So what exactly are we supposed to eat?
So what exactly are we supposed to eat?
How 'You Can't Eat Money' came to be and how I decide what to eat.
The only saving grace when I tell people that I have a podcast and email newsletter is the smile that breaks through when I share the name - You Can’t Eat Money.
The credit for the name goes to a quote from Alanis Obomsawin, an Abenaki American-Canadian filmmaker, singer, artist, and activist.
“When the last tree is cut, the last fish is caught, and the last river is polluted; when to breathe the air is sickening, you will realize, too late, that wealth is not in bank accounts and that you can’t eat money.”
The quote perfectly encapsulated how I was feeling when I first came across it. I had just read David Wallace-Wells ‘The Uninhabitable Earth’ (spoiler alert - without change, the world will be pretty uninhabitable) and was looking for some action I could take to make Earth less uninhabitable.
It became clear to me that the most meaningful thing I could do was to change how I eat.
In a race for economic prosperity, the food world is responsible for clear-cutting rainforests to graze cattle, decimating marine ecosystems through overfishing and creating so much processed food that kids don’t know what vegetables look like.
Most of us in the Western world eat three or more times a day. That’s three or more chances to support a farmer or producer that is trying to be more environmentally responsible. It’s three or more chances to choose food that requires fewer inputs and creates fewer emissions. And it’s three or more chances to reduce the amount of food waste we create since nearly every other forkful of food in the U.S. is wasted.
But where the heck should I start?
At the time, I was what most people would call a foodie.
I moved from Texas to Brooklyn in 2012 and dove head first into the loving embrace of the five borough’s fantastic food scene. From Roberta’s and Momofuku Noodle Bar to Mission Chinese and Ivan Orkin’s ramen shop, I was on culinary cloud nine. My favorite though was not too far away from my first place in Brooklyn Heights - Pok Pok, the legendary Thai spot from Chef Andy Ricker. I even got to meet my culinary hero Anthony Bourdain, at the launch of a book about Texas barbecue at a whiskey distillery in Kings County.
And not only was I indulging my culinary proclivities in my free time, but it was part of my work as well.
Initially I was working at American Express with the publishing team behind Food & Wine magazine (then owned by Amex) on a project. This led to invites to restaurant and bar openings and event dinners with chefs like José Andrés.
Then when I moved over to (RED), we launched a multi-year program called EAT (RED), enlisting chefs in the fight against HIV/AIDS. At the initial launch event on Eataly’s rooftop bar, I spent a good deal of time chatting with Chef April Bloomfield about the culinary delights of San Sebastián and St. JOHN. She even invited me to learn how to break down a pig with meat mogul Pat LaFrieda Jr.
Environmental conservation was simply not part of my consideration set when I decided where and what to eat. I just wanted food - the more delicious and new to me, the better.
So when I started to research how to eat in a more environmentally responsible way, I was pretty much starting from scratch. Books like Chef Dan Barber’s ‘The Third Plate’ and documentaries like Food, Inc were added to my usual rotation of cookbooks and episodes of Top Chef and Parts Unknown.
The challenge was not finding an answer, but finding too many answers. Despite a mountain of evidence that the our food system contributes about a third of total greenhouse gas emissions, there didn’t seem to be one clear, simple, globally-agreed dietary outline to follow to reduce it.
So I landed where many people land - to go vegan* or more accurately adopt a plant-based diet. As past podcast guest Chef Douglas McMaster puts it in his book ‘The Zero Waste Blueprint’:
“the future of food was an oasis in my mind. I saw rich, verdant pastures, complex interconnected life, plants on plants….The future of food is mostly about plants…Vegan seemed the only rational path.”
And it wasn’t just McMaster (who is not vegan by the way), it was other people I admired. Journalist and researcher Michael Pollan famously advocates for a simple diet of “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”
In my search for a simple, environmentally responsible diet, I found an easy-to-follow option in a plant-based diet. And I think it is a good place to start for many people, even if you add on from there. But don’t take my word for it. Let’s look at the data.
