Food...

Choosing climate-healthy foods at the grocery store, with never-ending aisles of packaged foods, overflowing bins of produce from around the world, and walls of stocked freezer cases, presents an obvious challenge. But, a new study, discussed at WorldChanging.com, approaches this conundrum with one question: which is more important? The food you eat, or where that food is grown?

In short, the food you eat is more important. While local food is always a better choice than food imported from across the country or the globe, the next time you’re planning your meals, the best thing you can do to eat climate-friendly is just say No to beef. Red meat, compared to cereals, chicken, dairy products, produce, and oils, has the largest impact on the climate. (If you want to take it a step farther, cut out dairy, it ranked second in the amount of emissions produced.)

A hopeful finding from the study: small shifts in food choices can have a huge impact on the climate. If we consumers switched 12 percent of our meat and dairy food choices to veggie-based foods, it would have the same impact on the climate as going 100 percent local for all food purchases.

Need help replacing that weekly burger?

Vegetarian Kitchen has information about eating a vegetarian diet.

VegWeb has vegan recipes and shopping tips.

The International Vegetarian Union has vegetarian recipes from around the world.

And, Vegetarian Cooking has even more veggie recipes.

Image from Runner's World article about eating vegetarian for performance.