Today, food production: uses 70% of fresh water, but seriously degrades water quality due to pesticide and fertilizer runoff; speeds up the loss of biodiversity; and is a major contributor to deforestation and desertification. It also contributes more to global warming than all cars, trucks, airplanes, and trains combined.

However, not all diets have the same impact. What we eat, how much we consume (of what), how much food we waste, how our food was produced, and who profited from it are the five primary factors that determine how our food choices affect people, communities and the environment.

Each of us has the option to pick food that better respects life in and around us three times each day. Our individual good deeds can appear to be a drop in the ocean in a globe with nearly 7 billion people, but they are not. Some European diets, like those of North Americans, have the biggest environmental footprints and are the main causes of a number of detrimental effects. However, there are also a lot of good instances of responsible food consumption across Europe, that can be taken as examples of good practices.