There are many different reasons why people go vegan or aim towards a plant based diet. Getting healthier and becoming more compassionate to our fellow living beings and planet are in my opinion the biggest ones.
However, there is a grey area when it comes to so called vegan food. Even though the following foods don’t include any animal products per se, the negative impact they have on our planet and animals automatically makes them non-vegan. As always, click on the mjau coloured links to get more information. #knowledgeispower honey bees!
Almonds
Yes im sorry about your almond milk latte. (click here for a sustainable plant milk guide) Here are the problems I have with almonds and why I don’t consider them vegan: First of all, it takes 3 liter to grow one almond. Thats insane! Most almonds are being grown in drought-stricken California, making this an equation that simply does not make sense.
Further more, almond orchards are one of many plants that cannot function without bee pollination. The problem is that unless organic (which is a low overall %) the orchards are sprayed heavily with pesticides that are killing bees. Beekeepers are now losing 30% of their bees every year. They die indirectly or directly from the pollination that’s happening in these poisonous fields. And of course, since bees are a keystone spices (actually they are more than that, they are the most important pieces on earth) this impact can be felt all across the board with rodents, birds, butterflies and reptiles becoming poisoned and succumbing.
Palm Oil
If you been following my work for a while, you cannot be surprised that this destructive oil popped up here. Palm oil, widely used in 70% of products on the American market, is straight up a mass murderer. We are losing entire eco-systems that literally are going up in flames to make space to grow the palms that supply the fruit from which the oil is extracted. Add child and slave labour to the mix, and it becomes very apparent why you should stay far away from this ingredient. Here is a guide on how to easy spot palm oil when shopping, because manufactures like to hide it under sneaky name to get away with using this versatile and cheap (but to what cost?) oil.
If you need to put a face on the destruction, think shot, burned and poisoned tigers, elephants, orangutangs and countless other animals dead and gone forever. Its estimated that about a football pitch worth of rainforest is cut or burned down each minute, around the clock.
Corn, Soy, Wheat & Sugar
Ah yes, im going there. These three ingredients are used in almost all food out there. They are not inherently bad. However, they are the most common GMOs out there. GMOS are toxic to our health, the health of the soil and any poor animals that drink the nectar or in other ways pollinate and eat the crop. (here’s a guide on how to avoid them with ease)
Other than using heavy chemicals (I mean, you need to wear a full hazard suit to walk in the field for Christs sake) they are also most often being farmed in a unsustainable way that is called mono cropping.
Mono cropping is the agricultural practice of growing a single crop year after year on the same land, in the absence of rotation through other crops or growing multiple crops on the same land (polyculture).
This is a very common yet highly unsustainable practice because growing a single crop stripps the soil of nutrients and weakenes it, making it unable to support healthy plant growth naturally. This means that the farmer starts to use chemical fertilizers to encourage plant growth and fruit production.
More often than not, the fields are barren during the winter, leading to erosion. This in combination with tilling (the big plows you see in spring and fall time) releases a HUGE amount of stored carbon into the air, speeding along the already problematic situation of climate change and global warming.
You want to know more about how your fave foods are impacting our planet? Read this post of mine and then go check this link out for more information!