The possibility of a healthy and globally sustainable diet

A young man from Warwick embarked on a life changing experience to Kenya, and came back with a drastically altered perception of diet, what we eat, and the global effects our diets can have.
Michael Duckworth, 22, spent the summer working with farmers in Kenya, living with a host family, and found himself easily accustomed to the low meat diet he lived on. Having returned home, Michael looked into the impacts that intensive rearing has across the world, and swapped to a sustainable, vegetarian diet.
Now working as a waiter, Michael said: “I saw first-hand the struggles of farmers at grass root level where poverty is entirely visible. Since I returned home I’ve been more aware of the necessity of westerners buying the right products for the sustainability of economies all over the world… I believe people ignore the many problems of eating meat.
“I now want to start an ethical trading group in the district where we can buy in bulk, therefore bringing costs down, cutting food miles and packaging while supporting honest, ethical suppliers.”
This ethical trading group would aim to buy Fair Trade produce in bulk, not only helping out farmers in some of the worst off economic places in the world, but also cutting down on food miles and packaging, while improving the personal health of the diet of the members.
A lot of the time, our focus when improving our diets is on the benefits to personal health and quality of life. We should also consider where our food comes from and the impact that it has on the world.