Alter your body – Alter the planet

You are what you eat. This age-old saying will sound familiar to most people and it is rooted in a scientific truth: we are made up of atoms which come from the food we eat, the water we drink, and the air we breathe. Consequently, nutrition and exercise are the two main factors determining our health and physical appearance like no other factors.

In an age where humans have taken over control of vast pieces of land—about half of the earth’s habitable land is used for agriculture[1]—we can formulate a new concept: The planet is what we plant. The other half of the habitable land is composed of forest, shrub, as well as urban and built-up land. The latter only accounts for 1%, although it is the part we spend the most time in.

 

 

Farmland comes in many forms and shapes. A staggering three-quarters of the agricultural area is used for livestock, including both grazing and animal feed production. It is hard not to marvel at the sheer scale of agricultural sites when flying over them in a plane. But it is important to keep in mind that this massive expansion in agricultural land use has happened quite recently. While 2000 years ago the total farming area was below 0.5 billion hectares, it is now approaching 5 billion hectares. As you may imagine, many of these farms are not operated in an ecological and sustainable way, which has been part of the success story of feeding the global population with increasing efficiency (i.e., decrease in land required per person has dropped from 1.2 to 0.6 over the past 50 years[2]). However, this comes at the cost of biodiversity due to the use of pesticides and monoculture, and a negative impact on the climate. Especially the increased cattle farming has led to a sharp increase in the atmosphere’s methane levels, a greenhouse gas 78 times more potent than CO2 on a 20-year scale, which has contributed to a third of the global warming observed to date[3].

Every single one of our daily choices affects how land use will change in the years to come. Walking to the supermarket or shopping for groceries online is like going to the ballot and casting a vote for how our future planet is going to be cultivated.

At the same time, our food choices affect our personal well-being, health, cognitive performance, and so much more. Why do we hear so little about this on the news? Quite simply, making a change can be painful in the beginning, but you will end up with something much more valuable in the end. We at Alter believe that these two things—health of the body and planet—align very well and can be pursued with every choice we make. Let us alter our choices together so we can alter the planet!

We are ready. Are you?

[1] Available at: World Economic Forum

[2] Available at: Our World in Data

[3] Available at: IEA