By Jessica Scott-Reid for Sentient.
Broadcast version by Edwin J. Viera for New York News Connection reporting for the Sentient-Public News Service Collaboration

As the calendar flips to a new year, media outlets are once again publishing their annual advice for eating healthier and living better. This year, health reporters continue to be obsessed with the problem of ultra-processed food. And while we are happy to see journalists include research-backed guidance in their coverage, on the whole, our health news feed seems to be missing some vital information.

This year’s crop of healthy eating stories seems to be getting some things right — limiting ultra-processed foods and adding more plants to your diet among them — but journalists and editors continue to miss opportunities to report on health from a broader perspective, one that includes the climate impacts of meat.

Matthew Hayek, assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Studies at New York University, tells Sentient that there’s a general lack of awareness among both the public and the media “about how many resources meat and dairy production really requires,” and “that awareness could really benefit a lot of coverage of this issue.”

Hayek believes there is concern among reporters that “discussing sustainability and diet can feel like piling on to what is already a very fraught, personal and cultural issue.” However, Hayek adds, “what’s really infrequently discussed is that healthy diets and sustainable diets are largely the same thing.”

Trend #1: A Focus on Ultra-Processed Foods

One of the most popular reported topics related to healthy eating in 2025 is undoubtedly ultra-processed foods. Questions about which foods actually qualify as ultra-processed, and how much of them we should and should not be eating, continue to pique reader interest. But while there is a growing body of research raising concerns about ultra-processed foods, not all media coverage is providing readers with a clear picture of the science.

The Washington Post and the New York Times both took on the topic of ultra-processed foods in their New Year’s resolution coverage this year, with the New York Times’ “The Well Challenge: 5 Days to Happier, Healthier Eating” kicking off an entire series on ultra-processed foods. “We’re not just paying attention to the nutrients in our food,” the article reads. “We’re also looking for clues to tell whether a food was processed — and if so, how much.”

What we know: a growing body of studies suggests ultra-processed food consumption might be linked to an increased risk of a host of health problems, including obesity, heart disease and cancer. These foods, which make up more than half of the calories consumed at home in the U.S., are optimized to bypass our body’s natural satiety cues, which can lead to eating more than you intended.

But researchers do not agree on, nor do they know for sure, what it is about ultra-processed food that is the culprit. In fact, there is still fierce debate over the category itself. As the Washington Post reports, “not all ultra-processed foods are created equal.” The Post’s story on “healthier processed foods” explains that some foods deemed ultra-processed by some researchers, such as sliced bread and peanut butter, can be part of a healthy diet.

Kevin Hall, nutrition and metabolism researcher at the National Institutes of Health, said this to the New York Times: “Not all ultra-processed foods are necessarily bad for you,” and not all unprocessed foods are good for you, either. “Just because Grandma made it, doesn’t make it healthy.”

For Teresa Fung, professor of nutrition and dietetics at Simmons University, and adjunct professor at Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, whether a food is ultra-processed matters less to her than what it’s made of. “It really depends on what the food is,” she told Sentient. “The things I would rather look at are the ingredients list, as well as the nutrient content.”

Not only does coverage of this topic tend to confuse people about what’s good for their own health, but the lack of clarity can have major consequences for climate action. The reporting often overlooks or even discourages the very shift that climate experts are encouraging in the global north to reduce environmental impact: plant-based diets.

Case in point: media coverage positioning plant-meats as ultra-processed and unhealthy. This narrative emerged a few years back, with some links to the meat industry emerging even, and continues to this day.

For example, a Lancet study published in 2024, examining how ultra-processed foods affect heart health and mortality risk, led to outlets including the Daily Mail, New York Post and People magazine linking (incorrectly) plant-based foods to increased heart disease risk. In that study, plant-based meats made up only 0.5 percent of participants’ diets, among other “plant-based” ultra-processed foods like biscuits and soda.

More recently (and more accurately), the New York Times summed up the issue of plant-based meats being roped into the processed foods narrative as follows: “If plant based meat must be categorized as processed food, the argument is that they are more like canned beans than Twinkies, and a long way from processed meats, the category that includes hot dogs, bacon and deli meat, which the World Health Organization has classified as carcinogenic to humans.”

However, this broader take on ultra-processed food was part of The New York Times’ climate coverage, not its New Year’s Resolution health coverage; another example of how climate coverage is often siloed from the rest of the newsroom, leading to conflicting information from story to story.

