But now you might ask how a low fat diet could possibly affect the environment in a negative way. Well, I'll lay out a case and then the rest is up to you- no thought police here :)
So, let's start off with meals designed for a low-fat diet. All fat is scary and you should consume as little of it as possible (especially if on a diet). So, your yogurt is low fat (hello, gelatin), your milk is low fat (hello, coloured water), you eat only egg whites, you eat mostly chicken breast (no skin), you choose the leanest cuts of all other meats, and you cannot imagine bacon unless it's thinly sliced and turned into a charred crisp, no butter or full fat mayo, half avocado per week (if any), and on and on it goes.
So, let's see what these nutrition choices actually do from a daily required calorie intake perspective. Look, we all need calories from different food groups in order to survive and stay healthy long enough to _____ (insert bucket list). Eating low fat means you can still get your calories, but in the process of getting them, you create an unbelievable amount of waste. Eat only chicken breast? Well, it takes a whole chicken to produce a pair of those. Like leaner cuts of beef? Well, it takes a whole cow to make that happen. Like low fat yogurt? Well, it takes more artificial manufacturing to produce it, so you get a greater impact on the environment. In fact, there are very few low fat food products that don't cause a greater environmental impact than "normal versions" of the same foods.
Imagine this on a grand scale, with everyone wanting to eat low fat (and as it turns out, get sick in the process). Sure, farmers would export fattier pieces of meat or find other profitable uses for them, but the sheer amount of animals that we would require just in North America is likely staggering. Also, imagine the natural resources going into producing one egg, with every single person throwing away the yoke. Oh, and it doesn't end there. When you take out fat as much as possible, you need to increase calories by increasing either protein or carbs. If you increase the lean protein, we need even more animals of which we want only lean pieces, or more dessert, pasta, bread and so on to fill in the gap. One option puts an additional strain on the environment, the other on our healthcare system, our loved ones, and also on the environment via increased medical drugs and tools production that is likely not environmentally friendly.
There is something to be said about the fact that many parts of the world (that have people reaching old age) are not particularly into eliminating fat from their diet. Some of these countries include China, Japan, Philippines, as well as parts of Greece, Italy, the Balkans etc. Eating more fat in the diet means consuming more each animal and going for meat products that, while fully unpleasant when you read the ingredients, taste quite good as a finished product. Also, this means that you can use more fat in your cooking so you need less meat and all other ingredients to reach your daily caloric needs and feel full (without a sugar crash, by the way). I also believe a lower carb, higher fat diet allowed people in the past (and perhaps today) to skip lunch altogether. Lunch, as it happens, is one of the most complicated meals to pull off for a typical 9-5 weekday schedule. Do you brown bag it or buy it? Do you do meal prep for the week or take leftovers? For many people, buying lunch 20 days in a month can run up to $300, which is $3,600 per year (I wonder if people moonlight driving uBer just for this...). In the past, this wasn't really necessary and examples from around the world show it. The traditional English breakfast with bacon, sausages and eggs would give you the calories, protein and fat to keep going till dinner time without a sugar crash. In Tibet, people traditionally start their days with a special butter tea. In between these two regions, there's the Balkans where people used to start their day with eggs, bacon (chopped up, not thinly sliced), and cheese. Now mind you, these people worked in the fields and such; an office worker could eat less of the same foods and still be full till dinner. So, I wonder if the costly concept of lunch as we know it today is another result of the low fat fiasco.
Now, to be clear, I'm not trying to change people's minds based off of one article I put together. Also, as I mentioned earlier, I checked my cholesterol frequently for a year to make sure I'm doing things right. Now that I know it works for me, I'm glad because of the good impact it had on my health as well as the environment. Mmmm, not to mention how much better everything tastes.