Can everyone eat for the planet? I shopped at Dollar Store for a week to find out

In 2019, scientists published a climate-friendly food plan. I’ve long wondered: could it work for most Americans?

As a fossil fuels and climate reporter, most of my journalism focuses on the need to radically overhaul the energy system. But the food sector also needs a makeover, as it creates between a quarter and a third of all greenhouse gas emissions.

When scientists came up with a new climate-friendly food plan in 2019 and published their findings in the medical journal the Lancet, I read with interest. The guidelines called for more vegetables, legumes and whole grains, which seemed doable to me. The authors even allowed for meat and dairy consumption, albeit in small quantities. Both are major drivers of the climate crisis: the United Nations estimates that meat and dairy produce more than 11% of all global greenhouse gas emissions, and some experts put the figure at up to 19.6%.

But I’ve long wondered whether the widely respected food plan could work for most Americans. In my hometown of Baltimore, a quarter of all people live in food deserts, a figure some researchers say is an underestimate.

Nationally, grocery stores have shuttered left and right in recent years. Increasingly, many Americans are relying on a very particular kind of shop for food: dollar stores, which are the fastest-growing retailers in the US. In Baltimore, there are dozens.

Those factors dictate how sustainable – and nourishing – individual diets can be.

“Our food choices are largely shaped by the food environment around us, including which foods are available, affordable, convenient and desirable,” said Raychel Santo, a Baltimore-based senior food and climate research associate at the non-profit World Resources Institute. “Everyone deserves the opportunity to enjoy healthy, sustainable meals that nourish both people and the planet.”

Can dollar stores provide Americans with that opportunity? I decided to find out. For one week, I attempted to follow the Lancet planetary health diet while grocery shopping at them exclusively. The experience left me feeling dejected – and bloated.

The dollar store

Other people have created extensive spreadsheets and meal plans for their forays into the planetary health diet. I’ve never been a planner. To guide my grocery shopping, I merely typed the basic tenets of the food plan into my phone’s notes app: 34% of daily calories from starches like rice and wheat; 23% from legumes; 18% from fats; 8% from fruits and vegetables; the remaining 10% from dairy, meat and sugar. I planned to head to the store after my first meeting, but got busy until mid-afternoon.

When I reached Dollar Tree, I quickly filled a cart with beans, tortillas, pre-cooked brown rice, oatmeal, peanut butter and other staples. I was in desperate need of vegetables but the options were highly limited. I sighed as I placed some canned ones in my cart.

In the checkout aisle, I saw a can of Pringles chips. Having skipped breakfast, I was starving, so I impulsively added them to my haul and ate them on the drive home.

Hours later, I realized I’d made a mistake. The diet encourages limiting consumption of both starchy vegetables and saturated oils, which are both surprisingly emissions-intensive to produce, and I’d gone over my daily allotment of the latter. I resolved to be more careful.

For a proper lunch, I heated some brown rice and whipped up black beans from a can, which were more expensive than the ones I buy from my usual grocery store. As luck would have it, my can opener broke, so I was forced to hack open a can of corn with a knife. I ate my austere lunch with little pleasure.

For dinner, I had leftovers with half a slice of tinny-tasting cheese. I desperately wanted to add some fresh produce to my meal, but the Dollar General had none.

When I sat down to analyze my day’s meals, I realized I was way behind on my fruit and vegetable intake, since the Lancet authors classify corn as a starch. I quickly stir-fried some tinned green beans with salt and pepper. They were awful.

Breaking the rules

I woke up the next morning and realized something would have to change. I’d prepared my first day’s food with only ingredients from Dollar General, but since the Lancet study doesn’t address spices, I decided using seasonings from my cabinet would be OK.

This helped, but new problems arose. I’d planned to eat liberal scoops of peanut butter each morning since the diet calls for a high intake of legumes, but the brand I’d purchased had added sugar, which is discouraged in the climate diet (since it’s surprisingly land-, water- and carbon-intensive to produce and linked to health issues like diabetes), so I had to instead rely on salted peanuts.

The tortillas I’d purchased also had a surprising amount of added sugar, as did the mandarin orange fruit cups and tins of pineapple I’d bought in a desperate attempt to integrate fruit into my diet. For the next couple of days, I stuck to brown rice and corn to meet my starch intake, and rinsed the fruit off thoroughly before eating it.

Experts say eating a wide variety of fruits and vegetables is beneficial for gut health, but I quickly realized that wouldn’t be an option, since the Dollar Store doesn’t offer much variety when it comes to plants.

