K-State Extension Food, Nutrition, Dietetics and Health

Healthy Sustainable Diets

Making Everyday Choices for a Healthy Sustainable Diet

View or download the Fact Sheet and Leader's Guide by clicking on the links below:

Making Everyday Choices for a Healthy Sustainable Diet Fact sheet and Leader’s Guide

You may order copies of the Fact sheet and/or Leader's Guide visiting the KSRE publications library.

Working Together to Reduce Food Waste Fact Sheet

Use your food, and food-related, purchases to reinforce what you value. Consumers’ choices shape our food supply.

  • Dietary impacts on health are well known, and better health can lead to large savings on medical expenses.

  • The impact on saving environmental resources is also huge. For instance, our current food choices create a 27% larger carbon footprint than Americans’ driving habits do.

Don’t wait, expecting the government or the big food companies to solve all of our sustainability problems. People – YOU, for example – can make many small changes over time, starting with at least one today.

“Sustainable” diets meet our present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. But what can a person do to help achieve this goal? The fact sheet offers dozens of ideas for simple everyday ways to have a tasty, healthful and sustainable diet (Read which references were used to write the fact sheet here.)

The changes you make to be more sustainable will make a big difference to:

  • Maximize health (how you look and feel) for yourself, your children, their children, and so on

  • Save money

  • Increase the well-being of the environment

  • Improve the vitality of our local communities (increase their food production capacity and your own food security)

The suggestions in the fact sheet are grouped into seven categories:

  1. Choose nutrient-rich foods.

  2. Eat locally-produced foods when available.

  3. Buy from businesses with sustainable practices when possible.

  4. Minimize avoidable food losses and waste.

  5. Limit energy use.

  6. Limit water use.

  7. Minimize packaging and wrapper waste.

    Audio and Video Files

    A Healthy Sustainable Diet...(Part 1)

    A Healthy Sustainable Diet...(Part 2)

    Food, Field to Fork (An interview with Author and Nutritionist Anita Kobuszewski)

    Reducing Food Waste

    The Sustainable Dinner Plate (An interview with Registered Dietitian Mary Lee Chin)

If you have questions or concerns about the information on this page, please contact our office at 785-532-5782 or email: sburklun@ksu.edu