2025 Year in Review: Food, Health, and Hope Ahead

Here at Food Revolution Network, we wrestle with the interconnected crises of chronic disease, environmental impact, and food insecurity daily. And we’re intimately aware of the challenging realities we face as a species. But down in the trenches of advocacy, education, and networking, we’ve also seen incredible progress. The facts keep getting clearer. The solutions are becoming bolder. And the community of people fighting for a healthier, more sustainable world continues to grow.

The evidence is now overwhelming — as I documented in my 2025 article for the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine — that shifting toward plant-based food systems may be our most powerful lever for change.

So grab a cup of something warm, and let’s dive into what stood out in 2025, and why it matters for your plate, your community, and our shared future.

When Animal Agriculture Shows Its Cracks: Eggs, Beef, and Supply Shocks

iStock credit: RLT_Images

Food prices rose in 2025, but not uniformly. In the US, grocery prices climbed about 2%–3%, slightly more than overall inflation. What many families felt most, though, wasn’t steady inflation — it was the wild volatility of animal products.

Egg supply decreased with H5N1 bird flu outbreaks, leading to a staggering 53% price increase (including a 15% jump in January 2025 alone).

As of August 2025, beef prices were almost 14% higher than 12 months earlier, and both beef and veal prices were predicted to increase by another 10%–14% by the end of the year.

2025 was a reminder that animal-based foods are uniquely vulnerable to supply shocks, while plant staples remain steadier, reinforcing the financial resilience of eating lower on the food chain.

Hunger Didn’t Go Away — Even When Headlines Did

Even as inflation cooled and most food prices stabilized, food insecurity and hunger remained painfully widespread in 2025. The last time the US measured, in 2023, about 14% of households—roughly 47 million people, including nearly 1 in 5 children — were unable to buy enough calories to stave off hunger. Feeding America reported that, in that year, more than 50 million people in the US turned to the charitable food system.

Things haven’t improved: Real-time 2025 surveys indicate that just as many people in the US went hungry this year. Food banks continued to report heavy demand, while SNAP tightening and eligibility fights created new uncertainty.

Around the world, there was a slight improvement on average, but the situation worsened in Africa and Western Asia, where nutritious foods remained unaffordable for many. Conflicts and funding cuts in humanitarian aid have deepened crises in hotspots worldwide.

Hunger is driven more by economic and structural forces than personal choices. That said, centering a diet on plant-based staples remains one of the most powerful responses available — both for individuals and for the food system as a whole. For families, it’s a simple way to stretch a food budget while supporting health. At scale, shifting away from animal agriculture, which uses 83% of farmland to produce just 18% of calories, could free up vast amounts of land, water, and grain currently fed to livestock, helping address global food insecurity.

The Ultra-Processed Food Reckoning Finally Arrives

Data provided by UNICEF marked a troubling milestone: There are now more obese than underweight children globally, with the childhood obesity rate at almost 9.5%. For context, in 2000, the rate was just 3%.

Much of the blame for this epidemic can be laid at the feet of the manufacturers of ultra-processed foods (UPFs), which are now everywhere — not just in wealthy nations but also in low- and middle-income countries.

Policy Finally Catches Up

At the same time, there’s growing recognition that UPFs are a policy problem, not just a personal one. California passed the first US law to phase ultra-processed foods out of public-school meals over the next decade, while other states advanced bans on some artificial colorings and additives.

In a major milestone, Texas passed a groundbreaking food additive law requiring warning labels on foods containing 44 ingredients that are banned or discouraged in Europe, the UK, Canada, or Australia. The law will pressure manufacturers to reformulate or face fines starting in 2027. And the effects will likely be felt far beyond the Lone Star State, as food companies reformulate their product lines, since it’s easier and cheaper to adopt a single, cleaner formulation across all US and even global markets rather than maintaining different recipes for every state and country.

And then in late October 2025, US House of Representatives lawmakers introduced the Plant-Powered School Meals Pilot Act (H.R. 5867), which would create a voluntary 3-year United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) grant program to help school districts offer 100% plant-based food and milk options in National School Lunch/Breakfast programs. If enacted, it would fund procurement and training to increase the availability of plant-based entrées and non-dairy milks to students.

