With thinning polar ice caps, extreme weather events, and other indications of a climate crisis becoming difficult to ignore, increasing numbers of Americans are working hard to reduce their carbon footprint, or the total amount of carbon dioxide that they create. For most that means dialing back electricity use, consuming less hot water, adjusting thermostats, and reducing driving. Actions like these are invaluable, but many people are surprised to learn that making simple changes in their diet can have an equally large impact.

According to the new book Go Green Get Lean: Trim Your Waistline with the Ultimate Low-Carbon Footprint Diet, the diet of the average American creates about 2.8 tons of carbon dioxide emissions every year -- over half a ton more than we produce by driving our cars. Author Kate Geagan says we have an "SUV-style diet," and there's a wealth of evidence to support her unsavory conclusion.

Geagan reports that our current petroleum-intensive food system now requires approximately 7-10 calories of fossil fuel energy to serve up one calorie of food energy. The "standard" daily food intake of 2,000 calories swallows up some 98,000 to 140,000 calories of energy every week, and the net effect of this kind of eating is turning our atmosphere into an oven.

Raising beef, for example, is responsible for some 18% of all global warming emissions. Cut out the cow and go vegetarian just one day a week, and you'll save nearly 900 calories and prevent the release of nine pounds of carbon. Sugar intake is another dietary hot spot. Americans consume about 150 pounds per year and create 855 pounds of carbon in the process. Yet if we skip processed foods and soda, we can cut this amount at least in half while taking 7,500 calories off our plates each month.

Go Green Get Lean is filled with illuminating facts like these and in between them lies a simple lesson: It's deliciously easy to reduce our diets' impact on the environment, and when we do both the Earth and our families become healthier.

Geagan, a registered dietician, shows us the best choices to make, settles age-old questions, and offers a wealth of practical tips we can use to lower both our appetite's carbon footprint and our own calorie counts. With everything from meal plans and recipes to snack ideas and nutrition advice, it's a book we think everyone should read.

And Go Green Get Lean isn't the only low-carbon kitchen compendium we've been devouring lately. Here are some of our other favorites:

Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating with More Than 75 Recipes by Mark Bittman, finds one of America's favorite food writers painting the kitchen green. A discussion of how many of our common dietary choices damage the environment show why changes are needed and the book's collection of 77 creative recipes amply demonstrates just how effortless and sacrifice-free it can be to make them.

The Gorgeously Green Diet-How to Live Lean and Green by Sophie Uliano offers hungry souls three different ecologically-minded eating plans: Light Green, Bright Green, and Deep Green. Within each diet, Uliano reveals the secrets found where healthier eating and a sustainable world intersect. We especially like her lesson on cooking an organic meal for a family of five for less money than a fast food dinner costs.

Big Green Cookbook: Hundreds of Planet-Pleasing Recipes and Tips for a Luscious, Low-Carbon Lifestyle by Jackie Newgent is almost all cookbook. Organized by season for the locavore in all of us, here are hundreds of sustainable recipes that tread more lightly on the earth (and our waistlines!) along with lots general tips for "de-carbonizing" favorite recipes, making vegan substitutions, and more.

Cooking Green: Reducing Your Carbon Footprint in the Kitchen--the New Green Basics Way by Kate Heyhoe has plenty to say about food and lots of recipes, too. But this volume's focus is on lowering your family's overall "cookprint," and food choices are just part of that equation. There are dozens of other factors from choosing the right cookware and using smarter low-impact cooking techniques to reducing waste, and adopting new serving strategies. It's a holistic look at not just the way our food choices affect the Earth but how the right gear, tactics, and cooking methods can make a big difference as well.

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