Category Archives: Veganism

I first encountered Joanne Molinaro on TikTok, where her voice cut through the cacophony of Doja Cat and Yung Skrrt samples, serenely sharing improbably intimate narratives in 60 seconds or less. Her account, @TheKoreanVegan, an extension of her four-year-old blog of the same name, has an immediately recognizable style. Food prep videosfrying vegetables for japchae, chopping onions for kimchi jjigaeare accompanied by Molinaros unhurried voiceover sharing, for example, an account of being body-shamed, or the misguided frustration her teenage self once felt about her dads heavy accent. Ive been in the TikTok community for less than two months, and I feel like these people already understand me in a way that would normally take years to convey, says the 41-year-old. I think in part thats due to the algorithm, which brings together people who are like-minded in this community where they feel a little bit vulnerable and bare themselves, and know theyre going to be okay.

A lawyer by day, long-distance runner by morning, and author-slash-blogger by night (her first, yet-to-be-titled cookbook is set for release by Avery in autumn 2021), Molinaro has a characteristic efficiency that made her a natural on the short-form video platform, where her followers currently exceed 818,000. Its amazing to know that Im reaching people, and there are so many who relate to me because theyre the child of immigrants, or they had trouble with eating, or they had a fraught relationship with their parents, she says. And while Molinaro admits that it can be unnerving to be ultra-earnest online, You dont get anything in return unless you put something out there. I called Molinaro in Chicago to talk about childhood memories, using social media to build cross-cultural understanding, and how veganism helped her connect to her heritage like never before.

Can you share some of your favorite memories around food growing up?

I grew up with my grandmothers, both of them. In Korean culture thats very typical. My grandmother on my mothers side was a farmer before she came to the United States. When she came to our first home in Skokie, Illinois, and saw our backyard, it was like, We have to plant as many veggies as we can! Every summer youd see these humongous squash, perilla leaves just growing like crazy. Some of my favorite memories are my grandmothers telling me, Joanne, youve got to pick some chiles and bring them into the house, or picking the fattest, reddest tomatoes, or a bushel of perilla leaves. And then wed sit together in the living roommy mom, my grandmas, and my aunts if they were aroundtrimming the leaves or cleaning the peppers or just preparing the food together. Wed have the Korean newspapers all laid out so we wouldnt make a mess. Theres nothing more safe than being at home with the women who love you, prepping food that you grew in your backyard.

Did you have any initial reservations about going vegan?

When I went vegan, I was afraid that I would lose a connection to my family, to my culture, to my identity. That was a real anxiety, because quite frankly, when I did a friggin google search for it, there were very few Korean vegans out there! And so I was like, Can this even be done? And I think the reason I created The Korean Vegan was to prove to myself that, no, no, no, this is not going to irreparably change your relationship to your family, your culture, and your identity.

And how did it ultimately affect those relationships?

Ironically, of course, going vegan has strengthened my relationship with my family and cultural identity to the nth degree. Because I had to actually work for it, I had to ask my mom, dad, and my aunts questions, like What is doenjang? to make sure its vegan! And what happens is, theyre not only sharing factual informationOh, Joanne, doenjang is actually fermented soybean paste, this is the way its made, its usually stored in big jars, but also theyll tell me, I remember when your grandmother made doenjang jjigae, she always added potatoes because you loved potatoes so much. These are the types of stories that surface when you start asking questions about things that you have taken for granted your whole life.

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'The Korean Vegan' Makes Cooking TikToks That Get Real, Quick - Bon Appetit

The global plant-based meal market is expected to rise with an impressive CAGR and generate the highest revenue by 2026.Fortune Business Insights in its latest report published this information. The report is titled Plant-based Meal Market Size, Share & Industry Analysis, By Product Type (Plant-based Dairy, Plant-based Meat, Plant-based Milk, Others), By Distribution Channel (Offline, Online) Others and Regional Forecast, 2019-2026. The report discusses research objectives, research scope, methodology, timeline and challenges during the entire forecast period. It also offers an exclusive insight into various details such as revenues, market share, strategies, growth rate, product & their pricing by region/country for all major companies.

