Interview with Plant-Based Entrepreneur Jessica Schroeder
The vast majority of us eat about three times a day (perhaps more, if we’re on vacation). And for many, food is about more than simply surviving. We eat for pleasure, to transition into the next part of our day, to mark special occasions, to forge deeper connections with the people we’re sharing a meal with. Food is a central part of many lives.
What many don’t consider, though, is how the food they are consuming is not only affecting the longterm health of their body, but also, the longterm health of the world they inhabit. And yet, our bodies and our planet were both gifted to us by our Creator, given for us to steward thoughtfully and well. This is where Jessica Schroeder, a plant-based entrepreneur, comes in.
Many readers will know Jessica from her time on the Dear Wallflower podcast, which she cohosted with me throughout 2023. Since departing, Jessica has launched her own podcast, Eating for Eden, which takes a food-first approach to the important cause of climate action.
Recently, I sat down with Jessica to discuss her journey to becoming an advocate for plant-based eating, how faith and food intersect, and how we can each implement practices to better love our bodies and our world.
Read on for my full interview with Jessica.
Q: Tell us about your story and how you were inspired to take more seriously what you eat and put into your body.
A: I think it’s important to start off by saying that I’ve always had a rather complicated relationship with food. I’ve always loved food and enjoyed eating it, but I had a love-hate relationship with this reality. Especially as a female in our body-image-obsessed culture, my relationship with food was wrought with complexity. In short, I have not gone unaffected by this unhealthy cultural emphasis — and really, how many of us have been left untouched? All this to say, my journey was not necessarily easy, but it has become easier — and healthier — over time.
The turn to take more seriously what foods I ate came gradually, and the emphases shifted and compounded over time. I always cared to some extent whether what I ate was “healthy,” but I had formerly relied on hearsay and popular opinions. I went along with fads, as most of us do. If certain voices were claiming that there was no reason to fear saturated fat, I went along with the masses, happy to find a hot take that would baptize my taste preferences.
At one level, this journey began when I was working on my master’s thesis. Completing my MA in theology at the time, I was writing about food and joy. In our broken world, however, suffering is always an inevitable companion to joy. I could no longer turn a blind eye to the atrocities baked into the food industry. Those semesters of writing and the months to follow brought much agony around food. I hated going grocery shopping. It took me forever. I had a budget to stick to, I had hunger to satiate and a delight in food to satisfy, and I had newfound ethical obligations to consider. That initial part of my journey led me to choose more humanely produced animal products alongside a slight reduction of how much I ate simply because it was much costlier to support ethical practices.
Later on, I added the nutrition lens. This probably had the most significant impact on shaping my eating habits. Each week, I devoured hours-long podcast episodes interviewing all manner of experts on health and nutrition. It was clear: overconsumption of animal foods and processed foods was making us sick. Over time I emphasized whole and minimally processed plant foods, moving to eating predominantly “whole food plant based.”
Finally, I added on the environmental piece. As I learned about the nutritional benefits of eating plant based, I also heard and read about the planetary impact of this way of eating. These facts confirmed that eating less meat, dairy, and processed foods was a good idea. I have come to realize that what is best for our individual bodies is also what is best for the life of all creation.
Planetary health and human health are tied together — what benefits one tends to benefit the other. Likewise, what harms one typically harms the other. Discovering this wisdom was encouraging: why wouldn’t God’s world work in such a good and beautiful way?
Q: Detail for us how you believe that faith and food intersect and why it should be more important to us.
A: Let’s start in the beginning. When God created the heavens and the earth and all that is in them, he set humans as stewards of his Garden. What we do with — how we tend and what we take from — this Garden reveals what kinds of stewards we are. Too frequently, humanity has seen God’s creation as something to exploit for our own ends, with little thought to how our actions affect the rest of creation.
