As we’ve just launched the Diet Change Not Climate Change pledge, I attended the opening day of the UN Food Systems Pre-Summit – which was a slightly surreal experience. While nearly all of the speakers agreed that our global food system is broken, there were very few mentions of the actual ways in which the system is broken and almost no mention of the most significant thing we can do to fix it – transition away from the farming and eating of animals.
While advances in agriculture, food technology and supply-chain management have meant that middle-class consumers can have fresh fruit all year long, eat a steady supply of ready meals, and cook with ingredients sourced from around the world, the food system is hugely damaging to planetary and human health. From rampant deforestation, soil destruction, biodiversity loss, and climate change to the obesity and diabetes epidemics, along with the brutally sobering fact that every five seconds a child dies from malnutrition, it is clear that the food system is unsustainable and has failed to deliver on its promises.