NARRATION

For many people, nature can feel like an abstract concept—something that exists elsewhere. But whether we realize it or not, we interact with the natural world every day, especially with what’s on our plate. Our food, particularly how much meat and dairy we eat, has a direct impact on the environment. In fact, eating more plant-based meals can be more beneficial than switching to an electric vehicle. This is one area where individual impact does actually make a difference, and we have an opportunity to do so multiple times per day. And if you ask Maggie Baird, my guest this week, eating plant-based isn’t only a climate solution; it’s also an act of compassion.

As the founder of the organization Support and Feed, Maggie is on a mission to bring plant-based meals to underserved communities, tackling both food inequality and the climate crisis at once. On top of being a lifelong environmentalist, she’s also mother to musicians Billie Eilish and Finneas, who are working together to make the music industry more sustainable. 

My name is Willow Defebaugh, and this is The Nature Of. Each week, we’ll look to the natural world for insights into how to navigate the experience of being human. This week, we’re exploring the nature of plant-based food, its benefit for humans, animals, and the planet, and why people get so angry about the word vegan.

Willow Defebaugh

Maggie, thank you so much for being here today.

Maggie Baird

Thanks for having me.

Willow

So, you began your journey into this work quite a while ago. You switched to plant-based when you were a teenager.

Maggie

Teenager, yeah.

Willow

Right?

Maggie

Vegetarian first, yeah.

Willow

Vegetarian first. Was there a specific moment that led to that shift?

Maggie

Well, I grew up in western Colorado in a very small town, 2,500 people in my town.

Willow

Wow.

Maggie

And my father also was a fisherman and a hunter, as were most of the people in my town. I actually look at it with curiosity myself because neither my two older brothers nor I wanted to eat meat from the get; did not want to eat it. And my parents were really very nice, wonderful people. But of course in that day and age, people had a lot of misconceptions and were very, you know, “Eat your meat!” So I avoided it always and looked for the meat that was disguised, bologna or—

Willow

Sure.

Maggie

—a very burnt hamburger, something. And my brothers were the same, and so then they went off to college. They were older than I was and they became vegetarian. I was like, “Me too.” And my parents were like, “You can’t,” right, “You’re not allowed to.” But then I have a very clear memory of eating a sandwich in the kitchen and it had some kind of sliced processed meat that, again, didn’t seem whatever, and I remember being mid-bite and just going, “I don’t have to do this anymore.” For me, it was like a liberation.

I have to remind myself of that. I remind myself it doesn’t feel like that to most people, and so I understand that people are, they feel like they’re sacrificing something or missing something. I was liberated. I was like, “Never doing that again,” and I felt happier. I felt like every day I could wake up and say, “There’s one thing I’m not doing that’s bad.” Right? There’s, whatever in the world we’re trying to do and accomplish feels like, phew, there’s one thing that I have not participating in today. I think looking ahead, later I became fully plant-based. I will say, growing up in western Colorado in 19, that was ’76 or ’77, I didn’t know what a vegan was. I didn’t even know that was a thing. Not eating dairy and eggs, that was not on the radar.

Willow

So catching us up to the present, let’s talk about Support and Feed. Can you tell us about this organization you founded, your mission, and maybe a little bit about its origin and where you’re at today?

Maggie

Yeah, in addition to being a plant-based eater and doing that, largely, so I started because of I didn’t want to eat animals, but then very early I learned about the connection to our climate. Of course, we didn’t call it climate then. We called it environment, right? Our environment. We grow so much grain and so much crops to feed cattle instead of just feeding people. So that’s always been on my mind. I also saw a graphic on, I always say this, I don’t remember if it was a T-shirt or a poster, but I was living in New York City. I saw some kind of graphic that said, an infographic that was like, “This is how much of the Amazon rainforest it takes to make a McDonald’s hamburger.” That was a definite aha moment, where—a what? The Amazon rainforest, how could that possibly be connected? So that led me on the journey of understanding the connection.

