It is common knowledge that 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) follows a plant-based vegan diet, but what about newly elected Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY)?
On the Issues page of her website, she describes Climate Change:
[Climate Change is] the single biggest national security threat for the United States and the single biggest threat to worldwide industrialized civilization, and the effects of warming can be hard to predict and self-reinforcing. We need to avoid a worldwide refugee crisis by waging a war for climate justice through the mobilization of our population and our government. This starts with the United States being a leader on the actions we take both globally and locally.
On January 22, 2019, USA Today article headlined “The World is Going to End if We Don’t Address Climate Change,” following an interview Rep. Ocasio-Cortez had with author Ta-Neishi Coates at a Martin Luther King Jr. Day event held the previous day. On Jan. 26, in response to that USA Today article, blogger Sarina Farb wrote an open letter to Ocasio-Cortez, urging her to consider the impact animal agriculture has on climate change. Farb also expressed disappointment in seeing the congresswoman eat ice cream made from dairy cows on The Colbert Report show published Jan. 22. On Jan. 25, popular vegan digital magazine, VegNews, reported Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s favorite milks are vegan— specifically, oat milk and cashew milk.
Feb. 5, following a visit to a school in Queens, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez tweeted a question asked by one of the students about what they could do to combat climate change. Her response included for them to “Skip meat/dairy for a meal.”
On Page 8 of Rep Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal Resolution dated February 7, 2019, it states:
In a Green New Deal FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) document published by NPR noted in response to the question why 100% clean and renewable and not just 100% renewable, part of the answer stated:
…We set a goal to get to net-zero, rather than zero emissions, in 10 years because we aren’t sure that we’ll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast, but we think we can ramp up renewable manufacturing and power production, retrofit every building in America, build the smart grid, overhaul transportation and agriculture, plant lots of trees and restore our ecosystem to get to net-zero.
I found the choice of words “fully get rid of… that fast” to be interesting because they imply that the objective will be to largely get rid of cattle. There are 1 billion cattle globally, and the greenhouse gas emissions and environmental impact are significant as highlighted by many studies (see Additional Information below).
What a breath of fresh air to finally see a political figure acknowledge the science showing the link between food and climate change. But let’s go back to my original question about whether Rep. Ocasio-Cortez is following a plant-based vegan diet. I would surmise that she is not—at least not yet. What she is doing is pushing for a plant-based food system for the health of the planet and Americans. Furthermore, if she holds true to her brand, leading by example, she will eventually come to the conclusion that fully adopting a plant-based vegan diet and lifestyle will align with her policies and values.
Additional Information:
Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers 2018
Livestock and Climate Change by Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang 2009
IPCC Report Press Release 2018
National Climate Assessment 2018
Nutrition Action’s To Protect Our Health, We Have to Protect the Earth 2018
Business as Usual: A Resurgence of Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon 2017