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The globalplant-based meal marketsize is set to experience a period of dynamic growth as a result of growing preference for veganism around the world, as per the Fortune Business Insights report, titled Plant-based Meal Market Size, Share and Industry Analysis, By Product Type (Plant-based Dairy, Plant-based Meat, Plant-based Milk, Others), By Distribution Channel (Offline, Online) Others and Regional Forecast, 2019-2026. Veganism entails absolute renunciation of animal-based foods and beverages and strict consumption of naturally-derived food and beverage products. This way of life is being increasingly adopted around the world as people have become more aware of animal cruelty involved in meat production as well as the environmental benefits of veganism. According to data published by the Vegan Society, only 40% of the global population will consume meat by 2040, while the rest will prefer lab-created meat and vegan meat products. Furthermore, researchers at the University of Oxford found that a global shift towards plant-based diet can help avoid climate change-induced damages worth USD 1.5 trillion and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 67%. Thus, rising tide of veganism will augur well for the market in the foreseeable future.

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Plant-based Meal Market Size, Share, Growth, Trends, Demand, Global Analysis and Forecast till 2026 - Aerospace Journal

Article courtesy of Dr. Joel Kahn, MD, who is a Clinical Professor of Medicine at Wayne State University School of Medicine, one of the world's top cardiologists, best selling author, lecturer, and a leading expert in plant-based nutrition and holistic care.

A number of people have identified veganism as one of the biggest trends of 2018; the reality is that the number of persons identifying their diet as plant-based or vegan is growing larger and larger. Perhaps threatened by a shift toward plant diets for health, compassion, or environmental concerns, health personalities that question the benefits of a vegan diet are easily found, and their concerns, at times legitimate, need to be addressed. So what are some of the biggest mythsboth good and badabout veganism?

Many large studies of nutrition have indicated lower rates of chronic diseases for study subjects following a vegan diet compared with an omnivorous diet. Vegans can get cancer, heart disease, diabetes, dementia, and other serious disorders. I see patients eating a vegan diet, usually for only a few months or years, that have important heart disease, and most vegans ate an animal-based diet for many years before they adopted their new plan. New vegans and those motivated by ethics may choose a lot of processed foods high in oils, trans fats, sugars, and added salt. Vegans need cancer screening like colonoscopy just like everyone else, comprehensive lab studies, and imaging for silent heart disease to ensure optimal health.

Recently the health outcomes over 25 years were compared from a large database from the Harvard School of Public Health in subjects eating a healthy (whole grains, fruits and vegetables, nuts, legumes, teas, coffee, and vegetable oils) versus an unhealthy (juices, sweetened beverages, grains, sweets, fried potatoes) plant-based diet. It is not certain how many of the participants were following a fully vegan diet. During the study, 8,631 subjects developed coronary heart disease (CHD). Adhering to a plant-based diet lowered the risk of CHD by about 8 percent overall, but this relationship was much stronger for those following the healthy pattern. Those respondents enjoyed a powerful 25 percent reduction in their risk of coronary heart disease while those eating the unhealthy plant foods actually increased their risk by as much as 30 percent! The bottom line is that a healthy vegan diet is a whole-food plant-based diet (WFPB) and not a junk food diet.

2. A vegan diet is all that is needed for health.

In the 1970s athlete and author Jim Fixx made the mistake of believing exercise protected him from all ailments and ate a diet promoting heart disease. Unfortunately, he tragically died at age 52 of a heart attack despite all of his hours spent running. While a vegan diet can be a very healthy choice, it is just one part of an overall plan for optimal health. Pioneering studies by Dean Ornish, M.D., called the Lifestyle Heart Trial, combined a plant-based diet with exercise, stress reduction, yoga, social support and love, and cessation of smoking to reverse advanced heart disease. I advise vegans to incorporate these other healthy practices into their life as well. Sleeping seven to eight hours a night reduces the risk of heart disease substantially compared with those sleeping less than five hours. About 20 percent of the American public still smokes, and some are vegans who must quit. A strategy to manage stress, whether it is a breathing practice, yoga, religion, music, or social support is a key to health for all. Loneliness is a drag on health, which is one of the reasons I co-founded in Detroit a large and active vegan health support group.

