Some people choose a real food diet to be healthier and also as an effort to save the environment. Being on a real food diet means that you will not eat packaged or processed foods. Real food is food from nature. Not only will you find health benefits to eating a diet of real food, but it is good for the environment as well. When you consider that a packaged food travels an average of 1,500 miles to get to the supermarket, you start to realize how much natural resources are being used by the food industry. It is better for our planet and our environment to eat foods that are grown locally. A study done by the EPA in 2007 showed that 18% of our carbon foot print was from agriculture. This study did not include the use of oil and fuel by agriculture for the use of equipment and shipping. If everything is considered, the share of the carbon foot print in the United States by agriculture could be as much as 30%. This will greatly impact our future generations. As people begin to realize and understand this, hopefully they will start to purchase their foods from local farmers.

This fact is not only for the crop industry but the farm animal industry as well. Animals kept in concentrated animal feeding operations are fed corn that has been processed and transported, all of which uses heavy machinery that uses oil and fuel. Instead, the animals could graze on grass in a pasture and by doing so farmers would have less of an impact on the use of natural resources. Depleting our fossil fuels unnecessarily is bad for our children’s future and the future of the planet. Choosing real food diets and Paleo Diet Recipes that call for naturally grown animals and crops will protect the future of our planet.