Eating Better is about encouraging everyone to eat more healthily AND eat more sustainably. It’s about eating foods, which help our own health and the health of the planet.
Eating Better is an alliance of nearly 50 national organisations that have come together to help shift our eating patterns towards much more plant-based foods – like pulses – while reducing our consumption of meat & dairy foods. We think it’s the only way we can possibly hope to feed a future global population of 9bn+ – healthily, fairly & sustainably.
You’ve no doubt heard this before – but if everyone ate the way we do we in the UK then we’d need the best part of 3 planets to sustain us – and, of course, we’ve only got one.
Delivering on the historic Paris Climate Change deal isn’t going to be easy. But one simple step we can all take which could make a real difference in preventing ‘dangerous’ levels of climate change is to modify what we eat and make pulses – and other plant-based foods - a much bigger part of our meals & menus.
That’s why the Eating Better alliance is proud to support the UN’s International Year of Pulses.
Pulses are a healthy, great value, low carbon source of protein and beneficial nutrients. And they come in a wonderful variety that can be incorporated into delicious, mouthwatering dishes. They truly are the future’s superfoods.
Pulses are also recommended by dieticians and health professionals as they help prevent the terrible diseases of diabetes and obesity; heart disease, strokes and colon cancer which cost lives and the UK’s NHS so dearly.
That’s because pulses are:
- High in fibre (4x more fibre than brown rice) – the latest UK Gov. scientific nutrition advisory committee confirms we don’t get nearly enough fibre
- A low fat (and low carbon) sources of protein with no saturated fat
- Excellent sources of vitamins & minerals including iron, potassium, folate
When it comes to healthy eating: too often we’re told we need to give something up. That can feel like we’re being asked to deprive ourselves. But pulses are a positive story. Pulses come in a wonderful variety that can be incorporated into delicious, mouthwatering dishes. So, in 2016 Eating Better will be singing their praises, helping to spread the word that it really is time to #LovePulses – for our own health and the health of our planet.
Sue Dibb is coordinator of Eating Better: for a fair, green, healthy future – an alliance to help people eat less and better meat and more foods that are good for people and the planet.