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Was ever a word so misused as “sustainable”? “Healthy” comes close, and indeed the two are often bandied around together, in trite “good for you, good for the planet” taglines that often appear on foods which are anything but. The question of what we should eat to help combat climate change and environmental degradation has never been more important – nor so confusing. While research on the subject is ongoing, there are definitely some foods which, with caveats, you can scoff with a clear conscience.

“Good eating starts at home, and one of the most important things we can do for the future of the planet is to minimize food miles – so our staples should be foods that can grow perfectly well in this country,” advises Patrick Holden, chief executive of the Sustainable Food Trust. Another basic principle is to do your best to understand the story behind what you’re eating – be it plant or animal: “If you know who produced your food, they are accountable to you, and more likely to care.”

Grass-fed beef and lamb

These meats are the most controversial, complex, and heavily caveated inclusion in this list, but Holden, one of the earliest proponents of regenerative agriculture (which involves rearing livestock within a mixed farming system in order to restore organic matter – and with it, carbon – to the soil) makes a case for eating them. Soil is an invaluable carbon sink; yet the separation of crops and livestock farming has left half of the country dependent on artificial fertilizers, the application of which “reduces organic matter and microbial diversity”, he says, resulting in the leaching of carbon. By rotating livestock with crops (as was done for centuries before the intensification of agriculture), farmers can “build soil carbon and so offset livestock emissions” – and make the most of grass, a plant we can’t eat, but which grows in abundance in the UK.

Consumed in moderation, red meat is highly nutritious and also increases the bioavailability of nutrients in plant foods. “There is a good reason humans have coevolved alongside animals which eat grass,” says Carolyn Steel, author of Sitopia: How Food Can Save the World. “Grass is rich in nutrients, but we can’t digest it. So we eat animals that can.”

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Wakame seaweed salad with sesame and green tea. Photograph: Westend61/Getty Images

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