Trend #2: Still Ignoring Planetary Health

One diet often touted by the media as one of the healthiest is the Mediterranean Diet. This diet, according to CNN’s “2025 best diet wins gold for wellness and disease prevention,” focuses on fruits, vegetables, grains, olive oil and nuts, with limited dairy, meat and sweets.

CNN and others get the personal health angle here right. According to Harvard School of Public Health, “research has consistently shown that the Mediterranean diet is effective in reducing the risk of cardiovascular diseases and overall mortality.” But once again, the news coverage tends to leave climate and other environmental concerns out of the discussion of what constitutes healthy food choices, by encouraging a shift to fish from meat without mentioning any of the tradeoffs.

As climate change grows worse, fish will become harder to count on as a food source. According to one paper on the Mediterranean diet, published in the American Heart Journal Plus, which touches on this concern, “rising sea levels and ocean temperatures can disrupt marine ecosystems, affecting fish populations.”

The practice of overfishing also creates serious climate impacts. Oceans can absorb around 31 percent of carbon dioxide emissions and store 60 times more carbon than the atmosphere, with billions of sea creatures, from sardines to whales, sustaining this cycle. As Heidi Pearson, a marine biology professor at University of Alaska Southeast, told Sentient in 2024, “The more fish we take out of the ocean, the less carbon sequestration we are going to have.” According to rough calculations by Sentient, ending the practice of overfishing would store the same amount of carbon as 6.5 million acres of forest each year.

One of the most highly consumed fish, salmon, comes with a host of environmental and ethical issues. An estimated 70 percent of the world’s salmon now comes from fish farms, where crowded conditions promote disease spread, leading to increased antibiotic use and resistance in humans. Escaped farmed salmon can also threaten wild fish populations, and aquaculture waste can pollute surrounding ecosystems. Yet in most healthy eating coverage, you rarely hear more about salmon beyond the fact that it is a healthy source of omegas.

In its “10 Tips to Help You Eat Healthier in 2025,” The New York Times does a little better by mentioning the environmental impact of seafood. It highlights bivalves — clams, oysters, mussels, and scallops — as more sustainable sources of protein, “without the environmental baggage of many other seafood options.”

Worth pointing out, however, that not every researcher agrees. Ecologist Spencer Roberts tells Sentient via email, while bivalve farms may have some environmental benefits, they are “a sad substitute for an oyster reef,” and reintroducing bivalves in restoration projects offers more ecological value than aquaculture operations.

Trend #3: Plant-Based Eating Is in, Fully Plant-Based Diet? Not So Much

With all the talk of health and wellness in the New Year, it’s inevitable that newer diet fads dominate the news. In Newsweek’s coverage of “Food Trends to Embrace in 2025, According to Scientists,” the outlet tackles hot topics like gut health, intermittent fasting, and of course, ultra-processed foods. It also takes on the social media-hyped carnivore diet — eating almost exclusively meat and other animal products — in comparison to a plant-based diet.

First, let’s talk about what Newsweek’s expert, professor and author Tim Spector, gets right. He does not recommend the carnivore diet, which lines up with what most registered dietitians have to say. He also told Newsweek, “You don’t need to become vegan, but adding more vegetables, legumes, nuts and seeds, whole fruits and whole grains while reducing red and processed meats is a winning strategy.” He’s not entirely wrong, especially when it comes to personal health. Eating more plants, and less meat, is both good for you, and it’s also good for the planet. But does continuing to position “vegan” as extreme (like the carnivore diet) give readers useful and accurate information?

In much of the current mainstream news coverage on healthy eating in the New Year, this appears to be a common theme: focusing on plant-heavy diets, without suggesting people eat plant-exclusive. Whether it’s the Mediterranean diet, DASH diet (or the MIND diet, which combines the two), Flexitatianism or Reducetarianism, mindfully eating less meat and more plants continues to be an evolving trend.

Presumably Newsweek wants its readers to know that eating habits don’t have to be all or nothing. If a vegan diet seems too challenging, eating less is certainly progress from decades past. (We’ve made similar points here at Sentient, too.) But people care about climate action and they also care about animal welfare, according to polling research. What to eat is an individual choice, but these choices have impacts, and good journalism has an obligation to include that information.

Eating a vegan diet has well-documented environmental benefits, even at the individual level, including cutting one’s climate emissions by about 75 percent, and water usage by over half. At the global level, a shift to a plant-based food system would reduce global agricultural land use by an estimated 75 percent, freeing up those spaces for the kind of crucial rewilding that can help offset emissions.