The Senate also advanced provisions to expand access to non-dairy milk in cafeterias without requiring medical paperwork, a quiet but meaningful inclusion win.

Hopefully, this is the beginning of a structural shift: making healthier choices the easiest choices — especially for kids.

Food as Medicine Gains Momentum

The attention given to UPFs mirrors a growing policy concern with the other end of the food spectrum: foods that can heal. In 2025, “Food is Medicine” became a widely recognized term. In essence, Food is Medicine is a series of policy initiatives currently being promoted at the state level across the US, aimed at making healthy food a key part of healthcare to help fight chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease. This includes programs like medically tailored meals and produce prescriptions through Medicaid and other health programs. Several states, including Delaware, Oregon, and North Carolina, are already testing these programs with strong support from their governors.

GLP-1 Drugs vs. Food-Based Solutions

The other reason obesity is a hot news item is that the increasing use of a class of drugs known as GLP-1 agonists has led to, for the first time in many decades, a decline in obesity rates in adults in the US. The drop wasn’t huge — from just under 40% in 2022 to 37% in 2025 — but it signaled what is hoped to be a sea change in effective weight management.

A big downside of these drugs, which include the rapidly-becoming-household-names Ozempic, Wegovy, Zepbound, and Mounjaro, is their cost, currently exceeding tens of billions of dollars annually. As FRN friend and summit presenter Susan Peirce Thompson reported in an article published in 2025 in the prestigious Frontiers of Psychiatry journal, similar — and in fact better — results can be obtained with food. Choosing and sticking with health-promoting foods can save money and provide better health outcomes without the side effects that often accompany GLP-1 agonists.

What Climate Change Actually Did to Farms in 2025

Intensifying climate extremes, from heat waves to droughts to floods, disrupted crop and livestock production worldwide. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization reports growing losses across cereals, produce, meat, and dairy as shocks exceed “normal variability.”

While end-of-year global grain totals looked strong overall, that average masked regional devastation and local price shocks.

Even though the ultimate impact of climate change, and the extent to which humans are causing it, is still fiercely debated in political circles, serious scientists are largely united in recognizing that climate change is real, that human activities are driving it, and that it is likely to cause massive disruption to human civilization within the next generation.

And it’s become increasingly clear that the harmful impact works in the other direction as well: Industrialized food production, particularly that of livestock, is a — if not the — major contributor to the galloping climate chaos. Which, in a way, is good news, because it means that reinventing agriculture can be part of an overall climate solution.

I’m proud to say that Food Revolution Network has been raising awareness about the impact of food on climate change since our founding in 2012. And we continue to raise our voice to inspire hearts, change minds, and shift policy.

How Federal Policy Made Farmers’ Lives Harder While Subsidizing the Wrong Foods

The US food system is already stressed, with wild price swings, fragile supply chains, and farmers struggling to survive in the face of razor-thin profit margins. Federal policies in 2025 have increased volatility across the system. In particular, tariffs raised input costs and triggered retaliation against farm exports, placing many farmers, who typically work under high stress and very thin margins, in significant financial difficulty.

Additionally, changes in immigration enforcement policy contributed to farm labor shortages, particularly for fruits and vegetables, leaving some crops unharvested and pushing farms toward lower-labor-intensity commodities.

On top of that, USDA climate-smart and conservation funding freezes — including the cancellation of the $3 billion climate-smart commodities program — slowed farming upgrades to resilience and efficiency, putting small farmers at increased risk of financial ruin.

Finally, huge cuts to Local Food for Schools and Local Food Purchase Assistance reduced stable markets for small and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) farmers and limited fresh food for schools and food banks.

On the positive side, the USDA launched a $700 million Regenerative Pilot Program in December 2025 to help farmers boost soil health and reduce erosion, signaling a major federal investment in regenerative agriculture as a strategy for both environmental and public health.

At the same time, the federal government increased subsidies by more than $50 billion for crops like corn and soy, which are a primary feed for US livestock.

While allegedly intended to support farmers, these subsidies make industrial animal agriculture and concentrated feeding operations appear more economically viable than they really are, shaping a food system that favors scale and uniformity over regional diversity, resilience, and produce-rich farming.

