Would you want to live for a long time? Would you want to learn sustainable eating habits to achieve life extension in the long run?
Suppose you are genuinely interested in extending your own life. In that case, you should make learning and observing sustainable eating a priority presently since you most likely live in the resource-scarce and trash-filled world.
Read this article to learn more about sustainable eating and life extension.
The sustainable eating habits shared in this article will not equip you to solve climate change, waste management, or water shortages. However, applying these tips in your life can contribute to having a healthier globe.
But before that, let’s define sustainable eating;
What Does Sustainable Eating Means?
Sustainable eating refers to deciding food choices that conserve the environment. Consumers should be mindful of eating practices that question the sources, harvesting, packaging, and food consumption.
More so, you should check if the food choices you make, benefit or harms the environment in each of the stages it gets through.
Sustainable eating and life extension acknowledge that there are no eating habits with shock to the environment. However, this article urges readers to use the tips explained to reduce the effects of their food choices as much as possible.
The following are five sustainable eating habits of helping you kick start the practice:
Eat in Season
Regardless of the culture, you subscribe to; you follow traditions to celebrate local produce appearing seasonally at various times of the year.
Sustainable eating and life extension extend the practice of observing your culture through celebrating local produce each day. Therefore, you do not need to import products such as spinaches from distant places if you can access them in and around your locality.
Reduce Ultra-processed Foods
Ultra-processed foods are those that have undergone substantial treatment changes from their original forms.
Most ultra-processed foods have added sugars, fats, additives, preservatives, artificial colors, and artificial flavors. More so, these foods have been manipulated and milled to become more accessible forms of food.
For instance, comparing tea and soda, it is clear that soda is ultra-processed while tea is processed. Sustainable eating and life extension care much about the former.
Apart from the nutritional problems associated with ultra-processed foods, the substances also destroy the environment.
One thing to note is that almost all ultra-processed foods are packaged in plastic containers. For instance, about 70% of ultra-processed foods in the United States are packaged foods spreading a lot of waste materials into the environment.
Moreover, a significant percentage of ultra-processed foods come from monocropping, whereby farmers indefinitely grow the same crops in the same parcel of land. Monocropping reduces the nutrients in the land hence producing less nutritious foods with time.
Monocropping causes soil erosion reduces soil nutrients and destructs biodiversity. Therefore, sustainable eating encourages people interested in life extension to avoid ultra-processed foods.
Change up Your Meat Choices
A significant portion of people advocating for sustainable eating champions veganism as a way of life extension.
As a matter of fact, animal agriculture considerably affects the environment. Animal keeping contributes to greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation, habitat destruction, and shortages of drinkable water.
Noticeably, some meat is more destructive to the habitat than others. Most readers would term it unreasonable if this article advocates for total veganism, especially now that most people enjoy consuming meat.
Consequently, reducing meat choices would be the best option to cut down the impacts of animal agriculture on the environment.
The following animals contribute most to the emission of greenhouse gases, per The Environmental Working Group.
- Beef
- Lamb
- Natural cheese
- Farmed salmon
- Pork
Consumers can include the following animals in place of the above-listed ones to supplement their meat choices:
- Goat
- Rabbit
- Pheasant
- Goose
- Duck
- Venison
Note that no matter how much you cut your meat choices, embracing pure plant products in your diet can contribute to a healthier environment. However, some animal products are effective alternatives to lamb and beef farming.
Buy Local and Grow Your Own Garden
Buying locally produced foods and growing your own garden is one of the best solutions to sustainable eating and life extension.
The factor puts all the other factors (reducing beef and lamb consumption, avoiding ultra-processed food, and eating in season) into action.
Having a backyard that provides fresh picking is more sustainable than collecting foods from miles away from the United States.
Furthermore, caring for your garden and buying locally incentives eating in season. You can also make ultra-processed foods from your locally produced products.
Additionally, you exercise your body and develop farming skills when you care for your backyard.
In case you do not have enough space to have a garden or think that you lack a green thumb, then you may consider visiting farmer’s markets and other local markets for locally-sourced foods.
Mushrooms
Even in the Plantae kingdom, some products affect the environment less than others. For instance, olives, rice, and mangoes require a massive water footprint than cucumber, lettuce, and tomatoes.
However, of all the other plants, mushrooms are exceptionally good for the surrounding. Mushrooms are truly incredible for the environment because they clean up hazardous waste materials such as plastics.
Other essential plants in conserving the environment and life extension include fungi and lentils. The mushroom plants produce less than 0.08 kg of CO2 emission per serving.
Other than preparing delicious foods, most edible mushroom plants protect your body against diseases such as cancer. They also have longevity-boosting micronutrients such as niacin and selenium.
Visit your local mushroom markets for delicious mushrooms to observe sustainable eating and life extension.
More Tips
Sustainable eating is not the only way to promote life extension. It is among the many ways and actions to take.
Regular exercise, eating the right diet quantity and quality, planting trees, and reducing the usage of fossil fuels can also contribute to your life extension and the extension of your environmental life.
Final Thoughts
Sustainable eating and life extension is not a one-day trip.
Generally, healthy eating is a lifestyle that like-minded people interested in extending their lives, other people, and animals’ lives should embrace daily.
