Nina Guilbeault Explores the Past and Future of Veganism in 'The Good Eater'

In The Good Eater: A Vegan’s Search for the Future of Food, sociologist, author, and educator, Nina Guilbeault, PhD, takes readers deep into the world of veganism and explores the impact our foods have on us and our environment. Born from a decade-long project, this book stemmed from Guilbeault’s dissertation that she wrote while at Harvard University about the rise of the vegan lifestyle movement and the comparison of its growth in the United States, France, and Israel. As for what drew her to this topic, Guilbeault explained, “My grandfather with whom I was very close… he passed away prematurely from chronic disease. He had both cancer and diabetes… his death actually inspired me to look at the link between diet and disease, something that I had really never bothered to do before, and I was shocked to learn about the nutritional research that has shown for a long time that a predominantly plant-based diet is the only diet really that can not only prevent, but actually reverse, chronic disease and so that inspired me to look at the health angle, and then after that I looked more into the environmental impact of food… and then that also inspired me to look into the ethical implications of eating animal products… but I really was inspired because I saw this movement growing in the world and I wanted to understand why…”

As a vegan herself, Guilbeault set out to inform readers about the everyday foods they put on their plates, but as she dug deeper in her research, she learned how much more complex our food system actually is. She reflected, “…the entire structure… the incentives are toward profit and toward companies making more bang for their buck and very much the externalized costs are on society… writing this book was, at times, quite depressing because I was really learning, like very, very dark truths about our food system and for awhile, it really got me down because I was thinking… what can I do as a consumer, what can I do as a teacher, as an advocate… I came to realize I am someone who can make choices in my own life. I can inspire people to also try to make, even little baby steps, in their own life…. and so the book was an expedition into the food system and I wanted to take readers along for the journey so that they can make up their own minds about what kind of role they want to play in that food system.”