3.A vegan diet provides all nutrients from plants.

Surely a rainbow-colored WFPB diet provides all nutrients for optimal health? In fact, in my preventive cardiology clinic, I measure blood and skin levels of many critical nutrients, and both omnivores and vegans are frequently low. Vegans in particular are often low in B12, vitamin D, omega-3, iodine, vitamin K2, and taurine (as are most omnivores). Obtaining the maximal health benefit from a vegan diet requires attention to these nutrients. There are vegan multivitamins that provide the proper amounts of these nutrients. At a minimum, all vegans should take vitamin B12. If whole food sources are desired, omega-3 can be addressed by 2 tablespoons of ground flaxseed daily with greens, walnuts, and chia seeds. Kelp and nori can supply iodine. Mushrooms and plant milks can be rich in vitamin D. Adequate iron can be an issue for vegans, but spinach, tofu, beans, lentils, and sunflower seeds are quite good sources.

I have eaten a vegan diet for 40 years but have selected WFPB choices for almost all of those 40,000-plus meals. I also serve a WFPB version of vegan dishes at my family restaurant. I would strongly endorse a WFPB vegan diet for health enhancement to all readers, from those that are prenatal or pregnant to those feeding children and to baby boomers and the elderly, in keeping with the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. The healthiest vegan, however, will be the one who understands the myths that surround a vegan diet and avoids the pitfalls.

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These Are The Biggest Myths & Truths About Veganism - Anti Aging News

Not many changes to American food consumption patterns have been as prevalent and consistent as the rise of veganism over the past few decades. Once considered to be a fringe diet only followed by animal rights activists and health enthusiasts, the number of vegans in the United States has increased from 290,000 to 9.7 million over the last 15 years, and Google Trends data reports that interest in veganism in 2019 was 10 times what it was in 2004. Even more notable is the increase in demand for plant-based products among non-vegan consumers. 39% of American consumers in 2017 were reported as trying to incorporate more plant-based foods into their diet, and just this September, the factory farming magnate McDonalds introduced their first-ever Beyond Meat burger.

Veganism fills a growing desire in the West to eat more sustainably and ethically. As an alternative diet that seemingly rejects the industrialized processing commonly associated with the livestock industrys factory farms, it often comes across as a panacea for all agricultural industry issues. However, veganism alone is not the best dietary solution to the unsustainable and unethical practices of industrial food, since it exists within the food industrys colonialist framework, and its absolutist dietary ideology oppresses cultural interpretation outside of its Eurocentric guidelines. Furthermore, if they lack proper focus on the local context, vegan diets can still have perverse effects on sustainability. In its narrow emphasis on food products over food production, without a further prioritization of local agriculture, veganism is an incomplete solution to the ethical and environmental problems it seeks to remedy.

The Complexities Veganism Doesnt Capture

Veganism is a diet with one rule cutting out the consumption of animal products. The simplicity has drawn in various non-vegans, who have started looking for more plant-based options, [whether they are] looking for something healthier, something more sustainable the demand is growing, explained marketing researcher and assistant professor of marketing at Williamson College of Business Dr. Emre Ulusory in an interview with the HPR. This can also create problems, however, by ignoring some of the fundamental complexities of sustainable and ethical dieting.

Sustainable food systems need to consider the method of production in addition to the products themselves. Generally, animal products are less sustainable than plant-based. An oft-cited 2018 analysis of the global food industry showed that for many individuals, eliminating the consumption of animal products from their diet was the most significant action they could make to reduce their impact on the environment. Still, vegan foods environmental impact varies greatly depending on the local context of both consumers and producers.

Culture is one such local context we must consider. Classifying veganism as an ethically superior diet can have harmful impacts on marginalized communities. Universalist classifications of animal food products as morally reprehensible stigmatize some cultures traditional consumption practices, highlighting how avoiding absolutism in veganism is important. Such stigma is seen in Northern Canada, where some Indigenous groups have been attacked for their traditional seal hunting practices. When viewed in the context of centuries-long oppression, it becomes clear that imposing Westernized values and dietary practices in this manner is a form of colonialistic cultural suppression.

