The Future is ethical consumption
Eco-nutrition is a concept that aligns eating healthy to sustain personal well-being and connects to making informed food choices to support surrounding communities, global food security, animal welfare, sound resource management and environmental preservation.
To identify the optimal diet for humans (especially considering long term longevity as a species), a diet that sustains the individual, as well as whole families, entire cities, and the earth’s bio-diversity, we must carefully examine the various implications.
Scientists, doctors, and health authorities are usually in agreement that eating wholesome plant foods is health promoting, whether they advocate a fully vegan diet or not. (There are, of course, exceptions of people with unique genetics or auto-immune disorders that cannot thrive on mostly plant foods.) However, for most, no matter what current eating patterns are, adding more fruits, vegetables, beans, nuts and seeds is a positive step toward a healthier life, both for you and the rest of the planet.
Which plant foods in particular and in what amounts appears to be slightly more controversial and debatable, ranging from a little to a lot of one or more particular food, from low-fat/high-carb, low-carb/high-fat, to fully raw or mostly cooked, or a combination of it all. However, the emphasis should be on the simple act of reducing, optimally selecting, or omitting, animal products (meat, dairy, eggs, and seafood), which inevitably forces one to replace these with other foods. Ideally a variety of plant derived foods (as close to their natural state as possible) that will flood the body with nutrients, micronutrients, fibre, and structured water.
When the metabolism is met with optimal nutrition it can do its best work to energize, build, repair, eliminate, and support a thriving state under modern life conditions.
Overwhelming amounts of research and statistics (always do your own research and keep asking question and dig deep) point directly to mass animal agriculture systems as the number one cause of global environmental collapse. Deforestation, land degradation, greenhouse gas emissions, water pollution, marine habitat destruction/ocean dead zones, and species extinction are all direct results of our gigantic animal production. Close to fifty percent of the world’s total grain crops are fed to farm animals, while these crops could be fed to growing starving human populations. One third of the world’s total fresh water supply is guzzled in livestock operations, while growing fresh water demands create local and international tensions.
Considering the astronomical amounts of resources mobilized, the actual nutrient yields of animal food production are extremely poor. For example, with every one hundred calories of grain fed to animals, only about forty new calories of milk may be produced, or twenty-two calories of eggs, or twelve calories of chicken, or ten calories of pork, or only three of beef. This terrible food energy conversion rate is economically, socially, and environmentally unviable.
One might point out that the production of some plant foods such as palm oil, certain nuts, fruits and vegetables are not always the most earth or people friendly. While these implications are valid and should affect our buying patterns as responsible consumers, this is nowhere near the scale of animal agriculture impacts on global ecology. Humans have an influence on their surroundings no matter what they do. If one human lives off a tiny piece of land, self-sustaining without importing any food, water, or power, there is still an impact, albeit lesser than a human living in a big city.
The goal is to minimize human impact so that life can be sustained on earth for the long term. There is always a better option. Ongoing research with an open mind is key.
One must decide what the ideal decisions are at a specific time, with the best information available. For example, if I am aware that a certain company mistreats its workers or does not comply to a waste management regulation, I will do my very best to avoid their product, I will definitely weigh the options available according to best practices, nutrition content and any other useful information.
With the current exposed data on the destructiveness attributed to meat and dairy production, fisheries over-exploitation, and the magnitude of scholarly papers on the subject of nutrition and agriculture, one can somewhat choose the shape of their environmental, social, and economic footprint. Being human means having a footprint. It is a conscious duty, not just a privilege, to eat more plants in order to minimize the depth of this footprint and inspire a food & health system reform.
Developing countries always aspire to be more like established countries. Meat and processed foods are viewed as prosperity, but at what cost? Not just environmental. Chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes are rampant in so-called developed nations and virtually nonexistent in developing parts of the world where mostly plant-based diets are often the staple. These diseases rates increase as a country increases its animal product and processed food consumption. There are hundreds of papers on the co-relations between diet and diseases of affluence, which begs the question, why is this evidence largely overlooked?
Economy and politics.
Industries are complexly profit-driven and the consumer is pushed and pulled in all directions, left unsure as to what he or she may actually want, need or benefit from. This is not the result of lack of access to information, but rather an over-misinformation that is both confusing and frustrating.
Some of the biggest international organizations are finally publishing updated information about nutrition, food systems, and impacts of various diets on public health and the environment. In a 2010 (and since then in every climate change/sustainable resources report), the United Nations published an urgent call for action.
Animal products, both meat and dairy, in general require more resources and cause higher emissions than plant-based alternatives. In addition, non-seasonal fruits and vegetables cause substantial emissions when grown in greenhouses, preserved in a frozen state, or transported by air.
A substantial reduction of impacts would only be possible with a substantial worldwide diet change, away from animal products.
– UNEP International Panel for Sustainable Resource Management
With fast and ever growing world population, is there even another choice but to switch to a plant based diet? World hunger, plummeting resources, and a deteriorating environment should be compelling enough if personal physical health and animal welfare alone are not.
No matter what humans do, either small or large scale, there will always be demographic and environmental impacts. These repercussions, which can relate to any field of production and consumption, can be either sustainable or non-sustainable, or a bit of both.
The crucial agricultural goal of the 21st century should be to find the most ideally balanced production/consumption scenarios where the highest amount of benefits is experienced throughout as many implicated sectors while the lowest amount of resulting negative impacts can be mitigated by counter initiatives. This could be known as Responsive Agriculture Integrated Systems & Education (RAISE), and would include a wide variety of models based on, but not limited to, organic farming, permaculture, large field crop rotation, woodland farming, food forests, urban gardening/farming with indoor vertical farms/markets, school-ground farming programs, etc.
A small change every day can have the greatest impact. It is important to break down daily choices into easy, affordable, and rewarding tips and recipes. You can discuss a plan of action with your eco-nutritionist to gain confidence in buying, storing, prepping, and cooking delicious plant based meals that nourish both you and the earth.
Modern nutrition should aim to bring wholesome plant-focused diets to people of all backgrounds, to help them sustain healthy energetic lifestyles, while minimizing the negative impacts of food systems on the environment and other species.
So whether your are vegan or not, just eat more fruits, veggies, grains, beans, nuts, and seeds as close to their natural state and as seasonally and locally as possible.
Remain hungry for the truth as data arises and shifts quickly in the worlds of nutrition and agriculture.
Vanessa Bourget is a nutritionist based in Vancouver, Canada
Vanessa Bourget 