3 ways your eating habits can help fix our broken food system

Industrial farming guzzles water, wasting land, and producing greenhouse gases at alarming rates. 

Every year, about 47,000 square miles of land is exhausted by agriculture — roughly the size of Nicaragua. Farming also uses about 70% of the world's water and generates about one-third of all CO2 emissions.

The International Food Policy and Research Institute (IFPRI), one of the world's leading agriculture organizations, has designed a plan to help fix our broken food system. Its new 2016 report lays out sustainable development goals the world should reach by 2030.

To get there, the institute proposes three diet shifts:

Cut back on food portions

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Globally, obesity has more than doubled since 1980, and 30% of the world's population is now overweight or obese.

We need to work toward eliminating obesity and cutting the number of overweight people, the IFPRI says. This will not only reduce unnecessary food production (and thus resources), but would also help fight food waste. 

Reduce protein and meat consumption

Our chicken, beef, and pork consumption takes a serious toll on the environment, the report says.

The production, processing, and distribution of meat requires massive expenditures of pesticides, fertilizer, feed, land, and water — not to mention it releases greenhouse gases, manure, and other toxic chemicals into our air and water.

The institute recommends gradually limiting the amount of meat we eat.

Cut back on beef specifically

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Beef consumption is growing worldwide, but it is one of the most resource-intensive and environmentally harmful foods to produce.

Beef needs four times more land and gas emissions than dairy to generate the same amount of protein. It's also seven times more resource-intensive than pork and poultry, and 20 times more than dried seeds like lentils and chickpeas (also known as pulses), the report says.

If we reduce our beef consumption by one-third and replace it with pork, poultry, pulses, or soy, people can still achieve the same calorie intake, the IFPRI notes.

Following these three guidelines would spare the world between 1.4 to 1.8 million square miles of land every year, according to the report. That sounds like a world I'd want to live and eat in.