How is eating meat and dairy harmful to the planet?
Meat and dairy production contribute 14.5% to global greenhouse gas emissions. That is almost on par with all (land, sea and air) transportation. And replacing just half of meat and dairy consumption with plant based alternatives would reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture by 31%. It would also drop our water usage by 10% (in an increasingly water scarce world) and would reduce the amount of undernourished people globally by 31 million.
More than that, reducing meat and dairy consumption reduces land use by 75%. This land can then be rewilded with greater environmental benefits than afforestation.
A ‘mostly plants’ diet is one of the those rare win, win, win scenarios. People get healthier, the planet gets healthier and we conserve valuable resources for the future.
At this point, I’m sure I’ve lost many readers who consider even a ‘mostly plants’ or plant-based diet the devil’s buffet. For those of you still reading, let’s look at what other options are on the menu.
What about regenerative agriculture?
On the podcast, I've talked to folks like Edd Lees, one of the founders of regenerative wheat-focused Wildfarmed, David Bronner of Dr. Bronner’s, and Paul Lightfoot, the GM of Patagonia Provisions. Bronner and Lightfoot are both on the board of the Regenerative Organic Alliance.
A well-functioning regenerative agriculture system sequesters atmospheric carbon dioxide to rebuild soil health and reduce global warming. It does so by forgoing machine tilling and monocultures in favorite of tilling by hoof, cover cropping and crop rotation. And not only can it be used to produce less environmentally harmful food, it can be used to grow crops like cotton. In fact, I am wearing a t-shirt while typing this that Patagonia makes out regeneratively grown cotton.
However, the jury is still out.
Executive Director of Project Drawdown Jonathan Foley recently shared a fact-filled post on regenerative ag on LinkedIn.
The food system as a whole emits about 34% of total greenhouse gas emissions. 5% of total emissions come from animal-emitted methane.
Food, agriculture and land use directly emit about 22% of total greenhouse gas emissions. Half of that 22% comes from tropical deforestation.
Reducing food waste (not only does food decomposition emit methane, reducing food waste means we use land more efficiently) and protecting forests, along with changing our diet, would generate much larger reductions than regenerative ag.
And even advocates like Bronner think there’s work to be done to make regenerative agriculture truly regenerative.
“However, for “regenerative” farming and ranching to fulfill its promise, standards and stakeholders need to address off-farm feed and synthetic fertility inputs, just as much as on-farm practices. It doesn’t matter how great your soil carbon is on your ranch, if you rely on conventionally-grown feed that is stripping soils of carbon elsewhere, effectively transferring synthetic fertility from those feed farms via poop on pasture.”
Finally, research has shown that regenerative grazing requires significantly more land.
So is regenerative agriculture the solution?
In many ways regenerative agriculture is better than conventional agriculture, but is probably only part of an environmentally responsible food system. To make regenerative agriculture work to feed a growing global population, the significant increase in land use required must be met with an equally significant decline in food waste.
What about seafood?
This is one of my favorite aspects of food production as there is an incredible amount of research and entrepreneurial innovation happening in this space. (Make sure to check out Greenwave, Bren Smith and our episode with Câr y Môr.) And it is also an important one as fish and other seafood have shown to be incredibly beneficial to human health. But is eating seafood better for planetary health?
On a comparison basis, fish and other seafood are significantly smaller sources of greenhouse gas emissions than meat and dairy. (While not the only measure of environmental impact, greenhouse gases make comparison easier.)
The worst seafood - farmed prawns - has less than a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions per kilogram of food product than beef. And less greenhouse gas emissions per kilogram than my beloved coffee.
If you avoid farmed fish and crustaceans, opting for wild caught fish, you get to three kilograms of emissions - fewer than rice and olive oil. However, my beloved oysters (don’t miss our episode with Hog Island Oyster Co’s John Finger) might top the charts for environmentally responsible seafood.
