The food industry has a major effect on climate change. In the UK, 18% of our total greenhouse gas emissions are caused by food and farming. Modern agriculture, food production, transport and processing are entirely dependant on fossil fuels. Rethinking how and what we eat is a simple step that can help stem the current environmental crisis.

Non-organic, large scale modern agriculture relies on chemical fertilizers to artificially boost yields.

The meat and dairy industry is the most damaging to the environment. The explosion in the demand and intensive farming methods have lead to many problems: land use change that causes soil degradation and loss of biodiversity, pollution from animal waste, emissions of methane (15 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than CO2). Producing meat and milk takes a huge amount of crucial resources and energy – thousands of acres of land to grow fodder crops, millions of gallons of fresh water and tones of food that humans could eat, such as grain or soya. We import a lot of the vegetables and fruit we eat in the UK because most of our agricultural land is used to grow fodder for cattle. If you don’t want to be completely vegan then it helps if you eat a lot less meat and dairy products. Get those you do need from small scale local organic farms.

Becoming vegan would bring about the largest reduction of your carbon footprint and negative impact on the environment food-wise. A growing number of people are deciding to be vegan or aiming to eat vegan food most of the time for this very reason.