15 Sustainable Nutrition Stats you Need to Know

Everything – yes, everything – we eat has a wider impact on the planet. Read on for all the facts you need to know about sustainability and nutrition.

We are what we eat, and what we eat isn’t always great for the planet (or ourselves) – a staggering number of people worldwide are undernourished, and the food industry is taking an alarming toll on our natural resources.

The discussion surrounding climate change can often feel very doom-and-gloom, but it doesn’t need to be this way. Rather than dwell on what’s going wrong, we want to help set things right – all of us can help change the course of global warming with a few small choices. We recently put together a sustainable nutrition report outlining how we can all help halt climate change.

Read on for 15 stats – taken from that sustainability report – that show just how closely our diets and the health of the planet are connected.

50%

… is what you could slash your carbon footprint by if you switch to two plant-based meals a day. Switching to just one could cut them by 35%.

Two billion

… people across the globe are are classed as overweight or obese, whilst 800m are considered undernourished.

26%

… of all human-created global greenhouse gas emissions come from the food system. This includes land use, crop production, livestock, fisheries, and logistics.

Huel-Sustainability-Nutrition

14.5%

… 14.5% of total greenhouse gas emissions come only from animal-based agriculture. Animal farming takes up a staggering 83% of the world’s agricultural land.

2,350 litres

… of water are needed to make just one burger (& 1,000 to make 1l of milk).

83%

… of the carbon footprint of the average Western diet comes exclusively from meat and dairy.

28-30%

… yet meat and dairy only contribute this percentage of calories. Meat and dairy are part of a balanced diet, but people’s diets in the developed world are disproportionately built around both. We need to include more nutrient-rich plant-based calories in our diets.

11 million

… deaths a year are caused by diseases related to poor diets. Associated health conditions include high blood pressure, high blood sugar, and obesity.

20%

… is how much less likely you’ll be to develop heart disease if you switch to a plant-based diet. A plant-based diet also reduces the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, and slashes your likelihood of being overweight or obese by 50% and 75%, respectively (vs. someone with an omnivorous diet). For more tips on how to add more plant-based foods to your diet, have a read of our guide:

Plant-Based Food Swaps

30%

… of all of the food produced for human consumption is wasted. It’s estimated that this 30% looks something like 1.6 billion (!!!) tonnes of food. Much of it is wasted before it reaches us (during harvest, storage and transportation), whilst at the supermarket, and in our homes. 60% of wastage occurs in the home, with the average person in the UK wasting 30kg a year.

125 litres

… is the amount of water wasted by throwing away a bruised apple. When food is wasted, all of the resources required to produce that food – water, land, fuel, fertilisers and so on – are also wasted.

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0.6kg CO2 e

… is how much greenhouse gas is produced per every 400kcal serving of Huel Powder v.3 (Vanilla flavor). This makes Huel a low-carbon food, with 83% of carbon coming from our ingredients. To see how that stacks up against other everyday meals, have a read of our ‘Why Huel Exists? (in Five Graphs)’ article.