I’ll also just throw in that my mother died suddenly of a heart attack at age 57. So I always say, I have the trifecta of reasons for eating this way. So flash forward, I’m kind of always living my life. It sounds so pitiful, but always carried the reusable bags and the—from a very early—the little things you could do. Went to the Greenpeace protest, gave my then $25 donation that I could afford. So it was always on the track of sustainability, and then I had kids and that was our ethos. All our Christmas presents are wrapped in these gift bags that I sewed that we use every single year, no paper towels, all this kind of personal action. And then my kids got in the music industry and then I was faced with, oh my gosh, the music industry, oh my—it’s so not sustainable, right? Honestly, no worse than any other corporation or big industry, but still a major contributor.

So we really dedicated ourselves to how could we make more sustainable choices in the music industry. Then flash forward to we’ve got sustainable measures backstage, and for the audience, and on our tour buses, and plant-based food on a tour. And then the pandemic hit, and we came home and just thought, “Oh, wow, this is going to be bad for so many people.” And I also come from a history of cooking, and so I was like, “Well, we need to feed people. We need to participate in this.” Everyone was buying meals for people, right? Really what happened is we stepped into the world of food insecurity, and I was shamefully and woefully ignorant about the horrific inequity in our food system, and the systemic racism in our food system, and I had this crash course. And of course then we had the George Floyd period and it was just like a tsunami of learning, and insight, and information. And we were taking food to community organizations and we realized, well, where our food really needs to go is where people have the least access.

So we started partnering with community organizations primarily in food apartheid areas—food deserts, they’re often called—but really systemically cut off because the nourishing food was more impactful to people who didn’t typically receive it, than to honestly like a hospital worker or a first responder that they had quite a lot of food and they had a little more access. We filed for nonprofit status because we couldn’t find any other large organizations that were addressing the intersectionality. 

In other words, if you’re going to feed someone a meal, why not make that a nourishing, healthy meal that also is planetary—it supports planetary health. And why not you buy it from a small business that is hopefully as close to the community as you can possibly get, or support a community restaurant to add more plant-based food, et cetera.

So that’s how we launched, and then we grew to 11 cities during Billie’s tour, her 2022 tour, by access of really a donation that allowed us through her tour to feed people in the cities of her tour, to table on her tour, talk to fans about taking our Support and Feed pledge to eat at least one fully plant-based meal a day. Just explaining to people the connection of what we eat to the climate crisis, and the climate crisis to food insecurity, and the people that are most affected by the climate crisis are the most also affected by food insecurity, and getting people to understand that connection.

Willow

Well, what really strikes me is so much of your work—and your reason for first going vegetarian and then plant-based—it all is rooted from a place of compassion; whether it’s for people, or other animals, or the planet itself. And it’s a word I think about quite a lot these days. What does it mean to you, in the context of this work, and what does it look like to bring more compassion to our plates?

Maggie

Oh, gosh. I feel like I’m going to get emotional. The only reason we have survived as human beings is the ability to empathize, and yet we’re in this—I don’t know what even to name this period of time. Apocalypse, I don’t know if there’s a name for what’s going on—

Willow

Where empathy is radical, and—

Maggie

Yeah, empathy is—

Willow

How did we get here?

Maggie

How could that be? It is what makes us human: empathy. It is what makes us enjoy life, I think even. So it makes me deeply sad, as we all are, to think that this move away from empathy and compassion, because it is the highest reward that we all have.

Willow

And I think, especially as it relates to animal agriculture and how brutal that system is, I think there’s a real level of dissociation, right? Which is when you cut yourself off from wanting to know about that, or wanting to even just be able to feel what we as a species have done to other species. I think—something I’ve been really sitting with is that when you cut yourself off from one feeling, it’s very hard not to cut yourself off from the others. It numbs people, and I love that you used the word earlier to describe the feeling that you had biting that sandwich, of liberation. Because I think that to feel, to actually feel the harm but also the empathy and the beauty of the relationships that we have with other beings on this planet, that can be really liberating for people.

But so much of the time I think the focus or the emphasis is, it’s on the negative, what we need to cut away or stop doing, which is important. And I want to get into the narrative aspect of this, but there’s a richer and deeper way of belonging to the world when we open ourselves up to that empathy and compassion.

