Recent Press and Interviews

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"Our planet gives us the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the lifegiving soil for the foods we eat. We would be best served if we treated Earth as an extension of our body and as an extension of our health — we are a part of Earth, not apart from Earth"

"It took me a long time to realize how what we eat can benefit our own health and the environment; the knowledge I've gained in this time has made me healthier and more environmentally friendly and has given me the tools to help you and your family achieve these benefits now. Good eating!"

 “If people were willing and able to reduce their meat and dairy intake by half, it would have a huge impact. We would probably save a third of the water and land we use, and we could feed more people,” 

“Many jarred sauces aren’t that different from what you would make yourself,”

“Older adults often get fuller more quickly, and they may have a dulling of their smell and taste sensation that leads them to quit a meal sooner,”

“Salt and low-fiber diets are extremely bloating. It’s best to stick with low-salt foods and a healthy whole-food, plant-based diet to keep your GI tract moving and prevent bloat as much as possible,”

“Because it’s difficult to predict who will get preeclampsia, having a dietary intervention that can lower the risk of preeclampsia plus the other associated risk factors for it, is good fortune,”

“Generally speaking, a plant-based lifestyle has demonstrated  improvements in health in the prevention of chronic diseases and can  actually help reverse certain chronic diseases if we go all-in on that  lifestyle,” Dr. Hunnes says.

"Coffee beans are full of antioxidants, polyphenols, and other anti-inflammatory agents, and may be associated with longevity and lower chronic disease risk,"

“When taken in combination — the fiber, the potassium, the magnesium — which on their own are heart healthy, plus the monounsaturated fats, which are extremely heart healthy and reduce the risk of heart disease, this is a win-win food in every sense of the word,”

“When we drink too much alcohol, our blood sugar levels dip, and there is more insulin that’s been used to process the food and alcohol from the night before,”

"Eating inflammatory foods increases inflammation markers in your body. These markers shorten tiny DNA structures called telomeres that are found at the end of chromosomes, causing your skin to age significantly faster."

“If you’re not eating enough or you’re  restricting calories, you might be more likely to overeat the next time  you eat. When you’re hungry, you have less impulse control.” - Dana Ellis Hunnes

"I advocate for doing the best you can as often as you can. Choose what you can do now – you don’t need to be perfect. You just need to make an effort."

“1,000 to 10,000 times as many calories from grains can be grown on one  acre of land compared to the number of calories that can be grown from  one acre of land from meat products,”

“As plastics photo-degrade in the oceans, fish eat their microplastics, storing all types of chemical toxins in their fats”

"We all want to live long, healthy, and happy lives, and be there for our  children, so why not make this the year that you try out a healthy  whole-foods, plant-based diet!"

"while it is true that climate change will NOT  kill all life on Earth, it will certainly make the lives that are here  (of all species) less healthy, less resilient, and less likely to  weather the storm."

Hunnes recommends sticking to a maximum of 1 to 2 tablespoons of foods  containing omega-6s per day. "That might look like eating an ounce of  sunflower seeds and cooking with a modest amount (i.e., tablespoon) of  sunflower oil, for example."

“Generally speaking, a plant-based lifestyle has demonstrated  improvements in health in the prevention of chronic diseases and can  actually help reverse certain chronic diseases if we go all-in on that  lifestyle,” Dr. Hunnes says.

“Caffeine is absorbed in the GI tract and is metabolized by the liver,”  says Hunnes. The drug affects different people differently, depending on  how quickly they metabolize it."

Like a human body, Earth has many interacting systems that allow it to  function and maintain optimal health. However, like a human body, if  there are enough insults or injuries, toxins, or fevers, they will  overwhelm the system and make life difficult.

“Set point theory asserts that there is a weight at which our body is  most comfortable, determined in part by genetics, body size, and  metabolism,” says Dana Hunnes, Ph.D., MPH, RD

“Food should always look good and taste good. No one will want to eat  healthy food that does not taste good. Too often, people have become so  used to the flavors of processed foods that are salty, fatty, sugary,  that we forget what real, unadulterated food tastes like. So, that’s  first and foremost,” Hunnes noted.

“Cultured meat, if enough can be produced to satiate the appetites of humans, would significantly reduce the number of animals needed to be reared and the amount of feed for these animals, which would divert hundreds of millions of gallons of water and hundreds of thousands of acres of land to foods for humans versus animals, even rehabilitate wildlife that desperately needs these lands,” Hunnes says.

“My hope is that people will look more towards plant-based food choices, which are significantly better for the environment than animal foods." —Dana Hunnes, PhD, RD

“The basic tenet of fair-trade is that it supports responsible companies, empowers farmers, workers, and fishermen, and protects the environment by paying workers a fair price for the product and the work they do, regardless of the volatility in market prices,” says Hunnes. “Fair-trade producers tend to engage in environmental stewardship, prohibiting the use of harmful chemicals and taking measures to protect and regenerate natural resources.”

“If each and every person in the United States gave up meat and dairy products on one or more days of the week, ideally, all days of the week, we would save the environment from thousands of tons of carbon emissions...by reducing our animal-based foods consumption, we would reduce our water use at least by half as animal husbandry utilizes more than 50% of fresh water.” Dr. Hunnes says

Most people don’t need as much protein as they think they do.  “It's really hard, in a country like the U.S., to be protein deficient if you are getting enough calories, there’s protein in almost everything. Even vegetables have a teeny bit of protein in them.”

Dr. Hunnes says.

As someone who loves to read books, learn all I can, and write, I am always invigorated by books that are motivating, well-researched, based in science, and are written with journalistic integrity. Those were the goals and mission I had in writing my own book, Recipe For Survival: What you can do to live a healthier and more environmentally friendly life, out this January. 

"Peppers increase your metabolism and calorie burn, but the effect doesn’t last long,” Hunnes says. “You’re not going to drop 10 pounds by eating peppers alone, but hot peppers may change the way you eat, and that may give you a weight-loss advantage. It’s tough to scarf down spicy food, so you may wind up consuming less."

According to Hunnes, you can run a calorie deficit in three different ways: through diet alone, through exercise alone, or through a combination of the two.

"If it is a fried nugget, i.e., chicken nugget, the question may become a bit murkier, as there are often a number of additional ingredients in the product, like breading, starch, dextrose, for instance, that could either mask an alternative meat product or actually make up more, by weight, of the product than the ‘chicken’ or so-called named meat itself,” added Hunnes

“Too much packaging, especially plastic, does not get recycled properly and only seven percent of plastic in the U.S. ever gets recycled. The rest ends up in the landfill where it will never break down and may often end up in the ocean. Once in the ocean, it will photodegrade into smaller pieces (microplastics) that fish and other sea-creatures eat.” - Hunnes says

"There's been some data over the years that has indicated that as portion sizes have grown, people also tend to eat more. It can take between about 15 to 20 minutes for your body to acknowledge you're getting full and starting to go through the digestion process," Hunnes said. 

“Berries are always picked at the peak of their ripeness and freshness and then are flash-frozen. Frozen produce is comparable to fresh in terms of nutrition and “frozen berries are wonderful in smoothies, on top of oatmeal, with yogurt or non-dairy yogurt, in cereal, in pancakes, or almost anything. They make a wonderful base for any breakfast or smoothie.” explains Dana Hunnes