As the accelerating effects of climate change are becoming more and more visible, perhaps 2026 New Year’s Resolution coverage will see mainstream media make the connection between planetary health and personal diets — trending or not. “There’s a lot of room for win-wins here,” says Hayek, as “diets that are more healthy are more sustainable, and vice versa.” He suggests that journalists reporting on healthy eating seek out environmental scientists, like himself, to get the bigger picture.


Jessica Scott-Reid wrote this article for Sentient Climate.


get more stories like this via email

New Mexico farmers finding it more difficult to grow historic crops are taking up conservation techniques to meet the challenge.

Drought, water scarcity, and extreme weather events combine to require growers to adopt new methods and modern tools.

John Idowu, extension agronomist specialist at New Mexico State University, shows farmers how to improve soil health and help control wind erosion. For long term success, he said they need to focus on sustainable, regenerative practices.

"How can I optimize my system and make it more resilient to climate change, to weather changes?" Idowu explained. "Once we have all those things worked out, farmers will tend to stay in business for longer."

Earlier this year, a NOAA satellite captured an image of winds lifting vast amounts of dust and dirt from New Mexico's dry farmlands. Some forecasters compared it to images last seen in the 1930s Dust Bowl.

Plowing agricultural fields annually was a common practice until the Dust Bowl period but in recent decades no-till or low-till farming operations have gained traction.

Bonnie Hopkins Byers, program director for the San Juan County Extension Service, encouraged New Mexico farmers to get a soil analysis and consider adopting the less aggressive approach. She said it could mean they do not need to till every year.

"One of the biggest problems is that people do something because that's the way they've always done it, or because it's the way their parents have done it, or their grandparents," Hopkins Byers acknowledged. "My philosophy has always been if you're going to till something over, till something in."

Intense dust storms known as "haboobs" were originally thought to be confined to Africa's Sudan but are becoming more common in other arid regions such as the Southwest.

Idowu stressed it makes the adoption of regenerative practices more urgent, as topsoil on New Mexico farmland disappears due to drought, land use changes and wind, which he noted has been particularly strong this year.

"The wind has been a major force, especially in the spring, so many days where you couldn't do anything outside because of the wind," Idowu observed. "You have a lot of dust and that means a lot of erosion and that is exactly what you don't like when it comes to crop production."

The New Mexico Healthy Soil Working Group formed to help farmers improve their land and livelihoods.


get more stories like this via email

By Carolyn Beans for Lancaster Farming.
Broadcast version by Mark Richardson for Keystone State News Connection reporting for the Lancaster Farming-MIT Climate Change Engagement Program-Public News Service Collaboration

At Mountain View Holsteins in Bethel, Pennsylvania, owner Jeremy Martin is always working to make his dairy more efficient.

Currently, he has his sights set on a manure solid-liquid separator. He'd like to use the solid portion of his manure as bedding for his 140 cows and the liquid as fertilizer.

But the project is pricey - he expects the equipment alone will run around $100,000. So Martin hopes to defray the cost through grant funding for dairy projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Removing much of the solids from manure reduces the feed for the methane-producing microbes that thrive in the anaerobic conditions of liquid manure.

The approach is just one of many dairy practices now considered "climate-smart" because they could cut production of climate-warming gases.

For Martin, a manure separator wouldn't be possible without a grant.

"Once it's in place and going, I think some of these practices will pay for themselves, but the upfront cost is more than I can justify," he says. "If there's money out there to pay that upfront cost to get started, it makes sense to me to do it."

Across Pennsylvania, dairy farmers are learning more about climate-smart practices and funding opportunities, and weighing whether these changes are really sustainable for their businesses as well as the environment.

The Latest Buzzword

USDA has defined climate-smart agriculture as an approach that reduces or removes greenhouse gas emissions, builds resilience to the changing climate, and sustainably increases incomes and agricultural productivity.

"Before climate-smart was a thing, we called it conservation. We called it stewardship," says Jackie Klippenstein, a senior vice president at Dairy Farmers of America.

Indeed, long before the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations coined the term "climate-smart agriculture" in 2010, Pennsylvania dairy farmers had adopted many of the practices that now fall under the label.

For dairy, climate-smart practices largely include strategies that reduce greenhouse gases emitted from cows, manure or fields. Tried and true conservation practices like cover cropping and reduced tillage count.

So do newer practices like using the feed additive Bovaer to reduce methane production in a cow's rumen, or precision nitrogen management to reduce nitrous oxide emissions from fields.

Paying for Climate-Smart

"Margins are very tight on the dairy farm," says Jayne Sebright, the executive director of the Center for Dairy Excellence, a public-private partnership to strengthen Pennsylvania's dairy industry. "Some of these (climate-smart practices) are good for the climate, but they don't make good economic sense until they're subsidized."

