> I don't think anyone would want to subsist exclusively on a diet of rice, beans, and dietary supplements.
I think this is a part of the problem in dominantly meat-eating cultures: they don't realize how diverse and nutritious plant life is. Treating meat and perhaps milk/eggs as real food and the rest as mostly fillers and in-betweens (I know I did).
Even without meat/milk/eggs/animal products, rice and beans, even barring all legumes and cereal grains, probably even barring all grains (e.g. amaranth, buckwheat, chia, quinoa, also sunflower, poppy, hemp..) there would still be enough plants life to have a diverse diet and probably even fully nutritiously sufficient diet without artificial supplements (a couple of micronutrients can be tricky, e.g. B₁₂).
Many, perhaps even most of the remaining diverse crops are currently notably more work to grow, but they should still have significantly less ecological impact than eating excessive amounts of meat.
I think this is a part of the problem in dominantly meat-eating cultures: they don't realize how diverse and nutritious plant life is. Treating meat and perhaps milk/eggs as real food and the rest as mostly fillers and in-betweens (I know I did).
Even without meat/milk/eggs/animal products, rice and beans, even barring all legumes and cereal grains, probably even barring all grains (e.g. amaranth, buckwheat, chia, quinoa, also sunflower, poppy, hemp..) there would still be enough plants life to have a diverse diet and probably even fully nutritiously sufficient diet without artificial supplements (a couple of micronutrients can be tricky, e.g. B₁₂).
Many, perhaps even most of the remaining diverse crops are currently notably more work to grow, but they should still have significantly less ecological impact than eating excessive amounts of meat.