The keto diet requires eating high fat and low carb.Getty
Researchers ranked six popular diets according to their environmental impact and nutritional value.
The keto diet had the biggest average carbon footprint and the lowest nutritional ranking.
The vegan, vegetarian and pescetarian diets scored highest for health.
The keto diet, a low-carb and high-fat eating plan despised by nutritionists, is not only bad for your body, according to recent research findings — it’s also bad for the environment.
Researchers at Tulane University ranked six popular ways of eating, including the keto diet, according to their average nutritional value and environmental impact. Their findings, published March 1 in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, showed a correlation between healthy eating and low carbon emissions.
While the study didn’t touch on every diet trend, the researchers considered the daily diets of more than 16,000 adults surveyed between 2005 and 2010. Then, they split the individual data into six diet groups: keto, paleo, vegan, vegetarian, pescetarian, and omnivore.
They found that the average keto eater generates almost 3 kg of carbon dioxide for every 1,000 calories consumed — that’s four times the carbon footprint of a similarly-sized vegan plate.
“Climate change is arguably one of the most pressing problems of our time, and a lot of people are interested in moving to a plant-based diet,” senior author Diego Rose, nutrition program director at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, said in a press release. “Based on our results, that would reduce your footprint and be generally healthy.”
Plant-based eating has a smaller carbon footprint
Vegetarian diets may leave women at higher risk of hip fractures.Getty
Food systems account for more than one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to a UN-backed study published in 2021.
Going keto requires dieters to consume about 70% of their calories from fat and almost no carbohydrates, so many followers of the diet opt for animal products with high amounts of fat and protein.
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