by Juliana Sebben

My junior year of high school, I watched Food Inc., a documentary detailing the horrors of industrial agriculture, and spoiled my appetite for all things animal-product forever—or so I thought. The year was 2015 and veganism was still a largely fringe movement. No one I knew in real life followed a plant-based diet and most restaurants did not cater to it. Even grocery stores had little to offer in terms of alternatives to meat and dairy, vegan ice cream was still a distant dream. But then things began to change—maybe it was the rise of vegan bloggers (@freeleethebananagirl, anyone?) or the increasing coverage of the climate crisis tying itself to animal agriculture; maybe others, like me, were moved by Netflix documentaries and exposés. However, veganism began to hit the mainstream with the number of U.S. consumers identifying as vegan increasing 600% between 2014 and 2017, according to GlobalData. 

The result was a rapid transformation of the market to meet the demands of plant-based buyers, a testament to the power we have as consumers. Suddenly grocery store shelves were stocked with countless milk alternatives and imitation meats, cheeses, and even eggs. Ben and Jerry’s launched a non-dairy line; Beyond Burger began outputting patties that so closely resembled real meat consumers could hardly tell the difference. With undeniable ties linking climate change and meat-eating and countless claims declaring veganism the “best diet for the planet,” it seemed like one could rest comfortably after a meal of fruits and veggies, knowing their part for Earth was done.

In a perfect world, that might be true. But in one as nuanced and complicated as ours, we must look beyond “vegan” labels to determine the impacts of our dietary choices on the planet. This, I began to realize through various travels and interactions with different cultural approaches to food, as well as my own increasing involvement with permaculture, farming, and food sharing. Over seven years since I first made my decision to forever nix chicken nuggets from my diet, I no longer believe that veganism is what is undeniably best for our planet.

To illustrate some of the environmental downfalls of conventional veganism, let’s dissect a staple of the plant-based diet: a breakfast smoothie. We’ll start with a cup of frozen fruit, plastic-packaged and shipped overseas in an airplane freezer, for sweetness; a scoop of peanut butter, containing palm oil, a major driver of deforestation, for protein; half an avocado, grown with up to 70 gallons of illegally-siphoned river water and transported from Chile, for creaminess; a handful of spinach, sprayed with havoc-wreaking pesticides that threaten biodiversity and weaken natural ecosystems, for additional nutrients; and finally, a glug of soy milk, made from soybeans cultivated with highly mechanized, soil-eroding practices, to blend.

The result is a delicious smoothie that meets all the requirements of a vegan diet, but is it better for the planet rather than eating scrambled eggs collected from a neighbor’s backyard chickens? In terms of environmental impact, is it superior to consuming locally-caught fish or the meat of an independently-hunted animal? These are questions posed not to dissuade anyone from adhering to a plant-based diet—there are valid reasons Project Drawdown lists eating a plant-rich diet as the fourth most effective climate solution in a list of 100—but there comes a time when we must begin to look even deeper, attuning our attention to the production of food versus the product itself. Because industrial agriculture is a broken, planet-destroying system, anything it produces will have a negative impact on the environment, be it an animal product or not. Knowing this, the question then becomes: where do we go to feed ourselves outside of it? And the answer, like the answer to so many pressing and existential modern-day qualms, is a return to the past.

There was a time not long ago when household diets rotated with the seasons–strawberries and rhubarb in the summers, apples and parsnips in the fall. Backyard gardens were green with food enough that one could walk outside to clip that night’s dinner side dish. With more than half of Americans in the 1900s either living in rural communities or farming themselves, there was no mystery to the production of food: everyone knew where it was coming from, how it was grown, and what it required to make it onto the table. It was a more intimate and engaged way of interacting with land, one that lent itself to a gentler environmental impact.

Today, it is unlikely that many of us will grow up to become self-sustaining farmers. But  we can begin to replicate ancient ways of relating to land in the present by beginning to grow our own food in whatever green space we have access to; by supporting our local farmers with a CSA subscription that allows local produce to be delivered, plastic-free, to our doorsteps; by sharing with our neighbors the fish we caught or deer we hunted; by starting a community garden in our neighborhood to encourage connection through the universal pleasure of growing, eating, and sharing food; by buying seasonal produce at the grocery store; and by recognizing the infinite nuances surrounding diet and planetary health.

Whether you identify as a carnivore, an omnivore, a vegan, or (like me, just to keep things simple) a picky eater, remember that the “best diet” is the one closest to home and that the gift of food is rife with opportunity to heal. In consciously and compassionately choosing what we eat and where it comes from, we can affect not only the wellness of our bodies, but the wellness of our communities and, of course, our planet, too.