Maggie

I agree, and I didn’t come from a background, as nice as my parents were, my dad was a hunter and a fisherman, right? And yet my brothers and I, both, all three were like, “Mm-mmm.” And somehow we got that early enough that we didn’t start to block it, right? And yeah, I know so many people who have gradually let themselves feel it, right? I remember a very close friends saying to me one time, “Please don’t tell me about that because if I know that, I won’t be able to eat it.” I was like, “Well, just because you’re not knowing it doesn’t mean it’s not happening.”

Willow

Right.

Maggie

But it is painful. And listen, even for people who are not participating in it, we still feel the pain of the fact that it’s happening all day, every day. The cruelty with which we treat our animals. To live in a society that so highly prizes certain animals—dogs and cats, and I do too, I love those animals—so highly prizes, spends billions of dollars caring for them, and then the same time animal rescue orgs or shelters who then celebrate at a restaurant with meat. The disconnect is so extreme. I understand, it’s a really painful thing to feel. It’s painful to me, all the time.

We were talking last night, we were at this event last night, and talking about how the word, vegan, is such a hated word, and it’s because of cognitive dissonance. We understand why: People don’t want to hear about something that they essentially agree with. They just do. You’re going to meet very few people who say, “No, I’m okay with animals suffering. I’m okay with this inhumane, horrific treatment and suffering.” They’re not going to say that, and so it’s a lot of dissonance to have to live in a way where you let it happen, really.

Willow

And I think the opposite of dissonance or dissociation, it’s connection, right? And so I love that you’re talking about making these connections for people, but also it’s about connecting with each other and the other beings that we share this planet with. I’m also very happy that you brought up the point about the word vegan because I wanted to talk about that. You mentioned that it is one of actually the most hated words in the English language.

Maggie

It’s the hated word. Yeah.

Willow

So how do we go about shifting that narrative? How do you personally approach it, and what are some of the biggest barriers or misconceptions that you find that people have about the word, vegan?

Maggie

Yeah. Wow, it’s such a deep question because I spent so much of my life being an apologetic vegetarian, vegan. The kind who was like, “Oh, don’t mind me. Don’t want to inconvenience. I’ll bring my own food. I’ll eat a salad.” So much time not wanting to make anyone feel bad. And I think there’s value in that, honestly, there is. You’re the likeable vegetarian, you’re the likeable vegan, as opposed to the famous, annoying one that people get made fun of. But on the other hand, it’s something you believe so deeply and yet you’re apologizing for it. It’s really a hard walk to walk. I have come to believe that it is just simply more effective to not be extreme about it and to help people ease into understanding it.

I guess what I’ve come to now in my life is that I’m in a middle ground. I’m not apologizing. I am being honest about what I believe, but I’m also going to accept that you have to come to this in your own way and I want to help you in any way that is. If that means that you add a little more plant-based food and you stop eating some animal agriculture, that is an improvement. Everybody’s coming at this from their own experience, their own journey, their own upbringing, their own awareness, their own exposure, their own misconceptions. And there’s so much food over that entire grocery store that is made from plants and probably contains no animal products. It’s not just substituting in a look-alike or a taste-alike. It’s all the food that nature has provided us. So we have to break these barriers of what people have been indoctrinated to believe. We also have to understand that people have been indoctrinated, and it has been a calculated effort by the meat and the dairy industry to provide a lot of mis- and disinformation about nutrition and food, and where do these products come from?

I’ve heard up to 80% of children’s books include farm animals, right? Kids are growing up thinking, “Oh, animals on a farm, look how nice that life is.” And so, understanding the power that we’re up against. I think, honestly, this is a little bit of a segue, but I think there is something to trying to help people understand how they have been manipulated. I saw a very crazy Instagram post that was a woman eating raw milk and raw liver or something, and the caption was like, “Me feeling so good because I’ve not been influenced by the million-dollar plant food industry.” I was like, “No, but you have been influenced by the billion-dollar animal agriculture industry.” I think it’s really delicate because you have to be compassionate but you have to be honest. You have to show people a way, in a way that does not shut them down. Nobody wants to believe that they have been indoctrinated in a way or influenced in a manipulative way. That does not feel good.

