Changes in food intake to reduce CO2 emissions and have a healthy diet

Introduction: Human activities have resulted in global warming by high CO2 emissions. Poor dietary choices are linked to health diseases and high CO2 emissions. Most studies focus on the changes the average population diet, often suggesting radical changes to our diets. Methodology: An optimisation algorithm will be created to minimise CO2 emissions without changing greatly the current food intake of each individual. Diets of 212 individuals will be used, along with CO2 emissions for each food item in the sample. Results: Current diets contribute 6.94kg of CO2 emissions per person per day, which was reduced by 30% after the optimisation. 100 out of 212 individuals had an optimised diet as the result (47%). Meat and dairy contribute significantly more in CO2 emissions from diets compared to fruits and vegetables. Meat, dairy products, fruits and vegetables are 12% of our food intake each, however after the optimisation, meat and dairy were decreased by 23% whereas fruits and vegetables were increased by 30% and 4% respectively. Conclusions: Optimising food intake led to a healthy diet low in CO2 emissions by combining foods in current diets. It is possible to achieve this by making small changes to the food intake consumed