In search of produce

When I began my experiment, I resolved not to eat out for the week. I figured it would betray the spirit of the project to go to restaurants, as much as it pained me to refuse a friend’s invitation to grab pizza.

But on night three, I caved. At a work event, I munched on a handful of cherry tomatoes and carrot sticks – climate diet-friendly foods, sure, but ones that surely didn’t come from a dollar store.

Those bites of crudités left me fiending for more fresh food. Dollar General has since last year been adding produce to more of their stores, so the following morning, I called around to find one.

Soon, I found a location that offered fruits and vegetables a 15-minute drive away. I was excited by the prospect of a salad, but I felt ridiculous. That week, I’d already driven to my closest Dollar Tree and now I was going to have to drive even more. Using an online carbon calculator, I learned that my round-trip drive could generate up to 5lb of planet-warming carbon dioxide, meaning it could be more emissions-heavy than a three-ounce steak.

I started to spiral. I’m no believer in emphasizing the personal carbon footprint, and yet I’d taken on this project! But I pushed these thoughts aside as I drove.

Slim pickings

The Dollar Tree produce pickings were slim: browning bananas, bags of potatoes and onions, and some uninspiring pre-made salads. The cherry tomatoes were starting to mold; the mushrooms were covered in soft, dark spots. The iceberg lettuce looked OK, but the more nutritious romaine was wilting – and twice as expensive. The plastic-wrapped bell peppers were in the best shape, so I felt I had to grab some even though they’re my least favorite vegetable.

I reluctantly placed a sad-looking selection of produce into my cart, then went in search of other groceries. This time, I was equipped with a more extensive list.

But many of my desired items were nowhere to be found. There were no lentils, no whole grains other than rice, and no loaves of bread tortillas, or yogurt that didn’t have added sugar. I had also hoped to find some climate diet-friendly frozen meals, but save for the bags of fries, every single option contained meat, cheese or both.

I went home and cooked some black beans for the second time that week, adding peppers, tomatoes and a whole onion. I ate my stew over brown rice with a whole head of romaine lettuce. It would have to do.

Off the rails

The following day, I had oatmeal with bananas and strawberries for breakfast and more rice, beans and salad for lunch. But that evening, things went off the rails. It was the weekend and I had family in town, so I decided to break the rules to show them my favorite local oyster bar.

When we placed our order, I thought all bets were off for my meal plan. But as it turned out, I didn’t fare so badly. The oysters were allowed, and even the half a burger I had fell within my red meat allotment. I ate some much-needed brussels sprouts, beets and nuts. And since the diet didn’t mention drinks, I suppose even my martini – fine, two martinis – was alright.

But nothing I ate that night could have come from the Dollar Store. In fact, my dinner cost more than all my other meals that week combined. While eating some dollar-store popcorn later that night – a whole grain, so diet-friendly – I perused the menus of the cheaper local restaurants I frequent. They invariably offered meat, cheese and sugar-heavy fare.

In the final days of my experiment, I tried to use up all of my Dollar Store purchases, but some of my produce spoiled quickly. I’d unintentionally contributed to an issue the Lancet authors highlighted: food waste is a major contributor to climate-warming emissions, and the authors say it should be cut by half.

On my final food plan day, I noticed a purple head of local radicchio in my crisper drawer, which I’d bought at the health food store the previous week. I was fresh out of Dollar Store vegetables and didn’t want it to spoil, plus I was sick of beans and rice, so I cheated and ate the whole thing with lemon juice and olive oil.

Targeted policy to expand food access, experts have pointed out, will be necessary for the Lancet climate food plan to become effective. Amid research showing that many people lack access to nutritious meals, advocates are pushing for Dollar Stores to stock fresher, more desirable healthy foods. That could help improve people’s overall well-being, and it could also improve the health of the planet.

But dollar stores alone aren’t the problem, so they can’t be the only locus of the solution. The broader food system must change to ensure people can eat sustainably.

“Increasing access to a variety of plant-based foods [and] the presence of these options at stores and other food providers is the first step,” said Santo. “Other factors including the cost, quality, convenience of preparation, variety and cultural relevance are also key to shaping a food environment that enables healthy and sustainable food choices.”

In the meantime, I’ll no longer take my ability to access and afford a variety of food for granted. That goes for fruits, vegetables, legumes and whole grains – but now that I’m off the climate diet, I might also eat another can of Pringles.

Cover photo: ‘In my hometown of Baltimore, a quarter of all people live in food deserts, a figure some researchers say is an underestimate.’ Illustration: Olivia Heller/The Guardian