Willow

And at the same time, I think that it is helpful. It makes me think of that phrase, be hard on systems, not people, right? Because—

Maggie

Perfect.

Willow

I think there are a lot of parallels to the fossil fuel industry, obviously, and I think for so long people didn’t want to look at their carbon footprint, right? And that was another deliberate misinformation campaign, get people in their shame about their personal footprint. But I think it actually has helped liberate a lot of people in understanding, oh, I was, as you said, indoctrinated into this way of thinking. And I like the compassionate approach of being like, “Hey, here’s a system that we’re living in and I want to help you make steps to get yourself out of it,” which maybe is a way to circumvent the shame because there’s a lot of research that psychologically people won’t change when they’re in a place of shame, right?

Maggie

Yeah. Oh, yeah, that’s a great point. That’s a great point. I also think artistry, and in this case, when I say artistry, I mean cooking, but I think artistry has a place in this because we have also been led to believe that when you stop eating animals or animal products, or reduce your animal products, that you’re just taking something away.

Willow

Right.

Maggie

But the glorious amount of food that we have, that we don’t generally eat because we got set in this traditional way of a plate is a meat, and a this, and a that, I think that is really also part of the solution. Even I have had so many new fruits in the last few years, new experiences. Look at the culinary use of mushrooms, of cashews, of jackfruit, and I’m loving the movement toward cabbage. I’ve been saying this for years: Cabbage needs a PR agent. It’s an awesome food, like pomegranates did in fact have a PR moment. But the Brussels sprouts, the cauliflower, they get their day in the sun.

Willow

Get them all their own PR people.

Maggie

Yeah, but in general, general world of fruits and vegetables don’t have a PR agent, but they really need it because we need to stop just trying to convince people there’s an actual substitute. There are many good substitutes, but also just, yeah, but try this tasty dish. This is delicious.

Willow

Right. It’s making me also think about Robin Wall Kimmerer in Braiding Sweetgrass.

Maggie

Oh, yeah.

Willow

She writes about, the way you talk about fruits and vegetables reminds me of how she talks about the earth growing food for us. It’s like this expression of care and love, right? And it’s sort of like, well, why wouldn’t you want to partake in that, and also engage in it in a reciprocal way that is also, gives back to the earth?

Maggie

Yeah. Yeah, and we have to mention, of course, that many people don’t have access to these fruits I’m talking about, these vegetables I’m talking about, and that’s another mission of ours with Support and Feed. I really love the community garden movement, the school garden movement. I think those are really, really important, accompanied by education, which we’re also trying to provide so that people know what to do with an eggplant, or kale, or bok choy, or any of the things that might be a little unfamiliar. Sometimes we think of our country, and we picture the farmland, and we picture the beautiful—much of those areas of our country that we’re picturing, there is not fresh produce. There is feed for animals growing.

So some of the most verdant land in our country, I grew up in western Colorado with beautiful peach orchards. We had peaches, and cherries, and apples, but other areas are hog farms and industrial cattle, and there’s not beautiful produce growing. So we’ve heard from young people who are like, “Well, I live in Kentucky,” and the area they live in, you go, “Oh, you must—” And they’re like, “Nothing.” Their best source of vegetables is Walmart. That’s the only store they have and they have no farm stands, et cetera. So I always want to counter when I get rapturous about the beauty of fresh produce with the fact that not everyone has access to it.

Willow

Well, and that’s why you’re tackling both, and that’s why we need an intersectional approach to these issues. But I’d like to back up for a second. For anyone who’s listening who this might be their entry point into drawing some of the connections between the climate crisis, and plant-based diets, and food insecurity, can you help them draw some of those connections? Why is eating plant-based so important for tackling the climate crisis?