Food is both a source of nourishment and delight. We need it and we enjoy it. God has made us to require food and given us the ability to feed ourselves through what he provides. But we have choices. What’s more, most of us have at least three occasions a day in which we partake of food. This “everyday,” ordinary, even mundane fact of life is an occasion for us to live into our role as stewards, seeking to be faithful rather than exploitative. Part of being made in God’s image is that we stand in as representatives on God’s behalf. As we eat our “daily bread,” so to speak, we ought to keep some important questions at the forefront of our minds: How do our food choices reflect our relationship with God? What kind of stewards do our choices reveal us to be? Are we caring for God’s creation as he himself would?
Not to give much thought to what we eat is an act of willful ignorance. It is to turn a blind eye to something intrinsically woven into our call to be stewards. God has given us the gift of our bodies. He has also given us the gift of all creation. All is ultimately his; how are we taking care of it all?
Q: What are beginning ways that we can all implement practical ways to love our body and world more through the food we eat?
A: One of the most encouraging truths about all this is that what is best for our bodies is also best for creation. (Additionally, to add a third layer, what is best for our bodies and creation is also typically what is best for others, especially the most vulnerable.) So, we can love God, love neighbor, love creation, and love our own selves well by attending to the food we eat.
Starting with the low hanging fruit, I will offer two practical steps:
Reduce how much meat and dairy we eat (especially red meat). Environmentally, meat and dairy (again, especially red meat) are the largest greenhouse gas emitters. Beef in particular emits over 60 times more than protein-rich plant foods such as soy milk, peas, and nuts. Loving our bodies requires a reduction in animal products as well. Components that are prevalent in most animal foods such as saturated fat, heme iron, and dietary cholesterol are linked to negative health outcomes. Those who consume the least of these fair better in the long term.
Focus on creatively enjoying a diversity of whole plant foods. Eat a variety of textures, colors, and varieties of whole plants. This both embraces a wealth of nutritionally dense foods and avoids both the highest emitters and the foods that promote ill health. Additionally, this approach fosters an abundance mindset rather than one of scarcity. Instead of focusing on what you “can’t” or “shouldn’t” eat, crowd out the animal products by celebrating and embracing and abundance of delightful plant foods.
By doing these two things you will reduce your food-related carbon footprint and likely improve your bodily health. A bonus practical step readers can take is to make intentional plant-based swaps for animal products, with the caveat to choose whole plant foods and minimally processed products (e.g., soy milk, oat milk, tofu, tempeh, etc.) rather than highly processed alternatives. While there is evidence that even highly processed plant-based meat alternatives are better for health than organic, grass-fed meats, it is far better to eat whole and minimally processed forms of protein rich plants instead (think beans, lentils, tofu, etc.).
Q: Here at Wallflower, we always ask our women of note what their favorite book is. What’s yours?
A: That’s a tough one. There are so many good books out there! Especially across various genres. I’ll go with fiction. As much as I adore Les Misérables, and could easily claim that as my favorite, I think I will say George Eliot’s novel Middlemarch. Middlemarch is rich with character development, plot twists, and beautiful encounters with deeply human matters like virtue and longing. More than that, Eliot is a master of the English language and of the inner workings of the human heart. She has an uncanny way of describing the human plight. She captures experiences, desires, and thoughts in words that make the reader feel deeply seen and known. I’ll stumble across sentences, even paragraphs, in which she brings form to the most intimate thoughts of my heart — sometimes even to the silliest, fleeting considerations — things I never would have been able to put into words myself. Dear readers: don’t be deterred by the length; Middlemarch is worth every minute you’ll spend reading it, and you won’t be able to put it down.
Q: Tell us about any new projects you’ve been working on.
A: I’m so glad you asked! I just launched a podcast focusing on a food-first approach to climate action. I’ve called it Eating for Eden and episode 001 was released on Earth Day (April 22) 2024. While I care deeply about both the nutritional and planetary sides of what we eat, I decided to focus this podcast on climate action for two primary reasons: (1) there are already great resources out there talking about the benefits of plant-based eating for human health, and (2) there seems to be a notable lack of resources focusing on practical ways that our food choices affect the current climate crisis. My goal with this podcast is to provide short, digestible episodes that are both informative and practical. I want listeners to walk away having learned something new and equipped with one or more clear actions they can take to make a difference in their lives today.