and use whatever’s in the fridge or seasonally available.
Go beyond the kitchen
Beyond these personal food practices, forging the right connections in the wider community can help affirm our eco values and reinforce our efforts. Stay up to date with seasonal offerings from local producers by signing up for their newsletters or following their online updates. Volunteer for a food-rescue initiative to help combat waste at other points along the food chain or join collective cooking events to build confidence in the kitchen, fill the freezer, and meet like-minded people.
When a thriving planet is our “true north,” we can navigate the maze of diet advice and our own motivation to embrace eating habits that are good for us—and good for the planet.
Money well spent
It’s possible you can’t afford (or even find) the organic version of every food item, so what should be given priority? Many pesticides accumulate in fat tissue , so it makes sense to source high-fat animal products (such as butter, cream, eggs, and non-lean meats) organically.
Each year, the Environmental Working Group assesses common produce items for pesticide contamination and creates a “dirty dozen” and “clean fifteen” list. Maybe you don’t need to worry about an organic label on sweet corn (“clean”), for example, but you do for strawberries (“dirty”).
Not just about pesticides
Irradiation; animal cloning; growth hormones and antibiotics; genetic engineering; and artificial flavours, colours, and preservatives are some of the things Canadian organic standards prohibit.
Youth waste action
The free Food Matters action kit, a digital activity book put out by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, has engaging food-waste facts and activities for people across North America aged five to 25.
This article was originally published in the May 2026 issue of alive magazine.