Maggie

Well, back to Diet for a Small Planet. We do have a small planet and we have limited habitable, arable land and limited water. And animal agriculture demands a huge amount of both, land and water and food. And so when you’re, in the most simplistic terms, when you’re growing food for animals rather than humans, you’re going to get much less food out of that, right? So our largest amount of our farmland is growing food for cattle, or has cattle grazing on it, or chickens and other edible animals, or the animals that people eat. It’s inefficient, and we also have a tremendous problem from gases, methane gas, from these animals. So all of these major contributors, it can be estimated as the second leading cause of climate crisis. And people often are very focused on fossil fuels, of course, rightly so. Fossil fuels are a major problem. Animal agriculture is also a major contributor and user of fossil fuels.

So if you take all those pieces of land where you’re growing feed for animals, instead grow feed for human beings, we need much less land, much less water. We reduce our methane and we reduce our use of fossil fuels. So it’s a win entirely all around. And then when you go on a food level, again, we really have enough food in our—we are growing enough food. We have a transportation issue with food is really what we have. We can’t get the food to where it needs to be, but again, like I say, if the area in the South where they’re raising hogs, and creating so much toxic air, and destroying the land that there’s massive amounts of cancer, if that was growing crops for human beings, you eliminate so many issues with that one strategy of changing what you’re growing.

Willow

 I want to highlight something you shared in there, which is the inefficiency piece. Because I think it’s really brilliant that you lead with that, because what we’re essentially saying here is there’s actually an opportunity for more abundance in our relationship to food. And I think we’re living in this time where there’s, narratives of scarcity are being weaponized, right? And leading with this idea that actually we can make our food systems more generative, more abundant, if we focus on growing food for people, not just for animals or livestock.

Maggie

I’ve heard one person say to me, “We are literally destroying our future, our children’s future, our ability to survive on a planet, for a taste.” That is powerful. My son, who is like, “Mom, you need to understand people better. What if I told you tomorrow that matcha you’re drinking— you love your matcha.” I drink matcha every day. It looks like you do, too.

Willow

Yep.

Maggie

And he’s like, “What if I told you tomorrow that that matcha was a part of a slave labor crop, and a this, and a that?” And by the way, if somebody hears this and says, “Well, by the way, it is,” I want to know. He said, “What would you do?” And I was like, “I would stop drinking it. I would stop. If you can tell me that, and that’s true, I will stop.” Right? I’m not sure what it is in our—it’s all the things we talked about.

Willow

Sure.

Maggie

I know what it is, but that when faced with the fact that we are on the brink, the literal precipice of not being able to survive on the planet for a variety of reasons, but one of them is the way we eat, why can we not change that? And why do our government officials and our corporate leaders—I understand in some crazy way that they do not care about most people. They don’t care about most people, but they don’t even care about their own children? Their own grandchildren? That I don’t get. I don’t get any of it, but that baffles me that they’re so willing to risk the future of all of civilization. And I know this sounds extreme, but when you’ve been in this space for decades, when I read Diet for a Small Planet when I was 17 years old. They laid it all out.

Al Gore laid it all out so many times. The 1850s, they told us what fossil fuels were going to do, right? It’s been laid out and it’s all come true. At this point, it’s not hyperbole to say, “This is it. This is the moment. This is it.” And yet we still cannot seem to get our shit together to make this change, so—

Willow

Well, something we talk about a lot on this podcast is exactly what you’re saying, which is that the problems are not new and they’re not a mystery, and also neither are the solutions. We have so many—

Maggie

We have the solutions.

Willow

—of the solutions that we need. And also, speaking to something that you shared too, at the beginning of this conversation, was that this is one choice that people make multiple times a day, right? And because something we’re also dealing with is people who might be listening who do care and also are just having that fear or that paralytic feeling of what can I do? This is one choice that you make multiple times a day, right? So how do you also balance progress with perfection? And you were sharing a little bit about the one meal pledges. How do you invite more people into this space, into those lifestyle changes?

Maggie

What we do with Support and Feed is we try to help people understand what that adds up to because it can feel like, what difference does my one action take? It absolutely does feel that way, but we see it in so many ways, including our elections: It adds up. And so if 10,000 people in an arena take a pledge to eat one plant-based meal a day for 30 days, that’s 7 million gallons of water saved. That’s something you can understand. You go, “Oh, OK.”

Willow

Seven million gallons.

