The Obstacle Is The Way

INTRODUCTION TO A SERIES

For more than 25 years I've been researching and writing about food systems. And for all those years I've been surprised and perplexed that so many organizations and colleagues in the food movement — including scholars, policy makers, and activists, all of whom want fairer and more sustainable agriculture and diets — don't want to talk about meat. Food policy experts and educators talk about goals like localizing food systems, supporting small farmers, bringing healthy food to schools, and much more. It's all important. But most of them deliberately sidestep the meaty elephant in the food policy room.

That's despite the evidence that industrial-scale livestock farming is a major factor in the climate crisis, in the continuing loss of global diversity of plants and animals, in the rise and spread of viral diseases, and in lethal pollution of seas and soils. It's despite the invisible reality that intensive animal agriculture drives the land dispossession lived daily by Indigenous and small farmers across the globe — because meat production uses disproportionate amounts of land, and when agribusiness needs more territory, guess who has to give up theirs?

Yet when I attend colloquia and gatherings of environmental groups, public-health organizations, and food-justice coalitions, I often find them serving industrially produced beef, chicken, pork, and dairy. Time and again, meat is on the menu but not on the agenda.

In my own recent experience:

• At an annual conference of a major public health association, the lunch buffet featured sandwiches crammed with beef — a food that, in excessive quantity and highly processed, the World Health Organization warns is probably carcinogenic. [1]
• During a constituent event of an environment minister, the snack table offered piles of cold cuts of pork and beef — among the worst foods for climate.
• The coordinator of an urban food-justice group told me outright that meat is too controversial to discuss. That's although animal agriculture threatens food sovereignty for Indigenous people globally.

Meat is slowly lumbering onto food-security agendas.  

It's not that meat is completely ignored. We're hearing evidence-based recommendations for people in high-consumption countries to eat less of it.[2] Science has been showing that ecological problems blamed on the food system arise almost entirely from the livestock sector.[3][4] At United Nations COP climate talks, menus were dominated by meat until 2023, when organizers finally responded to pressure and served substantial vegetarian fare.[5]

Yet considering the heft and impact of what I call “meat,’ by which I mean flesh food from land-based livestock, dairy, eggs, and farmed seafood, animal agriculture continues to get only a fraction of the analysis and action it deserves. And many well-meaning organizations — even ones that focus on food systems — continue to let it be.

I've heard a lot of rationales for avoiding discussion of the meat problem. I've heard activists claim we can't tell people what to eat, that Indigenous people eat animals so we can't criticize meat, that veganism sounds like an elitist trend, and that civil-society organizations might lose donors if they even mention the subject. I've heard that, while Big Meat causes Big Problems, there's nothing we can do because the multi-billion-dollar industry is powerful and besides, consumers enjoy chicken and steak.

This obstacle could be the way.

The topic of meat has been eating at me since I learned about the ancient Roman philosophy of Stoicism and its observation that “the obstacle is the way.”[6] To find solutions to complex problems, it says, we need to focus on key obstacles rather than avoid or try to work around them. Challenges need to be embraced — not merely gotten through but addressed and recognized for their power to make change. The obstacle then becomes the way.

In my view, meat is the obstacle to better agriculture and diets. Specifically, a widespread reluctance to engage with animal agriculture is the main barrier to food systems that would support ecology and justice for humans, animals, and the planet.

Engagement won't be easy. It will require fearlessly facing the realities of how meat is produced and marketed, debating whether and how animal agriculture can be done compassionately and sustainably, and tolerating a lot of uncomfortable conversations, all in the hope of doing the right thing and finding our way.

This is the first in a series of posts in which I'll try to unpack the rationales I've heard for not facing the meat problem, either globally or locally. I'll also outline positive moves by visionary organizations including the EAT-Lancet Commission[2], Greenpeace[7], World Animal Protection[8], and individual researchers including Paul Behrens[3], Jennifer Jacquet[9], Jan Dutkiewicz[10], and more [11, 12] who recognize the imperative of this topic and the dire need for new approaches to animal agriculture.

I'll also invite you to contribute your experience, knowledge, and vision. Please comment below or write to me.

Images: Beef cattle: Josiah Nicklas, Unsplash. Young broiler chickens in an industrial farm: USDA NRCS Texas, Flickr.

Subscribe here for a notification of my next post, which I’ll have up by May 13, titled: “Indigenous people eat animals, so we can't say anything bad about meat.”

References

1. World Health Organization. Press Release No. 240: IARC [International Agency for Research on Cancer] Monographs Evaluate Consumption of Red Meat and Processed Meat. World Health Organization, October 26, 2015. https://www.iarc.who.int/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/pr240_E.pdf
2. EAT-Lancet Commission. Healthy Diets from Sustainable Food Systems: Summary Report of the EAT-Lancet Commission. Oslo, Norway: EAT, 2019. https://eatforum.org/eat-lancet-commission/eat-lancet-commission-summary-report/.
3. Behrens, Paul. "Rapid Food Transformations in a Rapidly Changing World." Presentation at Food Thinkers conference, Centre for Food Policy, London, UK, Feb. 13, 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjnOP2m3yE4
4. Lang, Tim. "How Changing the Way We Consume Food Can Reduce Emissions." Presentation to Climate Assembly UK, Feb 9, 2020. https://youtu.be/2ZPvEk-_7Xs.
5. Sherrington, Rachel, Clare Carlile, and Hazel Healy. “Big Meat and Dairy Delegates Triple at COP28.” DeSmog, Dec. 8, 2023. https://www.desmog.com/2023/12/08/big-meat-dairy-delegates-triple-cop28/
6. Holiday, Ryan. The Obstacle is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph. New York: Portfolio/Penguin 2014.
7. Greenpeace. “Eating Less Meat, More Plants Helps the Environment.” Greenpeace blog, n.d. https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/sustainable-agriculture/eco-farming/eat-more-plants/
8. Rink, Sasha. “Why We Should Eat Less Meat.” World Animal Protection, June 16, 2022. https://www.worldanimalprotection.ca/blogs/why-we-should-eat-less-meat
9. Lazarus, Oliver, Sonali McDermid, and Jennifer Jacquet. “The Climate Responsibilities of Industrial Meat and Dairy Producers.” Climatic Change 165, no. 30 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-021-03047-7.
10. Mauvais, Lyse. “This Year, COP28 Is Finally Making Its Menu Match Calls to Climate Action.” Sentient Media, Dec. 12, 2023. https://sentientmedia.org/cop28-menu-climate-action
11. Dutkiewicz, Jan. “Toward a Plant-Based Food System.” Presentation to the Arihanta Institute, June 17, 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EnMSaZdvYs.
12. Boyle, Eleanor. Mobilize Food! Wartime Inspiration for Environmental Victory Today. Canada, FriesenPress, 2023.
13. Boyle, Eleanor. High Steaks: Why and How To Eat Less Meat. Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Press, 2012.