Do the words ‘veganism’ or ‘vegetarianism’ mean anything to you? While eating purely plant-based foods has existed for centuries amongst various cultures of the world, these habits have become a ‘trend’ only in recent years with increasing global attention to the meat industry and the havoc it causes our environment.
For perspective, nearly 3000 million tons of the earth’s atmospheric carbon dioxide are caused by emissions from the global meat industry.
The reasons for people adopting a plant-forward lifestyle vary – it could be a concern for the environment or a boycott against meat suppliers because of unethical practices regarding sourcing their meat. For some, it could be merely to feel better about themselves through the course of “clean eating” associated with eating a purely vegetarian or vegan diet.
In this article, we will explore:
- The rise of plant-forward eating
- Pros and cons of plant forward eating
- Is plant forward eating really all that simple and sustainable?
- Striking a balance between our practices and the environment
The Rise of Plant-Forward Eating
It’s not a coincidence that no matter where you turn in a grocery store or a restaurant, words like ‘organic’, ‘ethically sourced’, ‘cruelty-free’, and of course, ‘vegan’ adorn labels and advertisements.
As the name implies, a plant-forward diet emphasizes whole grains, beans, fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, herbs, spices, and anything else derived from plants. These dietary sources provide a lot of fiber and bioactive substances that have anti-inflammatory properties.
However, the main focus on plant-forward eating is not to altogether remove meat from the diet but to make plant-based food items the centerpiece of every meal. The justifications for choosing such a diet range from worries about one’s health and animal rights to environmental issues related to factory farming.
The market for plant-based foods is anticipated to rise significantly over the following ten years as consumer tastes change, with big brands like Deliveroo reporting a 146% increase in order volume for plant-based restaurants and a 114% increase in demand for vegan options.
This growth was further accelerated when more and more people stopped eating meat in an effort to stay healthier during the COVID-19 pandemic. This soon turned from a trend to a lifestyle choice as many reported various health benefits of going completely meat-free.
There was also the concern that eating meat led to weight gain during a period when access to places like gyms and outdoor sporting locations were limited.
In 2020, 71 million households in America alone purchased plant-based foods, which totals 57% of all American families. It’s interesting to note that it is a 4% increase from 2019, before the pandemic hit, according to the Planet Based Foods Association.
As a significant portion of people started adopting this lifestyle, major companies worldwide started upping their vegetarian and vegan offerings, trying to cater to the different diets that seemed to pop up every now and then, sticking longer than the other.
According to a report by Bloomberg Intelligence, the market for plant-based meals will account for 7.7% of all protein sales worldwide by 2030, with a value of over $162 billion, up from just $29.4 billion in 2020.
Pros and Cons of Plant-Forward Eating
To meet the demand of a growing world population, agriculture production is anticipated to rise. This creates the issue of the greenhouse effect speeding an increase in global temperatures. While the transportation industry is one of the most significant sources of greenhouse emissions from carbon dioxide and nitrous oxides, animal agriculture is a greater culprit.
Methane, a byproduct of livestock, accounts for most of the greenhouse gas output. Methane is substantially more harmful than CO2 since it has an 86-fold more tremendous global warming potential over 20 years.
While producing plants is nowhere near as hazardous to the environment as meat is, it is still a significant contributor to an increase in CO2 (from using factory equipment needed to harvest crops), overconsumption of groundwater, overuse of land resources, degradation of soil, and deforestation.
Deforestation is a huge problem when it comes to harvesting crops. One such example is the production of palm trees which requires vast amounts of land, water, and soil. Moreover, as a negative light started unveiling on animal fat usage in our packaged foods, major companies switched to using vegetable and palm oil.
The palm oil industry has been heavily criticized for destroying and replacing our rainforests with these cash crops, adversely affecting the local flora and fauna. The world’s most significant carbon sinks are tropical rainforests, which remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as they expand. As they are cleared to keep up with the market demand for cheap, vegan alternatives, it can become more detrimental to the environment than one can anticipate.
Beyond issues with the environment, super-strict diets that do not provide adequate nutrition can also cause physical and mental harm, shortening life expectancy and increasing the risk of developing several chronic diseases.
Is It Really Simple and Sustainable?
