“Are You Allowed to Eat That?”- Sustainable Eating as a Personalized Experience
This article was written by a guest contributor, Colleen Alexander. Read about Colleen here.
Sustainability and sustainable eating typically bring to mind the environment and how our food choices affect it. There is no question that the way the world eats needs to change dramatically; less meat and dairy on our plates has effective and far-reaching impacts for a healthier world. It can help make the air we breathe and the water we drink cleaner. However, the changes that each person can or will make to their diet is a personalized journey. Sustainability is not only about the Earth, but the people that live here. To ask "Is this sustainable?" is to ask, "Can this go on without change?" When it comes to our current eating habits, the answer is no; we cannot continue producing and consuming animal-based products at the current rate. But food is a deeply personal aspect of our lives and demanding swift and dramatic change to one's diet (such as adopting veganism outright) is unrealistic, because sustainability is also a matter of our physical health and mental well-being.
Food affects the Earth, our bodies, and our mental health. It is crucial to keep each of these elements in mind while grocery shopping, cooking, and eating, to sustain both the planet, and ourselves as people with physical bodies and emotional minds that need nourishment. "Comfort food" is named so because of the ability it has to sustain our souls, while "eco-friendly" and "organic" food has the ability to sustain our planet. These are circular interactions; there is no planet (as we know it) without people, and there certainly are no people without the planet.
Food choices need to change and dramatic reductions of meat and dairy are essential, but not at a pace that affects the sustainability of a person's physical health or mental well-being. Adapting and adopting a plant-based diet to our current lifestyles is a journey. Finding plant-based sources of fiber, protein, and calcium after a lifetime of being taught these are only found in animal-based foods is a paradigm shift for our physical health and mental awareness, and true cognitive dissonance. Learning to cook new and unfamiliar plant foods is also a journey; it is asking someone to relearn an entire knowledge base (cooking) from scratch.
Arguably even more important is the slow process of changing our tastes and where we find joy in food. Animal-based foods that we know and love, or are conditioned to love through associations like eating turkey on Thanksgiving, will need suitable replacements to sustain the mental well-being that food provides us. The taste and smell of certain foods have deep connections to memories, and asking people worldwide to abandon these foods and associations is a large ask. Comfort food can be plant-based, but asking someone to make this change is ultimately asking them to relinquish a sense of mental safety and comfort until they can find it in other food.
These changes require physical and mental energy, and like any large lifestyle change, it cannot be expected to be done all at once. Labels like "vegan" demand that someone adheres to a given definition of what should or should not be eaten, and provides "rules" for sustainability. The rules and the limitations they place on us are in and of themselves unsustainable. The large-scale adoption of plant-based diets should not be slow, but it should also not set people up for failure. To "break" a vegan diet or stumble along the way by nourishing one's mind or soul with the comfort of a square of milk chocolate or a serving of animal-based macaroni and cheese should not invalidate the efforts that they make toward environmental sustainability or ethicality.
It is up to each person to identify the needed weight to place on sustainability for the planet as well as sustainability of their own physical body and mind, and to find the appropriate balance between each one on a day-to-day basis of change toward a more livable world. One day may be comprised of fully plant-based foods where the Earth is nourished from our choices in what to eat, and the next day may require food that nourishes and heals an ailment to our body. A day soon after that may require mental comfort from the taste of a pie our Grandfather used to make that calls for sticks and sticks of butter. These foods serve purpose. They are not "stumbles" along the way toward sustainability; they are sustaining us as people. The goal is to find a balance where environmental sustainability, physical health, and mental well-being are all equally weighted, and to work toward a future when these may all soon be sourced from plant-based foods.