Maggie

 Seven million gallons of water. That’s the difference between eating animal agriculture, not eating animal agriculture. That’s just your water savings. That doesn’t include your land savings or your reduction of CO2s, et cetera, methane, et cetera. So we can kind of get you to help you understand your small action adds up. Now, here’s the challenge. If we get many, many people to do this, we have to respond in the reduction of actual raising animals for this, right? If the government continues to subsidize these industries to the point of we know, they can be subsidized to pouring milk down the drain or look at the avian flu issue and the slaughter of millions of chickens. Instead of just saying, “Hey, let’s all stop eating eggs and chickens for a while.” You know what I mean?

We’re going to raise them. We’re going to slaughter them. So the government needs to respond differently. The corporations need to respond differently. I hate to admit this, but one could argue that if we do not have government and corporate response, then our actions are not as impactful. But we do know that governments and corporations respond to demand.

Willow

Right.

Maggie

So the more we demand that we have non-animal sources of food in places like where we attend school, where we go to have our meetings, where we attend performances. If we go to Dodger Stadium and we buy the plant-based hot dog and not the meat hot dog, well, Dodger Stadium responds to that. Wow, we sold this many plant-based hot dogs. By the way, regular hot dogs are carcinogenic, so I suggest that as an immediate switch for everyone because for some also crazy reason, the fact that we know scientifically that processed meats like hotdogs, and those are literally known carcinogens. But if you partake in non-animal agriculture foods, and I say that because when I say plant-based food, everyone’s like, “Oh, they mean a Impossible or Beyond Burger. I don’t. It could be a black bean burger or just broccoli. 

If you partake in more plant-based-centered food and do not purchase the meat option, the animal agriculture option, the dairy option, the market will shift, right? That’s how it shifts. We’re very lucky with Billie’s shows, we get the arenas to have lots of plant-based food. Some of them go entirely plant-based food. And the sales at the O2 [Arena] for her last tour went up by 8% of the concessions. They were fully plant-based. So if you have that kind of response, then people respond in kind and they go, “OK, we can offer more food because it will sell.” 

We are in a massive area of wellness disinformation, people trying to sell supplements and promote whatever. So it’s really hard to pick out what is true, but I’m here to tell you, scientifically—and I’m not selling anything—scientifically, we know that you will have better health if you add more plants to your diet. You will help your planet if you just make more of your diet plant-based. Thinking about, what is that word? Plant-based, based on plants.

Willow

As difficult as it is to talk about these issues, there is also an element that’s empowering in the sense that there’s so many macro-level issues that we’re up against right now, but food and diet really is an area—as you’re saying—where individual impact can make a big difference, whether it’s just our own personal footprint, but also as you’re saying, shifting market demand and leading to system-level change. But I want to also, since we’ve really spent time talking about the climate impacts and we’ve talked about compassion with more than human life, let’s talk about the health benefits.

Maggie

Yeah.

Willow

The third part of that trifecta, let’s stay with the hotdog train of thought. Something I never thought I would say.

Maggie

Yeah, again, we are in a disinformation era, but eating more plants is better for you. You need the fiber. There’s plenty of protein in plants, tremendous amounts of protein in plants. Do you need to take a multivitamin? Yes, you should take a B vitamin. You should, probably, even if you eat animal products, you should. You should be aware of your omega-3s, which you can get from flax seeds or algae, et cetera. You do need to take care of your health as you should in every form, but just reducing your animal consumption is a major contributor to your health, to diabetes, to heart disease, to cancers. Really quite shocking to me that we have foods that have been declared carcinogenic as very major foods, like hotdogs and processed meats. Bacon. Bacon is this beloved thing that people talk about. Again, dissociating that from the fact that it is a sentient being of a pig that is one of the smartest creatures we have, but also that is a known carcinogen.

Willow

Speaking of carcinogen, something I think about is the tobacco industry, right? Smoking used to be this massive, massive part of—smoking cigarettes, specifically—used to be such a massive part of American life, and a lot of that was a disinformation campaign, right, around health. And we know that through regulation, it became possible to combat that disinformation campaign, and so many fewer people smoke cigarettes today. So it is possible, some of these behemoths that it feels like it’s truly impossible to take down. It is possible to create change. I think about that.