For any diet to be truly sustainable, it must be created in a way that protects the environment and has a minimal impact on our biodiversity and ecosystems. Additionally, a sustainable diet must be nutritionally adequate, secure, healthy, culturally acceptable, and reasonably priced.
However, given the present trends of food consumption and environmental change, food security and sustainability are in direct conflict with each other.
Growing concerns over the environment have become a major driver of innovation and change in our dietary habits. Companies are now looking for ways to reduce their usage of natural resources and carbon emissions to prevent environmental damage as a matter of ethics and corporate survival.
Crops, water, land maintenance, and transportation negatively impact the environment due to various gasses generated throughout the process and transportation-related CO2 emissions. Additionally, it contributes to deforestation, which results in habitat loss, eviction, and increased extinction of rare species of animals, birds, and plants.
With natural, nonrenewable resources dwindling and environmental damage escalating quickly, plant-based diets are increasingly seen as the more sustainable choice for consumers.
Although meat products are in a different league of damage they cause, not all green food is actually green and clean as it is portrayed.
It is important to pay attention to everything that we consider sustainable because transportation of fruits and vegetables, especially if they are air-transported, could also produce more greenhouse gas emissions per kilo than chicken.
To compensate for the loss of protein and the taste of meat, there is now an advent of plant-based meat and lab-grown meat, which utilizes cells of animals to recreate actual meat of animals. Unfortunately, this once again results in an overuse of natural resources.
There has long been a debate about whether humans are meant to be carnivorous or omnivorous to a certain extent. We hear the argument from both sides, covering everything from personal to environmental reasons for choosing one diet over the other. The argument that our bodies were built to eat a particular meal and must stick to it is invalid because we, as humans, are constantly adjusting to our environment.
But we can all agree on one thing: taking anything to the extreme would negatively affect our mind, body, and environment.
For people who are used to beef, lamb, pork, and dairy – there is nothing like the actual thing, according to a University of Oxford research. This is also why plant-forward eating is actually much more sustainable and easier to follow by individuals who have been regular meat eaters.
The problem with going completely plant-based arises when we try to compensate by eating extremely processed and packaged food to reach their nutritional goals in the presence of extreme restrictions on what they can and can not consume.
Considering the fact that plant-forward diets do not completely fit into the strict boxes of plant-based diets, we would still be able to consume smaller amounts of responsibly grown beef, chicken, and pork and still contribute to promoting economic and environmental health.
Additionally, the production, distribution, and growth of locally grown plants use substantially less water and resources. Plant meals produced through regenerative agriculture may also benefit the environment since they are grown in a way that improves soil health and cleans the air. Finally, because they don’t require as much fossil fuel to travel across the nation or the globe, locally grown goods are even healthier for the environment.
So, does it mean you would have to give up your favorite beef steak, pulled pork, and Spanish omelet to save ourselves and the environment? Not at all, and that is what plant-forward eating is all about. It simply means you would have to consume it less frequently and treat it as a delicacy than an everyday indulgence.
The quantity of land use, water use, and hazardous emissions can be dramatically decreased if we eat less meat and more plant-based proteins.
Conclusion: Striking a balance between our practices and the Environment
You would be surprised and shocked to know that if we were to replace all-beef burgers sold in America with 70% beef, 30% mushroom burgers, the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions would be the equivalent of removing all cars from the city of San Diego (which has a population of 4 million people).
This only goes on to show that every restaurant or person that modifies their habits and choices can have an impact and that no change is insignificant.
By 2050, the global population is expected to rise to 9.7 billion people. It is inevitable that the agricultural industry will also grow in tandem to meet the rising demands.
The world must undergo a transformation toward sustainable food systems if we are to meet our global climate crisis mitigation goals. Plant-based meat and dairy substitutes offer viable replacements for animal-sourced foods as well as a path for changing to more sustainable diets.
Unless we adopt long-term, safer agricultural practices, it will be nearly impossible to keep feeding ourselves while using Earth’s resources sustainably.
We should also note that adopting sustainable agriculture and sustainability is not a one government, one huge corporation job.
The journey towards sustainability is a path we all take as individuals, entrepreneurs, business owners, decision makers and as a common man. If we want the world to produce sustainable meat, sustainable palm oil, and sustainable crops, we should be ready to pay the price for it.