In 2022, the center joined a Penn State-run program called "Climate-smart Agriculture that is profitable, Regenerative, Actionable and Trustworthy" to provide dairy farmers with funds for switching to climate-smart practices.

CARAT was launched with a $25 million USDA Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities grant, but the future of the Pennsylvania project is in doubt. In April, USDA canceled the partnership program, suggesting that recipients reapply to a new USDA initiative called Advancing Markets for Producers.

Over 60 dairy farmers across Pennsylvania, including Martin, had already applied and been accepted into the first phase of CARAT. This initial phase was intended to help farmers identify the best climate-smart practices for their operations. In the second phase, farmers would have applied for funding to implement those practices. One farmer was already paid for his project before the USDA canceled the partnership program.

"There are fewer funding sources for climate-smart projects than in the last administration. However, private organizations and other entities are funding climate-smart projects," Sebright says. "Depending on what the practice is, (climate-smart) could also be conservation projects. It could be water quality projects."

Sebright suggests that dairy farmers also look for support through state-level funding, such as Pennsylvania's Resource Enhancement and Protection program, which offers tax credits for implementing practices that benefit farms and protect water quality.

Pennsylvania dairy farmers can also contact their county conservation districts to ask about funding opportunities for climate-smart projects, says Amy Welker, a project manager and grant writer for Pennsylvania-based Jones Harvesting, which operates Maystone Dairy in Newville and Molly Pitcher Milk in Shippensburg.

In the next year, Jones Harvesting plans to install a methane digester and solid-liquid separator at a site near Maystone Dairy. The digester is funded with an Agricultural Innovation Grant from the state and an Environmental Quality Incentives Program grant from USDA, along with private funds.

There's money out there for farmers who implement climate-smart practices, says Welker. But "you can't just look at one source."

Long-Term Payoffs

Ultimately, for climate-smart projects to make economic sense, they must continue paying for themselves long after the initial investment. One major goal of the USDA's Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities program was to develop markets where farmers adopting these practices could earn a premium.

Some dairy farmers might see that return in the carbon market. National checkoff organization Dairy Management Inc. and its partners have pledged to shrink the industry's net greenhouse gas production to zero by 2050. There are growing opportunities for companies working toward that goal in the dairy supply chain to pay farmers for their contributions.

Early last year, Texas dairy farmer Jasper DeVos became the first to earn credits through the livestock carbon insetting marketplace. DeVos earned carbon credits by reducing methane emissions with a feed protocol that included the feed additive Rumensin. Dairy Farmers of America then purchased those credits through Athian, a carbon marketplace for the livestock industry.

Increased Efficiency

Even without direct monetary payoff, many farmers who adopt climate-smart practices reap rewards in improved efficiency and productivity.

"When you look at climate-smart, you also have to look at what's farm smart," Sebright says. She suggests that farmers choose practices that benefit their farms, not just the climate.

A farmer might decide to put a cover and flare system on a manure pit, not only because it reduces methane emissions but also because it keeps rainwater out of the pit and reduces the number of times each year the pit must be emptied.

Andy Bollinger of Meadow Spring Farm in Lancaster County has been running a manure separator since 2009. The liquid fertilizes his fields, and a portion of the solids becomes bedding for his cows.

He estimates the system saves him at least $20,000 a year in bedding costs.

"We put a fresh coating of it onto the stalls that our cows lay in every day and scrape the old stuff out," says Bollinger, who is also the vice president of the Professional Dairy Managers of Pennsylvania. "It seems to work quite well, and it saves us from buying other bedding products."

No-till farming is also a cost saver because it reduces field passes with equipment, says James Thiele of Thiele Dairy Farm in Cabot, which has been 100% no-till for at least six years. The practice saves him money on fuel and herbicides.

"You're saving your environment, and you're also saving green," he says.

But Thiele questions whether some other climate-smart practices like methane digesters would be practical for his farm, which has 75 to 80 cows.

"I don't know if it'd be worth it for somebody as small as I am," he says.

"I think over the next few years, we'll rapidly see (climate-smart) tools become more available, and we'll see more organizations like DFA talking to our small to mid-sized farmers to make sure they understand they've got a place in this, they can benefit from it, and the practices and tools are affordable to them as well," Klippenstein says.

Weighing Climate-Smart

Many dairy farmers wonder whether some of the practices championed as climate-smart will really support their businesses.