Maggie

 And I love that you brought up the tobacco industry because one of the components of the tobacco industry’s strategies was doubt. That if you can sow the seeds of doubt, people will feel free not to act, right? And that was what the tobacco industry did. They tried to promote this idea, like not all doctors say, “It’s bad for you.” Or some doctors say, “It’s relaxing.” I remember my aunt was told by her doctor, “You’re so nervous, you need to smoke,” right? It calms you down. That, sowing the seeds of doubt, is a strategy that many, many, many industries use, and especially this one, right? The same time a major health study comes out about plant-based food, the meat industry will run a major ad at the same time promoting something. One of the ways they’ve sown the seeds of doubt is to really attack plant-based substitutes. So we’ll attack oat milk. We’ll attack beans—beans of all things! We’ll attack almond milk on the water. We’ll attack the burgers like Beyond or Impossible, and we’ll say that they’re scientifically created and they’re highly processed, right? Forgetting the fact that a regular hamburger is a highly processed food, and we’ll show that it’s a pink sludge and it’s created with this, but we won’t at the same time show you the slaughter of a cow, and how a cow gets ground up, and all of that. We won’t show you that, but we’re going to make you doubt it.

Willow

Unfortunately, it goes a long way. But we combat that with the truth. So to synthesize, trifecta. Win, win, win.

Maggie

Win, win, win.

Willow

Good for your health. Good for other animals. Good for the planet.

Maggie

And I would like to add, we need to support our farmers in different ways. We have equated farming with cattle ranching and animal farming. I am from a small town. I love farmers, the community, but people can farm other things. We can help people transition to other crops. We can help farmers in the dairy and cattle industry. By the way, we haven’t even touched on, and we rarely do touch on, the horrible human toll that our slaughterhouses and factory farms take. Human beings are really suffering. The people that are asked to take these jobs are suffering. It’s creating huge amounts of trauma, but we can help transition those. We could be growing more of these beautiful crops that people could eat instead of cows, et cetera. So I just really want to try to get people to equate eating plants with pro-farmer because farmers grow these crops. I want to support farmers and farm workers because that is a whole other topic that we could talk about, the terrible conditions of many farm workers, but—

Willow

For anyone who’s listening who wants a few key takeaways, not just to help convince them to try going plant-based, but also to convince people in their lives, what would you offer?

Maggie

I would say that your small actions make a difference, that even really just adding consciously one plant-based meal a day will make a difference and might help you feel more comfortable. I would say, a tip is to be adventurous—to look at this like a new chapter of exploration, instead of taking something away. What are some new foods that you can add? What are some new restaurants you can try? What are some new people you can follow on Instagram who cook in a different way? It’s you, but it’s the people who love you. I lost my mom at 57. I’m very cognizant of trying to take care of myself. It’s not as much for me, it’s for my kids. I don’t want my kids to suffer that. And so I think, think about your family members, how what you eat and your health is not only affecting you, but affecting the people you love, and maybe how you cook can also affect those people. Offer to make dinner. Make a healthier dinner that’s very tasty and delicious and will improve those people’s lives.

Thinking about how your daily life impacts your neighbors, what we eat is impacting our climate, which is impacting our neighbors, and it’s not impacting us equally. People around the world have been suffering the effects of climate change for decades. Extreme weather events are from climate change, and we have to start making that connection. Extreme weather events. Climate change is not about weather, but extreme weather events are about the climate change, the climate crisis. I don’t like to use the word, climate change, because that was created to distract us from how bad it is, but try to start talking about it.

Talk about the climate crisis. Talk about extreme weather events, why they’re happening, and then talk about the daily strategies we can have, even to say, “I know that I’ve heard scientifically that our food system is connected to why this is happening,” and that’s something we can do every day. It’s empowering. In this era where there feels like so little we can do, to have something you can do every day, you can go to sleep at night and just say, “At least I did that.” It’s not enough. I’m not saying that’s enough to do, but at least I ate in a compassionate way for my body, my neighbors, the animals, and at this point, most of all, our planetary survival.

Willow

So it comes back to compassion.

