How to Plan Healthy, Sustainable Meals for the Whole Family

Plan healthy, sustainable meals for your family with expert tips, eco-friendly recipes, and ideas to reduce your environmental and carbon footprint—deliciously!

Sustainable Family Meals: Healthy, Eco-Friendly Recipes & Meal Planning Tips

Want to feed your family well while caring for the planet? With a few smart strategies, it’s easier than ever to plan healthy, sustainable meals that are both family-friendly and eco-conscious. In this post, you’ll discover expert tips for sustainable meal planning, simple ways to reduce your carbon footprint through food choices, and nutritious, plant-forward recipes that kids and adults will love. From cutting down on food waste to choosing climate-friendly ingredients, we’ll show you how to make every meal count—for your health and the environment.

Learning how to reduce carbon footprint at your mealtime is a growing trend. In addition to making family meals healthy and delicious, people increasingly want to ensure their meals are comprised of sustainable food choices. According to a recent survey, people are willing to pay 10% more for sustainable foods in supermarket aisles. But what does that mean on your dinner plate?

What Are Sustainable Meals?

While many people consider food sustainability to be focused primarily on the environmental factors of food production, there are other facets of sustainable food systems to consider. Planetary considerations, such as reducing the carbon and water footprint of food choices, avoiding food waste, trimming food packaging, and eating a more plant-based diet, are very important when making sustainable food choices at the family dinner table, but other issues are also critical for sustainable meal planning. Keep in mind factors such as honoring cultural food traditions, supporting local food systems, factoring in food affordability and access, making nutrient-rich food choices, and promoting diet diversity. According to the non-profit food systems sustainability organization, Food + Planet, there are four dimensions of sustainability for diets, which include the following:

While many people consider food sustainability to be focused primarily on the environmental factors of food production, there are other facets of sustainable food systems to consider. According to the non-profit food systems sustainability organization, Food + Planet, there are four dimensions of sustainability for diets, which include the following:

• Sociocultural
  Sustainable diets respect the welfare and rights of individuals, communities, cultures, animals, and the environment. Factors include animal welfare standards, culturally appropriate diets, food justice and sovereignty, and health equity.
• Nutrition
  Sustainable diets support human health through their quality, diversity, safety, and accessibility. Factors include diet quality and diversity, food system safety, optimized health outcomes, and reliable food access.
• Economic
  Sustainable diets require economies that balance people, planet, and profits. Factors include affordable food choices, circular economy, ethical labor and sourcing, and responsible governance.
• Planetary
  Sustainable diets emerge from agricultural practices that are in harmony with the environment. Factors include biological diversity, climate-smart agriculture, resilient agroecological practices, and water, and, and soil use.

EAT-Lancet Planetary Health Plate

One guide for making sustainable food choices is the science-based EAT-Lancet Commission’s Planetary Health Diet, which addresses both the health of people and the planet. In order to transform to healthy diets for people and the planet, it will take a substantial shift in eating patterns, according to EAT-Lancet. It will require more than doubling the consumption of healthy foods, such as vegetables, fruits, nuts, and legumes, with a greater than 50% reduction in global consumption of red meat and added sugars. Analysis shows that these changes result in major health benefits by reducing global deaths by up to 24%, while making major impacts on planetary boundaries, such as biodiversity loss, greenhouse gas emissions, cropland and water use, and phosphorus and nitrogen application. This recommended diet pattern is flexible, because it provides guidelines and ranges of food groups for an optimal diet, with targets in each section.

4 Easy Ways to Make Your Family Meals More Sustainable

The four pillars of sustainable diets, including sociocultural, nutrition, economic, and planetary factors, can all be considered when planning your wholesome family meals. Try these easy tips for planning healthy, delicious sustainable meals for the whole family.

1. Consider Cultural Food Preferences
What are some favorite traditional family meals and recipes that are part of your family’s food culture? For example, a classic food tradition might be beans and rice, which also fits nicely into a nutritious, affordable, accessible, low-carbon footprint eating plan. Get connected to these traditions by engaging with your beloved foods and memories.

2. Plan Budget-Friendly Meals
Before planning healthful meals, it’s important to identify access to affordable healthful foods in your community. It’s essential to work around your own food availability and budget. Consider meals that feature seasonal produce, are based on plant proteins, such as beans, peas, and lentils, and don’t require lots of unusual ingredients. Check out my tips for planning budget-friendly meals here.

3. Reduce Food Waste
When it comes to reducing your the eco footprint of your meals, low-hanging fruit is identifying opportunities to cut down on food waste, which can help save dollars and negative planetary outcomes, such as wasted energy and resources. Use up those leftovers, make second and third meals out of ingredients such as beans and grains, and understand expiration dates on food labels. Learn more about food waste here.

4. Plan More Meatless Meals
Swapping meat for beans is one great way to promote sustainability in all four dimensions: economic (you’ll save money!), sociocultural (these foods are part of many traditional diets), planetary (beans have the lowest carbon footprint compared to other proteins), and nutrition (beans have many health benefits). Reduce animal food intake and replace those foods with plant proteins, such as pulses, nuts, seeds, and soy foods.