The climatarian diet is a low carbon footprint diet that can save up to a tonne of CO2e every year; that’s like driving from England to Albania and back.
Keeping up with the trends these days is a full-time job, but, on this occasion, we wanted to do the hard part for you and serve up some tasty information (as well as doner kebabs). A climatarian diet is an easy diet that’s good for the climate, good for nature and good for you (climatarian.com). The idea of an eco-friendly diet is that you eat foods based on how much, or better, how few greenhouse gases are emitted into the atmosphere to produce those foods. So, the good news... you officially can save the planet by picking up a What The Pitta!
A carbon footprint isn’t something you can physically see, but it’s essentially the total amount of greenhouse gases that are emitted by us. Yes, us. You and me and the rest of the population. We all know that flying emits a lot of Co2 but a lot less people realise that meat and commercially farmings are responsible for up to 8.5% of all greenhouse gas emissions with a further 14.5% coming from land-use change (mainly deforestation in the developing world to clear land for food production). If like us, you are curious about your carbon footprint and how you can reduce yours, you can use a carbon footprint calculator to find out.
Experts agree that the single most beneficial diet for the environment is the vegan diet. But, not everyone is ready to completely cut out meat and dairy and that’s where the climatarian diet comes into action. Even reducing the amount of beef and lamb (two of the most co2 emitting food products) you consume will significantly reduce your environmental impact. Meatless Mondays is a good option to consider if you are plant curious or just looking to reduce your animal products intake. Veganuary is also around the corner, which is a great opportunity to test out a Vegan diet for a month where you could save up to 620 pounds of harmful carbon dioxide emissions, 913 square feet of forest, and 33,481 gallons of water they also have lots of support, recipe ideas, meal plans, and recommendations available to help.
That’s a very good question, and we have a very good answer. In general, the more plant-based foods you choose instead of meat, the better. Choose locally sourced and grown instead of air-flown foods, avoid food waste, choose seasonal foods and even better, if you can, grow seasonal fruits and vegetables yourself. Did you know that, on average, you can eat 10 vegan burgers for the same climate cost as an average beef burger!? Maybe that’s a good place to start... not that we recommend eating all 10 in one go.
What The Pitta! was founded on the basis that vegan food doesn’t have to be boring and we are here to prove that you can care about the environment and still enjoy that cheeky doner kebab whenever you fancy it. We recently partnered with Klimato who aim to make restaurants more sustainable by helping them calculate the carbon footprint of their meals. Guests can then easily make planet-friendly sustainable food choices with climate labelled menus. We believe with greater transparency comes better choices and more accountability to both the customer and the restaurant operator. We want our customers to be able to shout about the planet friendly choices they make and hopefully inspire others to do so too! Keep an eye out for our new website and menu labelling over the coming months.
What The Pittaᵀᴹ trades under multiple companies you can find out more here.
