By Priscila Camargo Reis, VRG intern from Brazil

Contributor: Odette Olivares, VRG volunteer from Mexico

I am a Brazilian and became a vegetarian 24 years ago (in 1999). At that time, I was the only vegetarian I knew and it took 5 years to meet other vegetarian and vegan people. In my first undergraduate degree (2004-2009), in Biology, we never discussed the link between food and the environment. Another classmate and I were the only ones who talked about this and we used to be criticized and mocked by teachers and colleagues. Some of them, many years later, became vegetarian and recognized we were right.

In my MSc in Environmental Education (2009-2012) food was not included in sustainability issues either. Claudio Tarouco (PhD) and I were the first ones to talk about this, inside that research program.

It is interesting to point out that since the 1960’s decade, Josué de Castro – a brilliant Brazilian researcher who was a physician, a nutritionist, a social scientist, a politician and worldwide recognized – had talked intensively about the urgency of changing our food system, due to sustainability, health, and fighting against hunger. But he was silenced by the Military Dictatorship and only recently I heard about him in college.

Nowadays, vegetarianism (veganism included) has spread out and increased very fast. There are options in many places.

Currently, about 10 years after obtaining my Masters, I am in my second Undergraduate degree, studying Dietetics and Human Nutrition. Now, we have classes exclusively about the topic of sustainable food systems and there are vegetarian diets subjects. Although again, only one other classmate and I are vegetarians/vegans, but there are other vegans and vegetarians in other classes. There are vegetarian teachers as well. But, at least in my class, students and some teachers still seem to be prejudiced about vegans. But in all the 3 Universities I’ve studied (including the current one), despite having no vegan options in the school refectory, there was a non-vegan vegetarian meal option.

In my course, we are taught as dietitian professionals to respect the food choices of every patient. And vegetarianism is not seen as a wrong diet. Even so, there are still students and teachers who turn up their nose at veganism (and treat it as a faddish diet). Also there are other universities engaged in vegetarian diets and sustainable food system research, besides mine.

In Brazil, there is a campaign called “Meatless Monday,” when people are encouraged to not consume meat during the day. It is promoted by the Brazilian Vegetarian Society, and a few public schools, in São Paulo, have joined the program since 2017. And there is a lot of non-academic training on agroforestry systems and organic farming.

Odette Olivares, a Mexican dietitian, who is also a Vegetarian Resource Group volunteer and holds a Masters degree in MSC in Nutrition and Health from the Netherlands, had similar experiences as me. She states that 15 years ago, during her Undergraduate studies, the main idea was that a vegetarian diet was not appropriate, and especially a vegan diet was considered very dangerous to health. There were many myths about such diets as being unhealthy and not sustainable. Vegan diets for children were considered a very irresponsible thing to do as a nutritionist. They considered heme-iron as the best type of iron, ignoring that now a high consumption of heme-iron is also related to cardiometabolic diseases. Meat was considered a very nutritious food and almost essential to have a healthy diet.

Despite an already scientifically proven connection between nutrition and ecological sustainability, it was not discussed in her classes, which had 2 vegetarians maximum.

Nowadays, she asserts, the academic focus has changed and they are concentrated more in sustainability.

Odette concluded her MSc in the Netherlands 3 years ago where there were teachers promoting plant-based diets. Most students knew the benefits of vegetarianism and veganism. The teachers of Environmental Sciences were very aware of the connection between plant-based diets and planetary health. Her friends in Environmental Sciences told her it was very rare to find students who frequently consume meat, and they were judged a bit by others.

In her university, the school cafeteria offered plant-based, flexitarian, vegetarian, and vegan options on daily menus. Nutrition and sustainability, vegetarianism, and vegan diets are highly stressed in most of the school programs.

Now, all the 3 universities she has studied or worked in (both in Mexico and Netherlands) are taking actions to stress the link and the importance of nutrition, sustainability, and planetary health. Currently, she works as a teacher in a Mexican University where there are inside efforts and partnership between outside institutions to advance the topics related to “Optimum Nutrition and Sustainability”. In her classes, she teaches how having a vegetarian or a vegan diet is totally possible, healthy, and urgent.

However, Odette has been facing resistance from students about the benefits of vegetarian and vegan diets. She observes that these barriers are derived from the association between eating disorders and restrictive diets. As some nutrition students have experienced those diseases, they associate vegetarian and vegan diets with their personal issues.

We both agree that the discussions and perceptions regarding veganism, vegetarianism, plant based diets and their links between Earth health and better human health tremendously increased in the last two decades and people, professionals, teachers, and students are more concerned about that.

Nonetheless, in our personal experiences, it seems climate change is perceived as a real threat in Europe, in contrast to what we see in our countries of Mexico and Brazil. I lived in the Uk for a couple months and even though I saw climate deniers there, I also saw people in small towns reuniting in climate hubs and organized groups in London protesting many times for climate policies and supporting vegetarianism as one of the steps of sustainability. But as far as I know (and I may be wrong) I don’t see this happening in Brazil. However, there are vegetarian activists and researchers in Brazil claiming the same (but not on the streets) and the Brazilian Fridays for Future groups can be acting in different ways that I am not noticing. Though vegetarianism is becoming more common in Brazil, it is still unusual for most Brazilian environmentalists to go vegetarian.

Odette didn’t meet climate deniers in the Netherlands, and she believes that one of the reasons is that they are aware of the importance of the sea level and the survival of their country. Cancún, Mexico, on the other hand, has a culture that emphasizes party activities oriented to tourist enjoyment, so is not oriented to thinking about environmental issues. In other regions in Mexico, however, Odette has observed much more interest in Climate Change topics, especially in cities with large student populations such as Xalapa, Veracruz.

In Brazil, the social inequality, the fact that big ruralists and religious people have much power in the Political and Economic System, and the influence mainly of Asian and North American meat markets (and grains-, soy-, and other agricultural products), but also the exports to Europe (the Netherlands included) contribute to delay in real action towards sustainability life. However, the current government (president Lula) is more committed to sustainable agriculture, despite that their program includes livestock.

The “Dietary Guide for the Brazilian population” (2014), from the Ministry of Health, proposes that natural or minimally processed foods, predominantly of vegetable origin, should be the basis of the diet, and states they are the basis for a nutritionally balanced, culturally appropriate diet, which promotes a socially and environmentally sustainable food system. However, that official document mistakenly still claims animal based food provides most of the vitamins and minerals, and plant sources, individually, are not totally adequate and don’t provide all the nutrients we need.

Odette believes a meat based diet will change in the future thanks to the New Well Eating Plate¹, which now recommends consuming only 8% of our total energy derived from animal products, while the remaining 92% should be derived from plant sources.

This and all the changes we have noticed are very good news for animals, Earth, and humanity. And we need to keep talking about it and sharing more research focused on that topic, to decrease global meat consumption.

¹  In Spanish “El plato del bien comer” is a dietary guide from the Mexican Government rules for health promotion and education in food matters, which establishes criteria for nutritional guidance in Mexico.