Donny Bartch of Merrimart Farms in Loysville has adopted environmental practices from cover cropping to a manure management plan.

"I want to protect the environment. I want to keep my nutrients here on the farm and be sustainable for another five generations," Bartch says. "But we have to make sure that we're making the right decisions to keep the business going. And to do some of these (climate-smart) practices, the only way they pencil out is to have those subsidies."

There is also frustration with a system that rewards climate-smart improvements made today without acknowledging the contributions of farmers who were climate-smart before anyone put a name on it.

"You come around and want to start rewarding people for doing these things. You really need to start with the ones that have been doing it for a long time, but that's really not what happens," says Jim Harbach of Schrack Farms in Loganton, whose farm has been no-till for 50 years.

Climate-smart grant money and carbon credits are typically awarded for the implementation of new practices.

"It's just the unfortunate way that all of the policies and regulations were written," Sebright says. "What I would say is, if you do a climate-smart plan, maybe there are practices or things you can do to enhance or support or take what you're doing a step further."

Scientific Measurements on Real Farms

Some dairy farmers also want to know more about how climate-smart practices will affect their farms before jumping in.

Steve Paxton remembers participating in a government program to improve timber over 50 years ago on his family dairy, Irishtown Acres in Grove City. His family members were paid to climb up into their white pines and saw off many of the bottom branches.

The goal was to create a cleaner log. Instead, more sunlight shown through, which caused grape vines to climb up and topple the trees.

"The bottom line is, there was research done, it looked good, but it hadn't had enough time to follow through and see just really what the end results would be," Paxton says.

When Paxton sees estimates of how some practices might reduce greenhouse gases emitted from cows, he wonders how much of that research has been tested on actual dairies.

"I think some of it now is just kind of a textbook estimate of what's happening," he says.

More meaningful data is needed to show how climate-smart practices reduce greenhouse gases on individual dairies, Sebright says.

As part of the CARAT program, Penn State researchers planned to place greenhouse gas sensors on a dozen dairies and test how much greenhouse gas production falls as farmers experiment with different practices. The researchers intended to then use that data to build models that predict how those practices may affect emissions on other farms. They will still measure emissions this spring on one farm that is experimenting with a new approach for spreading manure in fields of feed crops.

"The real goal of (CARAT) is to have research that says, if you put a cover and flare (manure storage system) on a 500-cow dairy, this is how greenhouse gas emissions will change," Sebright says. "Or if you use Bovaer on a 90-cow herd, here's how this will affect greenhouse gas emissions."

Martin of Mountain View Holsteins has his own personal beliefs about where a dairy farmer's responsibilities to the planet begin and end. But from a business perspective, he feels compelled to adopt climate-smart practices because he expects the industry will eventually require them.

"Climate concerns are coming whether I'd like it or not," he says. "So my thought is, I might as well get started on it while there's funding to do it."


Carolyn Beans wrote this article for Lancaster Farming.


get more stories like this via email

Oregon's new state budget cuts funding for programs intended to protect residents from extreme weather and make renewable energy more accessible.

Climate justice advocates said it is a major setback after years of progressive climate policies.

Ben Brint, senior climate program director for the Oregon Environmental Council, is disappointed to lose funding for the Community Renewable Energy Grant Program, which supports a variety of projects tailored to communities, including microgrids and solar storage.

"We felt legislators didn't fund climate resilience programs while fires are raging, people's houses are burning down and the state has already experienced record heat waves in June," Brint pointed out. "Legislators don't see we are in an actual climate emergency and chose inaction."

Brint said the grant program aimed to help low-income, rural and communities of color, those most impacted by climate disasters. Lawmakers attributed the cuts to budget shortfalls and uncertainty over federal funding.

Joel Iboa, executive director of the Oregon Just Transition Alliance, said the Community Resilience Hub program, which creates networks as well as physical places to protect people from extreme cold, heat and smoke also lost funding this session. He argued the hubs are effective because communities design them to meet their unique needs.

"Whether it be a place to plug in your phone or a place to go get diapers or get an air conditioner or whatever your community may need," Iboa outlined. "Depending on what's going on."

A heat pump program for rental housing, aimed at making energy-efficient heating and cooling more affordable, was also cut this session.

Brint added he realizes legislators have to make tough decisions about how to fund health care and housing but emphasized climate change is connected to those issues.

"When we're talking about heat pumps or the C-REP program, we're talking about people's health and livelihoods and saving lives in the face of climate fueled disaster," Brint stressed.

Brint added since climate change is not going away, the movement to push for climate resilience will not either.


get more stories like this via email