Surprising benefits of sustainable eating you need to know
Advantages of sustainable eating
Sustainable food practices benefit animals, communities, and the entire planet. Most importantly, sustainable diets help you, the consumer, directly.
This subsection examines the direct health benefits you get when you eat sustainably:
1. Promotes healthy living
Eating organic foods such as wholegrains, legumes, and fresh fruits can help reduce total cholesterol levels, lower the risk of specific cancers, enhance your colon function, and increase the uptake of vital minerals and nutrients.
Additionally, eating freshly-produced vegetables and fruits can provide your body with abundant nutrients, fibre, and vitamins.
2. Organic foods taste better
Because farmers harvest sustainable products when they’re fresh and transport them across shorter distances, they taste better.
That means you can eat fresher foods and vegetables while knowing you’re close to the natural taste of your favourite foods.
3. It reduces expenditure
Sustainable feeding reduces food expenditures as there’s a reduced need for transport, handling, cooling, and storage of food products.
4. It reduces your food budget
One of the economic benefits of sustainable eating is that whole, fresh, and in-season foods are usually less expensive than processed, stored, and exported goods.
Therefore, you spend less when you go green and buy fresh foods from your local farmer during the food season.
5. Establishes positive farmer-consumer relationships
Farmers’ markets, U-Pick, CSAs and other similar developments that promote sustainable eating help build positive relationships between farmers and consumers.
These developments are also a great avenue to interact with the farmer on topics such as food availability, storage, taste, and storage tips.
6. Reduced exposure to chemicals
Since farmers expose most sustainably-grown produce to fewer chemicals such as pesticides, you consume fewer chemicals when eating organic foods.
Reduced exposure to chemicals also means avoiding illnesses and health challenges that pesticides’ ingestion causes.
7. Supports Local Farming
Farmers earn more when they sell to you directly than when they sell to go-betweens.
Remember that middle-men like supermarkets, groceries, and wholesalers would likely purchase at a higher discount than the farmers would afford retail consumers.
8. Stimulates the local economy
When you purchase locally-produced agricultural produce, you can help advance the local economy by ensuring that money stays in the community.
That would assist local farmers, and food producers hire local staff as more people demand their produce.
9. Contributes to a greener world
Sustainable nutrition contributes toward a greener planet in different ways.
First, organic farming helps improve soil health, strengthening plant roots to absorb crucial nutrients.
Moreover, seasonal harvesting enables farmers to select and phase out fruits closer to their peak since they’re sending them to shorter distances.
Also, shorter distances mean shorter transportation routes, less fuel, and shorter energy to store foods.
Additionally, sustainable eating promotes the reduction of food waste, climate change (from reduced combustion of fuel and natural resources), and reduced food insecurity.
Summarily, you contribute to the welfare of soil, waterways, wildlife, and ecological biodiversity by eating sustainably.
