You’ve probably been told to “watch what you eat” so that you stay healthy. But did you know that what you eat also affects the health of the planet? Every day, we humans take a bite out of something, not knowing where it came from or how it affects the environment. Eat for the Planet by Nil Zacharias and Gene Stone goes into detail about how what we eat every single day affects the whole planet and how if we all #EatForThePlanet, we could make the world a much better place to live in.

Eat for the Planet informed me about all the ways food, specifically industrialized meat, contributes to carbon emissions and complicates our food security. For example, 45% of the land surface on Earth is occupied by livestock systems because of humankind’s appetite for meat. This is just for the more than 7 billion people currently on the Earth. As the population increases, more trees will have to be cut down to make more room for livestock. Just in this situation, so many problems arise. It doesn’t account for the food and water for all the livestock, or all the manure that has to be taken care of, or the pollution. This book presents the idea to grow and eat more fruits and vegetables than industrially-raised meat. There are so many edible plants around the world that are super healthy and packed with vitamins but they never get used. Alternatively, regeneratively-raised livestock can provide an alternative to meat-eaters who are looking to reduce their climate footprint.

Overall, Eat for the Planet is pretty informative. It has statistics to show all the data and has good pictures and analogies to go along with them. This helps better give an idea about how much effect we humans have on the planet. Zacharias and Stone also give a solution to help the planet. They elaborate on how the solution to eat and grow more fruits and vegetables can help mitigate our industrialized livestock system. The only complaint I have about this book is that they were a little repetitive. But this book informed me about all the ways I contribute to climate change. I seriously recommend this book so you can get a little more perspective on how your eating habits affect our planet. After all, the Earth is our only home, so we should start treating it a little better.

Eat for the Planet and other books are available in the 21 Acres library to borrow whenever campus is open! Stop by the front desk to ask how to check out a book. This resource is always free to our community.

About Aveen Thoohan

Aveen Thoohan lives with her family in Woodinville, Washington. In her free time, she loves to hang out with her friends, read fantasy books, and binge animated kids’ shows on Netflix. Aveen likes to write about books because she loves reading and wants other people to share her passion for books.