Many different concerns, from convenience to culture, go into
personal dietary choices. But our individual food choices can
have a huge effect on the world around us: Diet, more than ever,
is both a personal and a public issue. Only we know the way food
affects our personal well-being, but cruelty to animals, global
warming, and polluted rivers are everyone’s concern. At Farm
Forward, we aim to provide thoughtful, evolving recommendations
on what food choices minimize animal suffering and increase
sustainability. And we do our best to keep those recommendations
simple. To reduce it to one sentence: Eat conscientiously—as few
animals as possible, ideally none. Why do we say that? Livestock
cover nearly one-third of the land on this planet,1 and
industrial fishing has reached such intensity that we can
actually measure a drop in the health and diversity of ocean
life as a whole. Animal agriculture, literally, shapes the
globe. And each one of us is a farmer “by proxy,”2 helping to
shape the world we live in thr