Oysters are filter feeders meaning that growing them improves the water quality they live in. Plus, oyster aquaculture emits no methane and only negligible amounts of nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide. Growing and consuming more oysters only benefits the health of the planet.
So can I eat seafood with a clear climate conscious?
I wholeheartedly endorse the consumption of locally grown and harvested oysters and bivalves. They clean the water, have little to no emissions and even restore habitats.
When it comes to wild caught fish, I would say it depends. Even small fish like sardines and anchovies are at risk of overfishing, which destroys food chains. The Northern Anchovy for example creates low bycatch and is not currently overfished. However, fishing for the Cantabrian Anchovy was banned because of dwindling populations.
To be safe, use guides from NOAA and the Monterey Bay Aquarium if you are going to buy wild caught fish.
What if I do my research and buy responsibly?
My answer to that is simple - good luck.
Even though I care deeply about the food I eat, I think it is pretty much impossible to research every item of food you buy to make sure it is the most or one of the most environmentally responsible choices. And don’t trust big box grocery labels.
Oh, but what about meat alternatives?
I can’t lie, since I stopped eating beef, I’ve indulged in my share of Beyond and Impossible Burgers. I’d still prefer a classic black bean burger, but when you aren’t eating meat and dairy, your options at some restaurants are limited.
The environmental impact of Beyond and Impossible isn’t exactly clear yet. We know they emit less greenhouse gas emissions and use fewer resources like water. However, certain ingredients they use may result in side effects like deforestation. And they probably fall into the category of ultra-processed foods, failing Pollan’s rule of eating ‘food’ (something he addresses in Food, Inc 2.)
I do want to give a shoutout to a company I found while living in London called Symplicity Foods. Created by Chef Neil Rankin, a famously meat-forward chef, Symplicity makes meat alternatives using fermented vegetables. And excuse my expletive - they are really fucking good.
So how should I eat if I want to eat as environmentally responsible as possible?
From my research the guardrails are pretty clear.
Most of your diet should be made up of plants.
Load up on fruits and vegetables, opting for local, organic options whenever possible. (While ‘food miles’ are a real thing so eating local is generally preferred, getting tasty tomatoes from Spain grown organically is better than intensely grown, less delicious local tomatoes if you live in an unsuitable climate for growing tomatoes.) And while not technically plants, mushrooms are another great low-impact choice.
If you live in or near a coastal area, enjoy some oysters or other bivalves (if you want to).
Local bivalves are thumbs up. I do think you’d be hard pressed to environmentally justify buying oysters flown halfway around the world on a plane. It would probably still be better environmentally than eating a beef steak, but have you ever tried Derek Sarno’s lion’s mane steak?
Make the easy choices so you don’t worry as much about the hard ones.
As I wrote before, I think it is pretty much impossible to research every piece of food you eat to make sure it is the most responsible choice.
I really like how Paul Lightfoot approaches it. He eats a lot of vegetables and Provisions’ responsibly-sourced tinned fish and wild caught salmon. When he occasionally buys farmed meat, he buys it direct from a farmer using the most responsible methods possible.
As we’ve seen from the research, even reducing meat and dairy intake by half delivers huge benefits. So load up on fruit and veg, sprinkle on some oysters or responsible wild-caught salmon if you’d like and don’t worry too much about the rest. We can’t eat at Chez Pannise or a Michelin Green Star restaurant every day, but we can take easy steps to reduce the environmental impact of our three squares every day.
Lastly, I’d be remiss to not mention the work of
. Her book ‘No Meat Required’ is a fantastic read and I think you’ll really appreciate her genuine take on the history and future of plant-based eating.*I want to be clear on this - being vegan is a lifestyle and philosophy. It is about reducing suffering of other living things and not just about food choices. I’ve used terms like ‘mostly plants’ and ‘plant-based diet’ to refer to food choices and not other lifestyle choices. I have a lot amount of respect for vegans and for many reasons strive to eliminate animal products from my lifestyle - food and non-food.