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The food we consume has a massive impact on our planet. Agriculture takes up听half the habitable land听on Earth, destroys forests and other ecosystems and produces a听quarter of the world鈥檚 greenhouse gas emissions. Meat and dairy specifically accounts for around听14.5%听of global greenhouse gas emissions.

So changing what we eat can help reduce carbon emissions and promote sustainable farming. But there are several 鈥渃limate-friendly鈥� diets to choose from. The best known are the completely plant-based听vegan听diet, the听vegetarian听diet, which also allows eggs and dairy, and the听pescetarian听diet, which also allows seafood.

There are also 鈥渇lexitarian鈥� diets, where three quarters of meat and dairy is replaced by plant-based food, or the听Mediterranean diet听which allows moderate amounts of poultry, pork, lamb and beef. Deciding which diet to choose is not as simple as you might expect.

Let us start with a new fad: the climatarian diet. One version was created by the not-for-profit organisation听Climates Network, which says this diet is healthy, climate friendly and nature friendly. According to the publicity 鈥渨ith a simple diet shift you can save a tonne of CO鈧� equivalents per person per year鈥� (鈥渆quivalents鈥� just means methane and other greenhouse gases are factored in alongside carbon dioxide).

Sounds great, but the diet still allows you to eat meat and other high emission foods such as pork, poultry, fish, dairy products and eggs. So this is just a newer version of the 鈥渃limate carnivore鈥� diet except followers are encouraged to switch as much red meat (beef, lamb, pork, veal and venison) as possible to other meats and fish.

The diet does, however, encourage you to cut down on meat overall and to choose high-welfare and local meat where possible, while avoiding food waste and choosing seasonal, local foods.

So saving a tonne of carbon dioxide is great but switching to vegetarianism or veganism can save even more. A western standard meat-based diet produces about听7.2 kilograms of CO鈧� equivalent per day, while a vegetarian diet produces听3.8 kg听and a vegan diet听2.9 kg. If the whole world went vegan it would save nearly听8 billion tonnes CO鈧俥听while even a switch to the Mediterranean diet would still save 3 billion tonnes. That is a saving of between 60% and 20% of all food emissions as which are currently at听13.7 billion tonnes听of CO鈧俥 a year.

To听save our planet, we must also consider both water and land usage. Beef, for instance, needs about听15,000 litres of water听per kilo.

Some vegetarian or vegan foods like听avocados听and听almonds听also have a huge water footprint, but overall a plant-based diet has听about half the water consumption听of a standard meat-based diet.