Being a picky eater helped reveal just how delicate our food system really is.
It can feel like progress isn’t happening fast enough but take it from a longtime “picky eater” — we’ve come farther than you may think. It turns out the long, slow, and subtle shifts in our food system signal a whole lot of progress, even if it isn’t always so visible.
There’s a saying I’ve long loved. It’s attributed to the writer C.S. Lewis, but its origins aren’t totally clear. It goes something like this: day by day, nothing changes, but when we look back, everything is different. That could easily be said about a lot — most certainly, our food system. From staggering food waste to the emissions of meat and dairy, the clearcutting for animal feed and palm oil, and the rise of ultra-processed foods over nutrient-rich staples, the way we eat today bears little resemblance to how our ancestors ate — and likely nothing like what our grandchildren will eat, either.
‘Picky eater’
Back when the Impossible Burger was a concept that seemed impossible, I stopped eating meat. I didn’t have a great aha moment that turned me off from animal products. There was no PETA video or fur protest, no animal being slaughtered in front of me to seal the deal. For as long as I can remember, I was a “picky eater” — a label I deserved — but only when it came to the foods most people loved. It would be years, two decades, really, before I made the connection — before I realized that I wasn’t picky at all when it came to foods most kids my age hated: vegetables. While my siblings and friends preferred meat, cheese, milk, butter, and eggs, I cringed at the sight, smell, and, certainly, the taste. What kid doesn’t love chocolate milk? Or ice cream?
I recall revelatory moments, like the first time I ate an heirloom tomato. I couldn’t have been more than five years old. But the experience stuck with me; it was as if my tastebuds came alive for the very first time. I felt this way about other fresh fruits and vegetables, too. I remember my impatience as I waited for the corn and beans in our garden to grow so I could eat them until my belly hurt. Those first summer peaches were a fixation. My first artichoke was as near a religious experience as I’ve ever had — peeling those thistled leaves one at a time and scraping their earthy goodness with my young teeth was a meditation. This was food, I was sure. And I was hooked.
In my early teens, I toyed with vegetarianism as long as my parents would allow it; I wouldn’t hear the word “vegan” for several more years. By then, I’d learned to eat better in a world filled with foods I couldn’t stand but an easy day of vegan meals was nearly as impossible a task as finding a “bleeding” veggie burger. Peanut butter still holds a special place in my heart after sustaining me for all those years. But without the wide availability of options we have today and parents too busy to experiment on my behalf, I was forced back to eating food that gave me the ickiest feeling every time I took a bite.
Despite not knowing there was a word for what I was feeling (the controversial “vegan” label), my conscience gnawed at me. Eating animals was unethical; it was something that just felt entirely true to me. It was undeniable. It still is.
When I was 21, I spent six weeks backpacking through Australia with my boyfriend. We cooked a lot from our small camp stove — freeze-dried soup, and the like. But when we were in the cities between parks for a night or two, typically the Tasmanian capital Hobart, we’d find a restaurant. On one of those occasions, we found a small hole-in-the-wall restaurant focused on fresh, local ingredients. It was farm-to-table before that was a thing. It blew my mind — a refreshing break from the fried fish and chips at every other place. I remember my first taste of a bright, green pesto, and salads with leaves I’d never seen before. We went back several more times when laying over in the city, and I ate with that same feeling I had as a child first exposed to fresh, garden-grown bounties. Real food scratched an itch I didn’t even know I had. Another stop on that pivotal tour of the Outback was found at a bed and breakfast with the most delightful yet simple vegetable soup. I had never tasted something so fresh and so satisfying.
These delicious meals came to mind at another stop on that holiday as I was eating a slice of pizza. Suddenly I found myself incapable of taking another bite. I’d always struggled to like cheese, but like most anyone, I enjoyed pizza. Not that day though. It was a reckoning. I could never go back to the way things had been — and I’ve never looked back.
Years later on a trip to Paris, I’d have another experience with an unassuming little strawberry from a local farmers market. It’s possible food just tastes better while traveling, I told myself — especially in Paris. But I think there’s something more to it. In Australia, perhaps it was that those good meals just weren’t deep-fried like so many of the other options. But also, at 21, I hadn’t eaten outside of my little Rust Belt town. And by the time I made it to France, I was years into a healthy plant-based diet. What I tasted there was an organic berry very different from our American berries. (Farming methods are as critical to our food experiences as they are to the health of our soil. It’s something we don’t talk about here nearly enough.)
The only problem back then was that it was incredibly difficult to forego animal products at every meal. I grew up in Western Pennsylvania where meat and cheese were staples. Restaurants had yet to embrace vegetables beyond the garnish. I sustained myself on coffee, French fries, and iceberg lettuce salads, for as long as possible, which was not very long at all. It was quite literally a choice between eating animals or starving most days — an unpleasant mix, filling the gaps with the ersatz world of junk food. And I can’t help but wonder how many other “picky eaters” are really just food lovers being fed the wrong food.
Finding a new way of eating
Despite it being an uphill battle, my plant preference puts me in good company. Recent research found there may be a genetic link predisposing humans to a plant-based diet. The researchers identified three genes that influence brain function and fat metabolism. More than 30 other genes were also connected to a greater likelihood of adopting a vegan or vegetarian diet. Scores of studies point to the benefits of adopting a plant-forward diet for optimal health, from cancer prevention to longer lifespan.
