You try to eat healthy but do you ever look at your plate and wonder how your food reached you? Did it notch up carbon emissions on its way? Were chemical fertilisers used during its farming process? Don’t cook up guilt as your side dish! Here are some of the most eco-friendly foods that also happen to be good for you.
Strawberries
All berries are great for your health because they’re packed with lots of fibre and antioxidants. Strawberries are good news for the planet when it comes to carbon emissions because they only contain approximately 300 grams of carbon dioxide emissions per kilogram. This is a healthy number if you compare it to eggs that have six times the amount! Since they’re a fruit that is contaminated by pesticides, however, choose organic produce every time.
Avocados
These green numbers are delicious in a variety of meals, and best of all they come out on top when it comes to having the least amount of pesticides – research from this year shows that only one percent of avocado samples have any detectable pesticides in them. Not eating pesticides is healthier for you while also preventing disastrous consequences in the natural environment, such as the leaking of chemicals into water supplies that harms marine life.
Flax Seeds
Not only good for you thanks to their magnesium and Vitamin B1, flax seeds are naturally low-maintenance and gentle on the world’s resources. The crops don’t need to be irrigated and they do without the heavy chemical pesticides or fertilisers that other crops usually need.
Brazil Nuts
Brazil nut trees really only grow in the wild and they thrive in old forests that are biologically diverse. This is what makes them good for the earth. Since they can’t be cultivated on plantations, farming them is naturally an eco-friendly practice. Brazil nuts therefore make sustainable use of the Amazon forests. And the benefit for you? They’ve got lots of important nutrients, such as selenium that helps to fight various types of cancer.
Lentils
These are considered to be one of the most sustainable foods. They are regarded as nitrogen fixers, which means they take inert gases from the environment and then transform them into useful ammonium. This, in turn, enriches the soil! Lentils can reduce (and even eradicate!) the requirement for fossil fuel fertilisers. Added to this, they’re high in nutrients, packed with protein, fibre, amino acids and vitamins.
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