Consuming lab-grown meat or ground-up insects could result in significant reductions in carbon emissions and water use, as well as more land for natural habitats. That’s according to a study calculating the environmental benefits of eating “greener” foods.

Scientists estimate that if such foods were consumed instead of the usual European diet, environmental pressures would be reduced by more than 80%. However, it is unclear whether consumers will desire to change their dietary patterns. A variety of non-traditional foods are being developed with the goal of delivering high-protein, less in water, and land diets that are friendly to the environment. Finlandese researchers looked at the nutritional characteristics of some of these items as well as three environmental pressures: water consumption, land use, and potential carbon emissions. They claim that substituting alternative foods for meat, dairy, and other animal products might lessen these impacts by more than 80% while also providing a more complete spectrum of key nutrients than a completely vegetarian or vegan diet. However, they discovered that relatively low-tech remedies, such as reducing meat consumption and increasing vegetable consumption, had a similar impact on the environment.

The study, which was published in Nature Food, looked at new foods that are predicted to become more common in our diets in the next years and found that many of them rely on high-tech methods to “grow” animal and plant cells in bioreactors. Several studies have demonstrated that switching to a plant-based diet is good for both your health and the environment.