The Battle Over Saturated Fat: When Politics Trumps Science

Every year, researchers discover more about nutritional science, and, in an ideal world, their advances would be translated into government policies that promote public welfare. In 2025, things got complicated.

The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, supported by hundreds of scientists, doctors, dietitians, and statisticians, published a report to guide policy recommendations for the USDA and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

The report included new evidence supporting diets centered on whole plant foods and reduced consumption of red and processed meats. It reaffirmed decades of evidence that saturated fat should account for no more than 10% of daily calories and that people would be much better off replacing saturated fats with unsaturated fats from foods like nuts, seeds, avocados, and olive oil. For those worried about getting enough protein on a diet with less red meat, it highlighted beans, peas, and lentils as primary and healthful sources of protein.

In theory, the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee was supposed to make recommendations that would, in turn, guide the updated Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The newest update has not yet been released, but it is widely expected to be significantly influenced by political pressure. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., along with several HHS officials and aligned influencers, have circulated what the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has identified as misleading claims about the scientific process behind the Guidelines. Kennedy has publicly advocated for “ending the war on saturated fats” and is urging Americans to eat more full-fat dairy and meat.

What the Science Actually Says

Nutrition and public-health experts warn that this is bad advice, based on a selective reading of the science. The Center for Biological Diversity’s Health Organizations’ Recommendations on Saturated Fat compiles up-to-date guidance from major health bodies, including the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, American Cancer Society, American College of Cardiology, American College of Lifestyle Medicine, American Diabetes Association, American Institute for Cancer Research, American Heart Association, American Medical Association, American Public Health Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, National Cancer Institute, and the World Health Organization.

Their shared message is simple: Keep saturated fat low, and prioritize unsaturated fats and whole-plant foods to improve LDL and cut cardiovascular events.

Why This Matters for Public Health

CSPI argues that the nutritional rhetoric we may soon see in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans not only misrepresents the evidence but also places the responsibility for one’s health status solely on the individual, ignoring the structural barriers — such as poverty and food access — that prevent Americans from following the Guidelines. They tell us that stronger adherence to the existing recommendations, not political reinterpretation, is what’s most needed to improve public health.

The Solutions Strengthened

Even as hunger persisted and policy battles raged in 2025, something remarkable was happening: The evidence for plant-based solutions was mounting, and awareness was spreading faster than ever.

Compelling Research Linking Food and Planet

In 2025, I published a journal article in the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine (AJLM), outlining how plant‑based food systems can simultaneously reduce chronic disease, lower healthcare costs, cut greenhouse gas emissions, conserve water, and restore ecosystems. The paper synthesizes global evidence showing that shifting diets is one of the most powerful, scalable environmental and public health solutions available today.

Landmark Studies: Eating Lower on the Food Chain

One of the great things about 2025 was the publication of multiple landmark studies supporting what I argued in that AJLM article: that shifting toward plant-centered diets is among the most powerful steps we can take — as individuals and as a society — for both health and climate.

The EAT-Lancet “Planetary Health Diet”

The prestigious EAT-Lancet Commission published a powerful report touting the benefits of what they termed the “planetary health diet” — essentially a largely plant-based diet. The researchers presented compelling evidence that widespread adoption of such a diet could prevent millions of early deaths and dramatically cut carbon emissions, the leading contributor to global warming.

Every Step Down the Food Chain Matters

Researchers from Spain published a study that modeled the environmental impact of mass adoption of a vegan diet. They found that each step down the food chain, from animal products to plants, reduced carbon footprints. The vegan diet, at the bottom of the food chain, cuts impacts by nearly half.

Stanford Shows the Power of Reducing High-Impact Meats

Stanford’s Woods Institute for the Environment published new research showing that reducing high-impact meats (especially beef and lamb) delivers outsized wins. Specifically, shifting to a plant-based diet can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by close to 40%, conserve land and water resources, protect biodiversity, and improve overall diet quality.

Real-World Trial Confirms the Benefits

In November 2025, researchers published their environmental analysis of a randomized trial conducted 6 years earlier, in which participants were randomized to a vegan or omnivorous diet for 16 weeks. They found significant reductions in diet-related greenhouse gas emissions with a vegan diet.

