How to Get the Most Nutritious Bang for your Buck AND Fight Climate Change
Climate change is messing with your food. Here's how you can bite back.
Ugh. We’re just gonna say it – Climate change sucks. It’s messing with the weather, it’s messing with our allergies, and now… our food too?!
All of that extra CO2 we’re putting into the air is making plants grow really fast and forcing them to turn that carbon into sugary carbs and fibers instead of healthy vitamins and minerals. While a little bit of extra CO2 can help plants grow faster, too much zaps the nutrients out of healthy leafy greens, high protein rice, and vitamin-packed fruits. How? Plants need time to grow and build up healthy minerals and nutrients.
Too much CO2 too fast forces them to carb load. The same happens when it gets too warm and dry. When temps go up a little or plants get a little less water, fruits and vegetables stress out and build up their defenses with nutrients and vitamins. But, places like Iowa where a lot of corn and soybeans are grown are getting way too dry, and other places like Florida, a major source of oranges and other fruits and veggies, are getting too wet. For us, that means corn and soybeans will have more sugar and less protein, and those oranges will have more sugar and less Vitamin C and antioxidants. All of that extra heat and rain also weakens plant defenses, making them more susceptible to disease and disruption. On top of all that, hurricanes, wildfires, and pests made worse by climate change have been destroying entire fields of crops in recent years, and that’s made healthy options more expensive for you and your family.
But, you don’t have to just sit back and take it. Here are some ways you can get the most nutritious bang for your buck AND fight climate change at the same time:
Yes, climate change is impacting our food, but we can all take steps along the way to fight climate change while making our food healthier.