Food & Film: Digesting Eating Our Way To Extinction

Freedom To Be a Vegetable

My training—if one could call it that—was cooking with an American woman who, in the 1950s, attended the Cordon Bleu school in Paris (later made famous in the U.S. by Julia Child). Mary Bond was the first American woman to complete the full three-year course and pass the final exam with a “Très Bien” written on her diploma. While her procedure for Canard à la Montmorency remains a killer dish that the RWM adores to this day, it is seriously labor-intensive, and the sauce arguably upstages the duck itself.

One of the many qualities I admire in Italian cooking is that vegetables are allowed to simply be vegetables. Meat often plays a supporting role—used to flavor a pasta sauce, then served as a separate course if at all. Dairy is cheese or gelato. Milk is for breakfast. Fruit, more often than not, is dessert.

I was thinking about this while watching the documentary Eating Our Way to Extinction, which you can find on YouTube—narrated with surprising gravity by Kate Winslet. The philosophical spine of the film is that humanity should return to a plant-based diet, since industrial livestock farming—on both land and sea—is rapidly accelerating the destruction of biodiversity and climate stability.

One of the most sobering facts presented is that we’ve lost an estimated 75% of crop diversity since the 1900s, according to the often-overlooked Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. It’s not just about disappearing seeds or forgotten breeds—it’s about losing the resilience needed to feed future generations.

The documentary can veer toward the cinematic, with sweeping drone shots and surging orchestral music, but it’s anchored by solid scientific reporting and real accounts from communities that have suffered under the global spread of monoculture and industrial ranching. One of its strongest arguments is that our current corporate farming structure isn’t just flawed—it’s unsustainable. And while the U.S. is far from the only culprit, it certainly leads the charge, kept afloat by massive taxpayer subsidies. In contrast, local breeds and seeds—often dismissed as quaint or nostalgic—are in fact the best insurance we have for long-term food security.

Though the hamburgerization of global food culture is a familiar critique, this film wisely zeroes in on the slower-burning but more critical threats: environmental collapse and the erosion of edible biodiversity. Dan Saladino’s book of the same name inspired the film. Though born and raised in Britain, Saladino spent his childhood summers in Sicily, which gave him a lasting appreciation for that island’s exuberant blend of flavors. His website is an excellent resource—regularly updated with stories and research on traditional foods and the people working to preserve them. It’s also a good antidote after wandering through yet another endless cereal aisle.

One of the most revelatory segments in the film explores microplastics in our oceans—a problem that goes well beyond plastic straws. The section on farmed fish is particularly disturbing, echoing much of what’s detailed in Catherine Collins and Douglas Frantz’s book on the salmon industry (and in three earlier KD posts on the subject). One of the more revealing “gotcha” moments comes in an interview with a Norwegian government fisheries official, who initially appears composed and authoritative—until the camera catches her sidestepping a question about her personal investment in one of the country’s largest aquaculture firms. Sometimes you don’t need commentary—just let the camera roll.

Unfortunately, the appearance of Tony Robbins, a self-described life coach, somewhat derails the film’s intent. Robbins offers a self-promotional account of his dietary transformation, which serves only to trivialize the broader message. Thankfully, the film is free of social media food influencers, but giving screen time to personalities who rely on emotional appeal rather than science or policy undermines the seriousness of the argument.

A more insightful segment could have been built around Slow Food, the Italian organization founded by Carlo Petrini. While Petrini’s original focus was more ethical and cultural than scientific, Slow Food has since partnered with agronomists, researchers, breeders, and fisheries to preserve local food traditions and biodiversity. The movement now influences EU food policy and has co-founded the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Bra. A deeper dive into their work would have been far more useful than a lifestyle coach’s monologue.

Toward the end, we’re treated to a street taste test in the UK featuring hot dogs and chicken nuggets—some meat-based, some plant-based. Not surprisingly, no one can tell the difference. This is presumably meant to demonstrate that shifting away from meat is entirely feasible. And while I appreciate the effort to encourage plant-based eating in a world still obsessed with meat protein, I keep coming back to the idea of letting vegetables be themselves.

Boiled cabbage may still smell like disappointment, and applesauce has never seduced me, but vegetables dressed up as meat feel like a gimmick. A dish like Pasta alla Norma—with its unapologetic eggplant, tomatoes, and ricotta salata—is a better argument for eating more plants than any nugget-shaped pea protein patty. On that, Dan Saladino—and Sicily—have it right.