Veganisms absolutism is also harmful in the pursuit of environmental sustainability. Environmental sustainability depends on where the production takes place and what the critical environmental issues are in that region, Dr. Hanna Tuomisto, professor of sustainable food systems, told the HPR. Tuomisto discussed how in Finland, many lakes are kept healthy by fishing practices which prevent overcrowding, making the consumption of that fish environmentally sustainable for the region. Similarly, in some Arctic communities, most plants cannot sustainably grow and must be transported over long distances for consumption, making nutritionally efficient foods like seal meat more sustainable. These cases do not comply with the global trend, showing that considering sustainable food systems at a focused local level will reveal many complexities that a dietary focus alone will not capture.

This local analytical focus has the potential to reveal innovations that can make animal products, and the entire food industry, more sustainable. Tuomisto spoke about the rise of mixed farming systems that, by combining livestock and crop production, reduce many environmental damages present in other more intensive forms of production. By using, say, the manure from the livestock directly on the crops, these farms eliminate the carbon emissions of resource transportation. Efficient solutions like mixed farming systems emerge from focusing on the production of food and not the products themselves.

Focusing on production over products is furthermore essential to truly eat ethically. The world agricultural system is extremely exploitative, and this fact does not change between plant-based and omnivorous diets. Today in the United States, it is estimated that 75% of farmworkers are undocumented, opening the door for rampant mistreatment and underpayment by employers due to the threat of deportation. On average, farmworkers are paid just under $14 per hour for intense physical labor, and wage theft, sexual harassment, and chronic exposure to toxic chemicals are all too common. Globally, approximately 3.5 million agricultural workers are enslaved people about 530,000 of them in developed economies. The issue of worker exploitation is present in essentially all major food companies, with few making significant progress in combating the use of forced labor in producing their product. Ethical eating must include justice for these workers behind the staples of a vegan diet.

Big Foods Looming Presence

Despite the complexities of sustainable and ethical eating that veganism does not capture, it is empirically clear that the livestock industry is responsible for a great deal of both environmental degradation and worker abuse. According to advocacy groups like Uprooted and Rising, the titans of the food industry, also known as Big Food, are to blame for these issues. These issues are fueled by a handful of corporations, with the assistance of complacent governments, turning a blind eye to worker exploitation, neglecting environmental impact, and cutting corners on quality to push out more processed and profitable products.

The industrial food system is both the product of White supremacy and colonialism, and helps to maintain them from the colonialism which determined the ownership of farming land and the agricultural system of today to the systemic exploitation of workers of color ingrained in North American food systems. This connection is also apparent in the barriers the U.S. Department of Agriculture has placed and continues to place against Black farm ownership, as well as the disproportionate impact poor-quality food has on the health of marginalized communities. Big Food frequently partakes in exploitative practices and commoditizes food to the point where local and personal connections are all but insignificant, making it easy for environmental and ethical transgressions to go unchecked.

For Uprooted and Rising, a holistic approach centering food sovereignty and justice for both the exploited earth and the exploited people who produce our food is the solution. Food sovereignty advocates for peoples right to define their own food and agriculture systems, by placing local economies and the needs of those who produce and consume food at the heart of the food system. In the current system, corporations like Coca-Cola and Unilever hold a concentration of power [in which] small and midsize producers really dont stand a chance. The solution to a systemic issue like this is not only uncaptured by simple solutions like veganism, it is sometimes threatened by them.

According to Uprooted and Rising representative Tina White, veganism is not holistic enough to actually get to the roots of the problem. A focus on vilifying one type of food is not only an incomplete solution; it is a misdirection of blame. Many Indigenous practices exist outside of the extractive Western food system and are fully sustainable while including meat consumption. Food sovereignty advocates have fought to protect these and other traditional practices, as not only are they fundamentally incongruous to the livestock industry, but they too exist in opposition to the larger food industry as sustainable, locally sourced, and culturally significant forms of nourishment. Food [is] at the nexus of so many things, just like land and water, said White. It is cultural, traditional, and individual. A broad-brush ideology such as veganism remains ignorant of this, in the same manner that colonialism does.

