This is a blog article by Colin Rea of the Broadclyst Environment Group, creator of Recipes for the Planet—a free collection of tasty plant-based recipes to help you reduce your culinary carbon footprint.
The more I read about our impact on the environment, the more I recognise that one of the most effective ways of helping to reduce our individual carbon footprint is to change the way we eat. But how can we do this without overwhelming ourselves? And how do we do it without feeling like we’re giving up every food we enjoy?
For the last four years, I have been searching for recipes that lower my carbon footprint. It is becoming clear that a predominantly plant-based diet is not only healthier for us, but also for the planet. Plant-based eating cuts out a huge amount of the environmental impact of farming, meaning that we consume directly the products we grow without expending energy on growing animal feed or using space for grazing and rearing livestock. More and more conservationists are beginning to voice their support for this way of eating, and the World Health Organization has some very interesting stats on how much better for the planet it is.
Initially, I felt overwhelmed and, if I’m honest, quite depressed. Surely it would mean only eating a limp lettuce leaf and a couple of carrots for every meal and being miserable for the rest of my life? It felt so daunting to change habits as deeply entrenched as what we eat — and, of course, we get so much comfort from our food.
It was important to me to find recipes that are lip-smackingly tasty and begin with changes that are easily achievable — life can be overwhelming enough without adding the weight of feeling like you have to throw out all the small comforts in life. From this came my Recipes for the Planet guide. It’s a collection of tasty and comforting recipes that are easy to make with a few simple changes, completely free, and available to download from our website. It’s packed with information about simple swaps that won’t cost the Earth, as well as recipes for soups, mains, and desserts to give you a starting place if you fancy giving plant-based cooking a go. I highly recommend the Mushroom Bourguignon, which has a fabulously meaty-tasting sauce. Whenever I cook it for guests, there are never any leftovers.
We don’t have to be saints. No one is telling you that you can’t ever eat meat, dairy, or eggs again. But if lots of us make some small changes — even one plant-based meal a week — we can start to be part of turning the tide on the climate crisis. And who knows — you may even enjoy it?