As I longed for those ripe, juicy summer tomatoes, and the garden vegetables I loved as a child, I knew there was another way. There had to be. And so, I took a job at a local health food store in its small vegetarian café at the back of the store. I had some experience cooking (a story for another time), but now I was going to learn a lot more — and I did.
In that kitchen, we made lentil loaf and tofu burgers, soups, stews, and chilis; I even learned how to work a juicer and drank so much carrot juice it turned my skin orange (word to the wise). There was a vegetable soup reminiscent of the revelation I’d tasted Down Under. I was in my element, steaming kale, scrambling tofu, and sprinkling nutritional yeast on everything for good measure.
The front of the store sold all kinds of healthy foods like beans you couldn’t find at conventional supermarkets and other ingredients like tahini paste, miso, and that yummy nutritional yeast. Back then, if you wanted tofu, you had to fish it out of a big plastic bucket where blocks of the soy curd floated in ice-cold water. I don’t recall where the tofu was made but it had to be within a few hours of the store.
Follow Your Heart’s Vegenaise existed back in those days (and yes, people still mispronounced it then, too— it’s a soft “g”). There were two types of vegan milk: soy and rice. Edensoy was my favorite, but it tasted nothing like the vegan milk we have today. It was made the Japanese way, malty, brown, and delicious when served cold over ice. Rice milk had a bitter aftertaste and was too thin for me. But when the company that made it, Rice Dream, made frozen desserts out of it, we all flocked to the freezer first thing on payday to get the chocolate-covered treats on sticks like children chasing the last ice cream truck of summer.
I remember one chocolate company made a vegan candy bar with green tea and cocoa butter instead of chocolate — sort of like white chocolate. It had crisped rice in it, and I don’t know if it’s me romanticizing the memory or not, but I swear it was the best treat I’d ever tasted.
The other options were typically made from carob, and I’m still a fan today, even though we now also have delicious vegan chocolate bars from Hershey’s, Cadbury, and Nestlé, or truffles and treats that rival the “real” stuff. If someone had told me back then that in just a few decades the best chocolates in the world would be completely dairy-free and delivered right to my door, I’d have thought they’d lost their mind.
Back then we had vegan cheese options (if you can call whatever those things were then cheese). They were waxy, oily slices and wedges, or weirder yet, dairy-free cheese that also had dairy-based casein in it to help it melt. I’m not sure I’ll ever figure that one out, but several brands did it. One thing I did know for sure was that I didn’t like any of it. I came to good terms with being cheeseless. Nutritional yeast can do some pretty heavy lifting and is still my preferred mac and cheese sauce (use a bit of the warm pasta water, paprika, a dash of dijon or olive oil, and as much nutritional yeast as you want — the more the better — and enjoy).
We had some vegan meat options then, too. Boca Burgers were all the rage; they sizzled and smelled like fast food burgers as we cooked them on the café grill. They were too realistic for me then, but by today’s standards, they’d never rival Beyond or Impossible Burgers. Today if I want something “meaty” I usually opt for seitan, just as I did back then.
The future of food
Lately, I’ve been thinking about those early options. I enjoy the modern vegan versions of all of them, particularly oat milk in my coffee and the occasional Buffalo chicken sandwich — although my chicken of choice is made from mushrooms. There were many experiences that shaped how I eat today, which are mostly whole foods-based and macrobiotic with a very Mediterranean influence. Give me fresh salads, veggies, beans, olives, and nuts over vegan nuggets any day.
Even though I have no interest in trying them myself, I love watching many of my contemporaries run to their local McDonald’s, Burger King, Taco Bell, or KFC to try the new vegan options after decades of waiting. I remember the thrill my veggie friends and I would get going to McDonald’s and ordering the burger minus the patty — it makes me laugh just thinking about that soggy bun filled with pickles as something satisfying. What I would have given back then for just a bite of a McPlant.
But here we are, watching the slow hands of time as progress is indeed being made. There are fast food burgers, Ikea sells vegan hot dogs for less than $1; there are vegan pizza options at major chains, and so many sweets, treats, and dairy-free drinks at coffee shops, that it’s now impossible to try them all. That’s not even including all of the progress being made in the cultivated meat sector, the precision fermentation, the biomass fermentation, and the techniques we still haven’t developed yet that are sure to gobsmack us with human ingenuity.
Twenty years from now, will I be nostalgic for Beyond Burgers like I am thinking about old buckets of tofu? What comes next in our race to clean up our food system? Because that’s what this is about, right? Fixing our food system so we can all live long enough to eat more food?
Early food system innovations aren’t all that old — Tang, Spam, Kool-Aid and all the rest of it — were positioned as conveniences for the busy homemaker in the 1950s. Before that, most everything was made from scratch. These innovations promised freedom for housewives. But more than anything, they were profit-driven new revenue streams for the corporations who fed us (and covered the planet in plastic). And that’s not to say profits don’t belong in our food system, they do, certainly. But these days, corporations have some problems to fix that go beyond just freeing up a few hours for tired housewives.
That’s what scientists are telling us. Curbing meat and dairy consumption is critical for our health and the health of the planet. And the best is yet to come. It doesn’t feel inaccurate to suggest that factory farming and ultra-processed foods will soon be relics like the technologies of yesteryear. It’s a complicated task to change a system built to feed billions of people every day, but like with anything, we’ll find a way — we already have. Like that Lewis quote clarifies, everything always ends up a bit different than we remember it.
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