According to a 2022 survey conducted by Food Insight analyzing Gen Z’s perspectives on food and health, 33% of respondents said that environmental sustainability had a “great” or “somewhat” of an impact on their decision to buy foods and beverages. Couple this with the fact that 50% of Gen Z believe their personal choices about food and beverage purchases have a “significant” or “moderate” impact on the environment, and you land squarely at the climatarian diet, the third most popular diet—after low-carb and intermittent fasting—in America according to a Datassential consumer survey.
As the term suggests, climatarian diets are full of foods and beverages with low carbon footprints. This means the carbon emissions associated with their production and transport are comparatively small, making them climate-friendly foods.
What are climate-friendly foods?
Climate-friendly foods are those that cause minimal environmental impact to produce. The energy, land, and irrigated water inputs required to grow them are small. As a result, the carbon emissions associated with them are minor relative to those of other foods.
Sometimes climate-friendly foods are locally sourced, but they don’t have to be since the carbon emissions from transport are minor compared to those from on-farm production. However, air-freighted foods—like asparagus from Australia—are the exception.
Generally speaking, climate-friendly foods are not animal-based or heavily processed.
Top 10 climate-friendly foods
Based on the extensive analysis by Poore and Nemecek of the foods from over 38,000 commercial farms in 119 countries, here are the foods and beverages with the lowest greenhouse gas emissions (including nitrous oxide from fertilizers as well as carbon dioxide and methane), making them the top climate-friendly foods.
10. Peanuts
9. Tofu
8. Cow’s milk
7. Beans
6. Corn
5. Wheat
4. Soy milk
3. Peas
2. Root vegetables*
1. Tree nuts
*Including potatoes, onions, and carrots
Shoutout to beans as a climate-friendly food
Sustainable, climate-friendly beans deserve a special mention from the preceding list of the top 10 climate-friendly foods. Because of their superior nutrition profiles obtained from minimal environmental impact, beans are the ultimate climate-friendly food and could easily serve as a major dietary staple.
Grown with just a fraction of the water needed for meat production with many varieties needing no fertilizer since they actually pull nitrogen from the air, the sheer variety of high-fiber, protein-packed beans presents a plethora of healthy, low-carbon options to please your eco-conscious palate.
Consider this vegan—yes, really!—Hoppin’ John recipe, minus ham hocks. Black-eyed peas never had it so good.
If you don’t like to cook, try any one—or two—of the delish, ready-to-eat bean cuisines inspired by Creole, Caribbean, and Latin American traditions from Black-owned A Dozen Cousins available both online and off.
Is meat a climate-friendly food?
Dixon, Michelsen, and Carpenter, the authors of a 2023 review of six diets, including the climatarian diet as a low-impact choice, state that “results from the low-impact diets show that meat consumption does not need to be eliminated in order to maintain a diet with a relatively low carbon footprint…substitutions can be made…” However, beef has an extremely high carbon footprint—the highest of all foods—and should be avoided.
Would eating climate-friendly foods solve the climate crisis?
Since roughly 26% of total carbon emissions are due to agriculture, choosing climate-friendly foods has the potential to curb the climate crisis at every meal. Although one individual can’t do this alone, adoption of a climatarian diet by most people could make a difference.