In fact, many vegan dietary practices are a part of the Big Food system. Popular plant-based alternatives to animal products like the Beyond or Impossible Burgers are still overly processed. Though they do not carry the environmental consequences of meat, specifically, they remain problematic in their contributions to deforestation, habit destruction, and carbon emissions during transportation and processing. Furthermore, many Big Food companies have begun to capitalize on consumer concerns with sustainability by introducing plant-based products and greenwashing themselves as environmentally conscious. Companies like Tyson Foods and Nestle both rank extremely low on workers rights and are major polluters. Tyson Foods pollutes Americas waterways more than ExxonMobil, and Nestle is the worlds third largest plastic polluter. Nonetheless, they have been quick to release green products and vague environmental plans for the planet. Veggie burgers are not a solution to Big Foods problems; they are a distraction.

Moving Towards Real Food

Big Foods complicity in unsustainable and unethical food systems is why Uprooted and Rising, in a world bursting with dietary advice, declines to prescribe a one-size-fits-all dietary solution. White stated that the optimal dietary choices for an individual are dictated by where youre located and dictated by how much money you make. Rather than claim an absolutist diet like veganism to be the solution, Uprooted and Rising holds what they call real food as the gold standard.

Real food is produced sustainably and ethically; it is fair trade, respectful of food sovereignty, and locally based. Most of the livestock industry in the West does not fall under this standard. But real food also does not include plant-based foods grown with labor violations. As White told the HPR, We want to focus on actually how the food is produced. [Are] those farm workers unionized? Are they actually community-based? Are they a public corporation that isnt held accountable? Are they using harmful production practices? These are all central concerns in determining real sustainable and ethical food. White explained that though agribusiness produces food extracted from the earth, it also extracts labor, especially from Black and Brown bodies, and that this consideration is just as important as the former. We have to recognize that its a specific way of producing food that has cost; its not eating meat itself.

It is clear that industrial foods exploitative system is the source of unsustainable eating practices. However, a diet full of real food is an unrealistic expectation for many. Tuomisto stated that while the current consumption levels of animal proteins in developed countries are not sustainable, its quite difficult to get consumers to completely switch to a plant-based diet its not a simple solution. Uprooted and Rising takes dietary advice a step further; they said that regardless, individual purchasing is not enough to combat this type of food system and to address the root problems in it. Instead, advocacy for transparency, systemic changes, and alternate purchasing by large consumers of food like universities are the changes with the greatest potential impact.

Despite the immense problems in the food industry, vegans like Ulusoy are optimistic. He claimed that tackling the livestock industry, an undeniable contributor to the Big Food system, is just a starting point, the most pragmatic solution that exists for us to actually exercise. For individuals with less access to a higher standard of local and fair trade food, and for most individuals unable to contribute to the transformation of the industrial food system as a whole, adopting a plant-based diet is a worthwhile change. Going vegan is, in many cases, an effective treatment to the disease of exploitative food systems. But for the sake of food sovereignty, workers rights, and hope of a longer-term transformation, it is important to understand: It is not the cure.

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Vegan Shouldn't Be The Last Word in Sustainability - Harvard Political Review

How ingredient technology can spark consumer loyalty and keep plant-based products on supermarket shelves

Its something of a paradox that one of the regions with the highest meat consumption in the world also ranks among the global top three for veganism. According to the Vegan Society, only the UK has more vegans than Australia and New Zealand.

In Australia, a plant-based diet is now the preferred choice of some 2.5 million consumers just over 12% of the population. That includes vegans, vegetarians and the growing number of flexitarians, who still eat meat and dairy products occasionally but prioritise plant-based food products for health and sustainability reasons.

Many food companies have already tapped into this opportunity. This much is clear from Euromonitor statistics which show the market for plant-based milk alternatives grew 5% year-on-year from 2015 to 2019. Within plant-based alternatives to meat, compound annual growth was 11 per cent in the same period.

