10 rules for food: based on WWF-UK Livewell & other friends work

After a month on the Livewell diet, I thought I should firstly thank the great Duncan Williamson at WWF-UK for such a ground breaking paper, the first person in the UK to really quantify a healthy diet for us & our planet.

Secondly set some guidelines on what I've learnt on carbon footprinting and nutritional analysing everything for a whole mount. So to be a Brit, eat healthy & within our resources this is what my revised rules are

1. Eat simple, eat less but go for quality, think balance eat no more than you need & build exercise into your diet

- a typical Brit is eating 3500 calories, a 46 year old man needs 2300 - that's as wasteful as binning it

- meals rich in fruit, vegetables, pulses, wholegrains and nuts are great

- good ingredients taste better & are normally better for everyone

- accept food is going to get more expensive & good food will cost more

- 3 meals a day, always a good breakfast, a main meal (best midday) & a light meal

- rarely have I seen a good place to buy fuel for my body that mainly sell it for my car

- Processed food is often unhealthy, tasteless, high in fat &/or salt

2. Choose food for how it's grown: think about - animal welfare (meat & dairy), wildlife & biodiversity, water, embedded oil/carbon, buy local and eat the seasons when you can

- a typical Brit adult may be eating 6.5-8.5kgs of embedded greenhouse gasses (GHG/carbon)
- by 2020 we have to get that down to less than 5kgs, and by 2027 4kgs of carbon to meet our global obligations

- local food may not always be lower in impacts, but it's better for the economy & our culture for sure

- seasonal food is likely to be lower in its impacts, cheaper & tastier, so why not?

- you cannot eat packaging, sometimes it helps safe waste & is good, sometimes it just costs more

3. Eat Fair

- by eating in excess we will be taking food from others who are not as well off as we are

- the poorest farmers in the world are working hard to feed us, let's pay them for it and also not eat their share

- don't waste your food we throw away between 20-40% of everything we buy, & buy too much

4. Eat more plants, go beyond 5 a day for fruit & vegetables, think 6-12 portions a day

- a portion is around 80g or a good handful

- we include up to 2 portions of potatoes

- count fruit as no more than 3 or 4 if you hit 12, juice a max of 2 if of differing types

- limit high impact fruit & vegetables: airfreighted (out of season herbs, greens & tropical) unless fair-trade, tomatoes/peppers/chillies/cucumbers out of season

5. Eat less than the norm for meat, cheese and dairy

- for meat, hard cheese and butter no more than 2 full portions per day: that's 104g per day (count a 52g portion of soft cheese or similar as half/26g)

- presently we eat around 216g of meat per day and a good chunk of cheese and a little butter

- pay for the best, organic, LEAF & Red Tractor, by growing food to higher standards we will hopefully help the environment, have less to pay cleaning up the pollution & have better tasting food

- artisan/expensive usually means more for the farmer, you pay for what you get

- rumour has it we mostly enjoy the first few mouthfuls of meat & cheese

6. Eat fish in moderation and always from sustainable sources

- 2 portions a week, oily fish is good (like sardine, herring, anchovy, salmon, trout & mackerel)

- a portion is a 50-100g fillet, or 100-200g whole

- look for sustainable fish like MSC certified or local day boat caught

7. Drinks: minimise all but the mains tap water

- bottled drinks & definitely water is a treat, tap is better for the pocket & planet

- alcohol in moderation for yours & the planets health

- tea & coffee should be fairly traded with thought for the environment, they are high impact

8. Think about how it's cooked & presented

- oil and fats in moderation, animal fats are OK to cook with in moderation

- we eat too much salt around 8-9g per day, we need 6, minimise processed foods and don't add it unless you have too

- the associated electric & gas used in preparing & eating can more than double it's impacts

- food should look good, it makes it more enjoyable

- smaller plates help to keep intake down

9. Eat feasts with friends on high days & holidays - it's fun & what life should be about

- don't not eat out or party, but compensate before & after

10. Learn about food, it's important: think the nutrition, health, the planet & taste & then ask would Great Grandma have known this as food?

- talk to the person who selling you the food, they should know more than you

- is meat grown on soya from reclaimed rainforest land local or sustainable?

- Your ancestors only ate real food, we've evolve to eat a good range of this over many 1000's of year