Maggie

Compassion, yeah.

Willow

And I also love that you brought in the family piece, and to bring this conversation full circle too, you were sharing how this was something that you really instilled in your family always, that you had at an early age and then you brought it into your life and your children’s lives. What is it like having your whole family be partners in creating change like this, and being able to collaborate? I know one of the ways you bring, you were mentioning Billie’s fans, and introducing them to plant-based foods and Support and Feed at tours, and you put on events like Overheated. What is that experience like, to approach this as a family?

Maggie

Well, Overheated, because you mentioned it, is this climate conference we do really for fans and just to talk about all the things that they can take action on. It’s scientists, but it’s also young activists, and really it’s really empowering, letting people really have a one-on-one, but very also locally specific. It’s also live-streamed and it’s on YouTube so people can find it. I couldn’t be more honored that my children are doing so much for the planet, and support Support and Feed, and all of the activities that we’re doing, feeding people, et cetera. I have been talking about this my whole life. I’m an actor. I’m a working class actor. I made my living like working class actors do, barely making a living, hopefully earning your health insurance if you’re lucky, and talking about this forever. And the amazing fact that my children achieved what they were able to do and that this shined a light on the things that we really care the most about is kind of like a little miracle, honestly.

To have people listen and actually care and be able to help people who, we know everyone cares. We know Billie’s fans care. They come, and they make change, and they really, really care. And to be able to have this connection with family, and fans, and food systems, and climate, it’s such a gift. It’s such a gift to me. It’s sort of meant like, all the things I’ve cared about my whole life I’m actually able to put out in a way that it’s meaningful. But to say that—I also want to say back that it is meaningful to do this on any level. Before we had this opportunity to do this as a family and to make bigger impact, we did it in our small community. We were part of homeschool groups, and it was part of what we talked about and did there.

You can do this on any level. You can do this where you work. You can do this with whatever groups or communities are. You can choose to have your meeting at a plant-based restaurant. You can choose to cater your event with plant-based food. You can use reusable cups and plates, and you can reduce your paper waste. You can do this on any scale and it really, really, really matters. So the fact that we are able to work together on this larger scale—really what I’d love to set the example of is, bring it into your life. Whatever you do currently, bring in this awareness. Share it with your community. Share it at work and in your kids’ programs, and we can all make a difference if we have that massive impact on all the levels. If everybody takes responsibility for their own area, then it would all trickle out and we would have it all covered.

Willow

Small miracle with a big impact.

Maggie

Yeah.

Willow

And that is the way of nature.

Maggie

Yes.

Willow

I think about a seed, right? Something that starts so small and then it grows into something that bears fruit and can feed human beings, right? And—

Maggie

The grassroots, that’s where the—

Willow

Literally.

Maggie

—phrase comes from, the grassroot.

Willow

Right. Yeah. Perfect. Thank you so much, Maggie.

Maggie

Thank you for having me. I so appreciate you.

Willow

You too.

NARRATION

 At the end of each episode, I offer three prompts for guided self-reflection to help internalize and investigate how this week’s themes show up in our daily lives and how we can apply the principles discussed. This week’s questions are:

Follow the links in the show notes for additional resources related to this episode.

1. What are some rituals that could help me be more present with what’s on my plate?

2. How many plant-based meals can I aim for per week?

3. Who in my life could I invite to share this goal with me?

The Nature Of is an Atmos Podcast produced by Jesse Baker and Eric Nuzum of Magnificent Noise. Our production staff includes Julie Natt, Eleanor Kagan, and Daniel Hartman. Our sound designer is Kristin Mueller. The executive producers of The Nature Of are me—Willow Defebaugh—Theresa Perez, Jake Sargent, and Eric Nuzum. Atmos is a nonprofit media organization focused on the cross-pollination of climate and culture. In addition to our podcast, we deliver award-winning journalism and creative storytelling through our biannual print magazine, daily digital features, original newsletters, and more. To support our work or this podcast, see our show notes or visit atmos.earth/biome. That’s A-T-M-O-S.Earth/B-I-O-M-E. I’m your host Willow Defebaugh and this is The Nature Of.