Recent books like We Are the Weather advocate for considering how our dietary choices affect the climate crisis, but new research shows that most Americans are not discussing the environmental impacts of their diets with friend and family, as Inverse reported.

The bright side is that almost everyone surveyed said they were willing to eat more fruits and vegetables, while more than half said they were willing to cut down on red meat and choose plant-based alternatives, according to a new report of more than a thousand adults in the U.S. by Yale University and the nonprofit Earth Day Network, as The Verge reported.

The report, Climate Change and the American Diet, found that most survey participants noted a lack of information as the greatest barrier to making plant-based choices. That knowledge could influence nutrition guidelines and food marketing, if policy makers were willing to advocate for climate-friendly policies and stand up to the powerful beef and dairy lobbies. As Inverse reported, making facts about plant-based meat alternatives more accessible could make a big difference, and food labels are the ideal medium to share information. "If we do not make the connection between food that we're eating and climate change, we're doing ourselves a disservice," said Jillian Semaan, food and environment director at the Earth Day Network to The Verge. "The most immediate action anyone can take [on climate change] today is to look at what they're putting on their plate and what they're putting in their body."

One way to improve the environmental impact of how people eat is to make it a point of conversation. The survey, which gathered answers from more than 1,000 Americans representing a cross-section of society, found that 70 percent rarely or never talk about the environmental impact of their food choices with friends or family. Nearly two-thirds of the Americans surveyed report having never been asked to eat more plant-based foods, and more than half rarely or never hear about the topic in the media, according to a summary from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. "Many American consumers are interested in eating a more healthy and climate-friendly diet," said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, in a press release accompanying the new report. "However, many simply don't know yet which products are better or worse — a huge communication opportunity for food producers, distributors and sellers."