Plant-based diets in Just Food Systems Transitions

A transition toward more plant-based diets can improve human health while reducing the environmental impact of food systems. This chapter examines the ethical requirements of such a transition through the framework of just transition and the interests of five affected groups: laborers, consumers, autarkic communities, animals, and future generations. It argues that reducing reliance on animal-based foods can contribute to climate-change mitigation, public health, animal welfare, and food security, but that these benefits do not by themselves make a transition just. A just food transition must distribute costs and burdens fairly, protect access to nutritionally and culturally adequate food, provide viable livelihood alternatives for workers in affected industries, respect communities whose subsistence practices differ from those of industrial food systems, and preserve socially valuable practices of preparing and sharing meals. Dietary transition should therefore be understood as a broader social transformation rather than a simple substitution of plant-based foods for animal products.