The question is: what should brand owners do now to maintain a loyal consumer following in the future?

Michelle Lee, regional marketing director at DuPont Nutrition & Biosciences, gives her view on the developing plant-based market.

What we have seen is that many of the plant-based launches do not attract high repeat purchases. This is partly because consumers often buy them out of curiosity alone, and partly because manufacturers are still learning about consumer likes and dislikes within this emerging mainstream category.

Plant-based and meat-like

Within meat alternatives, one persistent challenge is to recreate the taste and texture of real meat with plant raw materials, as consumers continue to expect a meat-like flavour, succulence and bite.

This is where the newest technology within plant proteins and stabiliser systems can help brands capture consumer loyalty. Textured soy proteins, for instance, can simulate the distinctive bite of a traditional burger, chicken breast or beef jerky. They also enable the protein claim that many consumers look out for on packaging.

Beyond dairy alternativesCompared to meat alternatives, the market situation for plant-based beverages and yoghurt-style products is somewhat different. Here, consumers are already moving beyond dairy alternatives towards a category that celebrates the novel tastes and textures plant proteins can provide. As Global Datas 2019 survey of Australian consumers revealed, non-dairy drinks based on soy, oats, nuts and seeds are already widely accepted. Among them, oat-based product launches have the highest growth rate of all.

Oats are a familiar cereal known for their high nutritional quality and mild, nutty flavour with no off-notes. So they satisfy consumers health and taste criteria easily. But, for manufacturers, there are several technical challenges to solve when producing appealing and shelf-stable oat-based products, Lee says.

Resolving oat-based issuesOat-based coffee creamers are one example where the difficulty lies in delivering a delicious milk-like foam without protein separation when the creamer is mixed into hot coffee. Application trials at DuPont have shown that a combination of oat, soluble fibre and carob protein is a possible solution, resulting in a stable UHT beverage with a creamy mouthfeel and light oat flavour.

In yoghurt-style oat snacks, the right selection of starter, protective and probiotic cultures can optimise texture, delay spoilage and contribute to a healthy image. Label-friendly stabiliser blends and plant proteins add extra functionality.

Textural limitations and consumer demand for clean product labels may have restricted plant-based innovation in the past. With todays ingredient technology, however, manufacturers have many opportunities to spark consumer interest and keep it.

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Putting the pizazz in plant-based innovation - FOOD Magazine - Australia

We know that most people are eating more plant-based these days for their health and the planet. These tips fromIsaias Hernandez, an environmental educator, plant-based innovator, and zero-waste activist will help you do both. Hernandez seeks to diversify the field of environmentalism. A graduate of UC Berkeleys environmental science program, he runs @queerbrownvegan, a space that provides accessible environmental education through an intersectional perspective.

Hernandez talks about transitioning to a plant-based lifestyle, and how his background plays an important role in his commitment to becoming zero-waste. He provided us with simple practices on how to live a sustainable lifestyle, slowly reducing waste for a cleaner and greener world. Let his advice motivate you to not only nourish your own body, but also the beautiful environment around you!

IH: I have been a vegan for almost two years now. My interest to live a plant-based lifestyle started in college when I took a class called Agricultural Food Systems and we discussed the horrifying working conditions of factory farms and how it's created a global environmental injustice. For many of us, I knew that this was always happening but my ethics were not aligned at the moment since I still contributed to eating dairy.

Realizing how agricultural industries are products of environmental colonialism and have perpetuated the abuse of humans and animals sparked my transition to veganism. My interests in environmentalism started at a young age when I grew up in the city of Los Angeles, California, most commonly known as the San Fernando Valley area where I lived near toxic facilities, terrible air quality, and noise pollution. Since then, I have looked into ways in how I can promote intersectionality within my environmental education work.

IH: As an environmental educator, I created @QueerBrownVegan in my mission to share information about environmentalism without it coming from an academic institution. I truly believe that environmental education lacks in most K-12 education systems, and my goal is to eventually develop a universal curriculum to be taught to students. As a person of color in the environmental field, I have dealt with many obstacles -- such as experiencing racism while I conducted research in college.

