It's time, to be honest.
Your favorite hot dog may be reducing the number of candles on your birthday cake.
More than 5,800 foods were judged by public health professors at the University of Michigan, who ranked them based on their "nutritional disease burden" as well as their estimated environmental impact—also known as carbon footprint, which is the number of greenhouse gases (like carbon dioxide) emitted by our actions (such as cars, households, and power plants) as defined by the United States (EPA).
The Health Nutritional Index (HENI), which was based on the Global Burden of Disease (GBD), a resource that measures the health challenges around the world where illness and morality are linked with a single food choice, tallied which foods would likely extend or reduce one's life expectancy by minutes. The current study took 15 dietary risk factors and disease burden projections from both scoring systems and compared them to an American food survey data.
The authors used IMPACT World+ (a tool for assessing the harm to the ecosystem and human health) to calculate how food (including production, processing, preparation, and waste) affects the world. They used 18 environmental indicators.
Finally, the findings were sorted into three zones: red, yellow, and green. (Like a traffic light, for example.) The foods that fell in the red zone were determined to have low nutritional value and a significant environmental effect, which is why the study authors advise reducing, if not eliminating, these foods from one's diet.
They recommend that we focus on consuming foods in the green zone since they provide the best nutritional benefits with the most negligible environmental impact.
The following are the results of their research published in the journal Nature Food: A hot dog—or one dish of beef, lamb, pig, processed meats, or greenhouse-grown vegetables—could cut a healthy lifespan in half. Nuts, legumes, some seafood selections such as fatty fish, and field-grown fruits and vegetables, on the other hand, can add 26 minutes to your life.
Furthermore, they found that replacing 10% of your daily intake of red zone items with green zone foods might result in 48 additional "healthy minutes" per day while simultaneously reducing your carbon footprint by one-third.
Mitzi Dulan, RD, CSSD, founder of simplyFUEL.com, states,
"These findings do not surprise me." "The study backs up the widely held belief that we should consume more fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes, and seafood while reducing our consumption of processed meat and cattle. It gets even more detailed when it comes to mixing carbon footprint and nutrition."
If you're an unofficial carnivore who wants to experiment with some meatless alternatives, Dulan recommends starting with a popular vegetarian/vegan protein. "I adore making meatballs with lentils instead of meat," she explains. "Plus, my recipe is delectable."
She also suggests coming up with new ways to use chickpeas. "Chickpeas are mashed and mixed with celery, grapes, Dijon mustard, apple cider vinegar, and plain Greek yogurt in a salad. Alternatively, combine chickpeas and leafy greens in a pita."
You don't have to say goodbye to frankfurters forever, however. "If you like hotdogs, I think you can have them a few times a year," Dulan says. "Just don't keep them in your fridge as a regular."