From eco-unconscious to mindful sustainability
Mindless sustainability trends could be doing more damage.
Food trends, like all trends, are a result of our collective search for quick and easy solutions to the everyday concerns of life that we’d rather not spend time or mental energy on. Effectively a food version of Steve Jobs and his black pullovers. He’s said to have worn them daily to free up more mental energy for creating the Apple brand.
I spend way too much time and energy deciding what to wear, especially with a hangover, so I get it! It’s a simple trade-off: am I ok with wearing a black pullover every day of my life vs. am I willing to spend energy on dressing better? We all look for simplification because it makes things easy, and we do love easy. But the problem is that anything done thoughtlessly is always going to have an inferior outcome.
That’s why I see many of the current food hot topics as false trade-offs.
Quinoa vs. meat
The trade-off: In one corner we have humanitarians calling attention to the impact the popularity of quinoa has on the poor in the countries where it’s farmed. In the other are animal rights activists like PETA explaining that quinoa is more ethical than factory-farmed cattle.
I think that in both cases, the negative impact comes from how prone we are to jump on trend bandwagons, both as consumers and capitalists looking for profit. The big problem with cattle farming is thoughtless consumption leading to mass demand for meat and commercial pressure to meet that demand at any expense. The problem now arising with quinoa farming is thoughtless consumption leading to mass demand for it and commercial pressure to meet that demand, pushing prices up.
It’s a false trade-off because while quinoa is a useful protein source for vegans, it isn’t a replacement for meat. It’s a different food group! Dropping meat and gorging on quinoa shifts all the problems: you’re still not getting enough protein, other farming industries become overwhelmed and there are new social and environmental consequences.
The real problem is our human urge to follow the crowd. A behavioral economics concept known, funnily enough, as ‘herding’.
Avocados: daily vs banned
The trade-off: Vegan cafes in Iceland, all-avocado eateries in Amsterdam, low-carb crazes in Cape Town, festival food everywhere: avos are a one-stop meal shop all over the world. And an environmental and social disaster for the big producing regions.
Just as thoughtlessly abandoning an old favorite for a new trend doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, neither does blindly eliminating a highly nutritious newly popular food, as some UK restaurants have done with avocados. The issue isn’t eating avocados, it’s our obsession with it. Neither quinoa nor avocados need to be consumed daily as a meat replacement — meat itself doesn’t need to be consumed daily! And if you’re not eating it to replace meat, is an avo every day really going to keep the doctor away?
When the food tech company I used to work for assessed everyone’s ordering behavior, it emerged that I was eating 5–6kg of avos a month! I defended my obsession arguing that it was healthy, especially as I’ve had to give up so many salad ingredients on my food sensitivity journey. Leave me my avo! I love it … On rye for breakfast, in salad for lunch, as a side for dinner and even a cookaround for dessert. My bestie gently pointed out that nobody needed that much “health” and that obsession isn’t love.
Local vs global
The trade-off: Buying local reduces the carbon impact of transportation and supports local producers. Seems like a no-brainer. But when local demand for produce ratchets up and can’t be sustainably met, something’s got to give: go global vs intensive, damaging local farming.
The seasonal aspect of sustainability is difficult for me. I love avocados and as such, of course, I want them all year round. When they’re sitting there, staring at me longingly from the fresh produce aisle, it’s hard to reject their juicy advances, despite their foreign heritage. Pre-Brexit, I could argue that choosing Spanish over South American was still keeping it local. But politics and economics aside, local vs global isn’t the point. Spanish farmers are under pressure to feed sustainably-minded European and UK consumers all year round and resort to damaging farming practices.
“We always defend that products should be local, but not at any cost.” Javier Egea, Ecologists in Action
In the UK there is much debate about imported meat vs British farmed. The sustainability comparisons unfairly penalize small, sustainable farms along with the high environmental impact mass-producing behemoths. But aside from that, to me that debate again misses the point.
Animal products are as seasonal as fruit and veg
When I eventually managed to move on from the unseasonal fruit and veg temptations, it hadn’t even occurred to me to consider the seasonality of anything on offer in the meat section that followed. But when you do stop to think, it’s quite obvious.
There are times in the year that animals breed, which means that having fresh meat available throughout the year requires either unnatural breeding methods or importation. To make matters worse, the bulk of production doesn’t always coincide with big demand times, such as Easter. And then there are shoppers tastes to cater to — the cuts of meat locals want more of. It’s obvious that our consumption demands are the problem driving the “need” to import in these damaging cycles.
Eat less. Eat seasonally. Eat sustainably.
Did you know that sustainable farming can have a positive impact? Pasture-based farming can be an extremely efficient and appropriate way to provide high-quality protein and nutrients. And with support and the income to continuously improve science and tech-based farming methods, Sustainable Food Trust says, “farmers will be able to prove what is already known anecdotally — that grasslands can operate as a carbon sink and farming operations can be a net carbon gain.”
Either/or vs. neither/nor
Leather supports cattle farming, an industry known to cause environmental destruction and animal suffering. Mass-produced vegan fabrics such as cotton, polyester and nylon are known to cause environmental destruction and human injury or illness.
When I started looking under the hood, I was overwhelmed. Going beyond the simple trade-offs like meat vs. vegan made me feel like running screaming as I encountered sustainability and moral landmines on both sides of the fence.
My efforts to avoid all landmines when choosing a tote bag ended up in a frustrating and painful situation involving my sturdy-looking laptop bag made of paper breaking on day 1 of my first remote working adventure in Turkey. Fine. Perhaps my heap of remote working paraphernalia wasn’t what the bag was intended for. But bestie’s efforts didn’t get much further.
After a hair-raising search for a sustainable razor that wouldn’t have her slicing herself, she bought one advertised as “eco” and “vegan.” Discussing what to do with the used blades with a client service consultant, she was informed that, unfortunately, they could not be recycled, “but not to worry, the razor is completely vegan.” I kid you not. Digest that for a moment while contemplating the (equally vegan) plastic one sitting in your shower at the moment.
Veganism has become mainstream. And for mainstream read fashionable, oversimplified and profitable. At what cost? Conscious vegans are putting in the effort to look under the hood before they eat or buy. But the intense complexity and impracticality of being consciously sustainable is a barrier that most consumers gloss over by simply buying or ordering whatever is labeled “vegan.” Ka Ching. A little 5-letter label is all self-serving, opportunistic capitalists need.
The bottom line is that the neither/nor approach of painting whole industries with good or bad brushes doesn’t work for me. The trend I’ve loved most of late has been the growing shift to artisanal everything. Previously considered snooty and pretentious, it’s pleasing that the market for homemade, small producers and independents are growing. Airbnb and Uber may no longer be in those camps, but they have paved the way for us. Perhaps as we shift to more humanity in consumer markets, we can also shift to more mindfulness.
