16 June 2025

Have you heard about solutionism? Writer/Researcher Evgeny Morozov (who also happens to have a PhD in the history of science from Harvard) popularized the term with his 2013 book, To Save Everything, Click Here. According to the Cambridge English Dictionary, it's, “the idea that all problems can be solved, especially by technology, although the truth may be more complicated.” Right.

In the food and farming space, both high tech and “natural” magic bullets have been promoted over a range of topics, including:

• genetically modified organisms (GMO Scientists Could Save the World From Hunger, If We Let Them)
• precision agriculture (Yield of Dreams)
• lab grown meat (How Cultivated Meat Can Save the Planet) and plant based “meats” (How alternative meats could help save the planet)
• cattle farming (Five Ways Cattle Can Save the Planet)
• regenerative agriculture (The Crucial Role of Agroecology in Addressing the Biodiversity Crisis),

The green answer is, of course, less black and white (some articles alluded to this using the qualifier “can help”). But nuance isn't really good marketing (if you eat a whole foods plant based diet, there's a pretty good chance you'll live a long and healthy life…but it's not guaranteed due to some additional factors both within and outside our control).

And if your attention span is like mine, you may not have even gotten through the example in the parentheses above.

The reality of today (and no place more than in the US) is that if you can't explain your solution in 3-5 words and also claim it will fix everything, you may not get buy-in, funding or the public and private support you need to make a go of it.

The danger of overstating the impact of a single solution might be that it asks us to put all our eggs in one basket, a one-dimensional way of thinking that creates a monoculture of the mind, as Vandana Shiva puts it. That leaves a lot of empty baskets. While precision fermentation might help address the food and ecology crises we face, it's likely not, “all that now stands between us and earth system collapse," as George Monbiot stated three years ago.

With the 4th of July coming up, many think of cookouts and hot dogs. Is a plant based hot dog a solution to climate change and our healthcare crisis? No, but it sure could have an impact. The National Hot Dog & Sausage Council estimates that, on Independence Day, Americans consume 150 million hot dogs, enough to stretch across the US five times! So when a recognized brand comes out with a plant based alternative, I applaud their effort (the NotCo company claims that, if it could attract 20% of the meat market, it could reduce food-based emissions by 10%).

Yes, the Not Dogs are high in fat, sodium and contain questionable ingredients - but then so do the franks they're designed to replace! Even though a recent study indicated plant based ultra processed foods are healthier than meat, I'd still recommend sticking to mostly whole foods. But do “solutions” like this take the pressure off the fossil fuel industry, "big food and beverage" and industrial agriculture to transform our food system?

Maybe one universal solution is not going to “save us” but - to my mind - that takes some of the pressure off (always…practice over perfection). Every solution we find doesn't need to do everything. This makes it easier to identify and implement the many solutions that help. It's still ALL HANDS ON DECK!

To that end, I'm doing my part by raising awareness of the impact of our food choices (on our planet and our health) and making it easy and enjoyable to implement solutions. And I believe an important part of this is about community and connection. As MLK Jr wisely said, “We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now.” I look forward to working together with you for all our benefit.