Queer is also an important aspect of my work because there weren't that many Queer POC mentors in my field. Additionally, I often felt that environmentalism mainly saw Queerness as not "normal" but anything that had binary in it, was seen as normal. As a vegan, I truly believe my work is grounded in the liberation and anti-oppression of living beings (both humans and animals). When we realize how extractive industries are interconnected, we are able to approach through intersectional, not single-issue activism.

IH: Growing up Mexican, I learned about my language and how it's embedded in colonial roots, which inspired my work to continually provide support for Indigenous communities. Being vegan and an intersectional environmentalist has allowed me to further understand my positionality in the movement but also provide a sense of representation for the Latinx community to know that we have always cared about the environment, but we just never had the opportunity to speak about it or be spotlighted.

IH: Zero waste in many cultural traditions focuses on circular models where resources are used efficiently. However, now that we have plastics ingrained in our society, those types of traditions have shifted today but are still a part of our cultural memories.My parents grew up in Mexico and immigrated to the United States in the 1980s. We were low-income my whole life and my parents instilled practices of survival that weren't really seen as eco-friendly.

For example, my mother always insisted that using tomatoes in your hair once a month would promote hair growth and vitamins. She was never a big advocate of using plastic shampoo bottles and always looked for plastic-free options, such as using natural ingredients to treat hair. We had to recycle not because we loved it, but because we believed that it provided an additional source of income. When it came to plastic containers, we used the ones we had already used such as the sour cream or butter container to store refried beans or salsa, instead of buying new ones. While these may have not been traditional values, my parents found alternatives to continue living more sustainably without having to generate more waste in our home.

IH: Some tips I generally share with people are to first check-in with your family and get to hear about their cultural traditions or how they had to be resourceful growing up. Most often than not, people practice sustainability in certain aspects of their life but they don't identify it as sustainable. Moreover, you need to understand that we all contribute to forms of plastic consumption whether we like it or not, so do not compromise your mental and physical health thinking about this.

Stick to something you are passionate about in your life, what sectors would you feel more inspired to make a change. We often gravitate to common notions such as going thrifting, reducing waste, or buying sustainable products, but what about investing in your own community? Ask yourself, what can I do to further improve this environment to be sustainable? Is this through building a mini book library, community fridge, or donating to local organizations shelters?

IH: I am most inspired by the fact that I am able to continue learning alongside my community about environmentalism.I always knew I wanted to study environmentalism, but I would have never imagined having had the opportunity to cultivate environmental education defined by my own thoughts, research, and culture. Through my work, I want to continue building accessible environmental education that goes beyond social media and actually is implemented in systems that have often ignored these types of conversations. My work is always evolving and this is just the beginning of my career.

IH: I try to practice zero-waste cooking, where I use all types of my produce through a circular lens without sending it to the compost bin. I usually make my own plant-based milk such as oat milk and incorporate leftover pulp to make oat pancakes or oat cookies. For lunch, I use leftover garbanzo bean liquid (aquafaba) as an egg replacement and I make brownies out of it! I also love making enchiladas on special occasions or whenever I have time.

IH: Most humans don't eat meat 7 times a week, so I encourage people to take small steps to reduce meat intake. For example, I started cutting out red meat before I went vegetarian since I rarely ate it. I slowly reduced my meat consumption each week before fully becoming a vegetarian. I think most often not, people think they have to transition to a plant-based diet perfectly or even uphold strict rules, but I encourage people to counteract that and make mistakes as shaming oneself does not create change. I suggest acknowledging where you can improve and what you want, which drives true compassion and encouragement.

Many of us already eat vegetables and fruits, so all it takes is finding those unique recipes and incorporating more plants to fully adopt a plant-based lifestyle. There are also great vegan meat alternatives to try out there and if you ever undercook vegan meat, you do not have to worry about getting sick like animal meat!

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Simple Tips to Live More Sustainably, From an Environmental Educator - The Beet