Animal Agriculture: A Bigger Climate Driver Than We Thought?

A 2025 paper in Environmental Research Letters by climate scientist Gerard Wedderburn-Bisshop argues that the way we usually count climate pollution may actually understate agriculture’s role by a lot.

Wedderburn-Bisshop used advanced measurement techniques to conclude that agriculture is the leading driver of present-day warming, with animal agriculture responsible for most of agriculture’s impact.

Under this framework, animal agriculture is responsible for more than 50% of a metric called ERF, which measures how much a gas or activity warms or cools the Earth. Wedderburn-Bisshop concludes that animal agriculture accounts for just over half of warming to date — substantially more than fossil fuels — largely because of deforestation and methane production (not to put too fine a point on it, “cow burps and cow farts”).

While this interpretation is debated in the wider scientific community, it underscores a crucial point: If we want a livable climate, transforming our food system — and moving away from industrial animal agriculture — must be part of the solution.

What this means: Your plant-based choices aren’t just healthier — they’re climate action. Every time you choose beans over beef, you’re voting with your fork.

Plant-Based Change Is Economically and Socially Workable

Plant-based agricultural and dietary change is not only necessary but also economically and socially viable, as two major 2025 analyses have shown.

New research from the University of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute found that moving toward a more plant-based diet could create millions of jobs in the horticulture sector — provided there’s support for farmers and workers to transition out of animal-based agriculture.

And the World Business Council for Sustainable Development made the case that the 2025 EAT-Lancet update we looked at earlier matters for business resilience as well as planetary and human well-being. Companies that invest in plant-rich diets, regenerative production, and food-waste reduction are better positioned for a climate-strained future.

Eating Well Still Costs Less on a Plant-Centered Plate

Not only is plant-based eating better for individual and planetary health, but it’s also more economical than the standard industrialized diet. A 2025 grocery-cost analysis found that vegan and vegetarian grocery patterns were among the most affordable, with vegan shopping baskets averaging about $34/month less than omnivorous baskets — driven by replacing expensive animal foods with legumes, grains, and produce.

Plant-Based Popularity Keeps Rising — Despite Claims to the Contrary

The “big news” in some mainstream media about plant-based trends has been that early-generation meat substitutes lost momentum and didn’t take over the market for burgers, nuggets, and similar products. Despite this, 2025 shows continued momentum for plant-forward eating, especially among those calling themselves “flexitarians.”

No, that doesn’t mean they can touch their toes while eating. A flexitarian — the word is a portmanteau of “flexible” and “vegetarian” — is someone who follows a flexible, primarily plant-based diet, meaning they eat mostly vegetarian foods but occasionally include meat or other animal products.

And the ranks of the veg-curious also continue to grow; participation in “Veganuary” reached record scale in 2025, with more than 25 million people enjoying a vegan diet for January.

What Food Revolution Network Did in 2025

All of these shifts in schools, in policy, and in public awareness matter because they change what’s possible for millions of people. In 2025, we saw that possibility turn into measurable action within the Food Revolution Network community.

We Reached People Around the World

In 2025, millions of people turned to Food Revolution Network for guidance, inspiration, and trustworthy resources. Over the past 12 months, our website received 12 million page views, and 3.8 million unique readers explored articles, recipes, and expert insights to support healthier lives.

A Powerful Presence Across Social Media

This year, your engagement helped Food Revolution Network’s message echo far beyond our website. Across our social channels, our content generated 101.8 million impressions, reaching people with ideas that matter for their health and the planet.

We also welcomed 676,300 total followers across social media platforms and now reach more than 1 million members on our email list, strengthening a vibrant community committed to a healthier future.

Meaningful Growth in Our Plant-Based Coaching Certificate Program

50,474 people attended our Plant-Based Coaching Workshops
211 people joined the 2025 cohort of our Plant-Based Coaching Certificate program and are now on the path to bringing plant-based coaching to communities around the world

Masterclasses That Create Real Impact

Across all masterclasses combined, this year we welcomed 205,639 registrants to our masterclasses:

And each of those 205,639 registrants is someone taking a step toward greater vitality and confidence in their well-being.

Health Films That Inspire Change

Our free online film screenings (177,245 registrants) continued to resonate deeply this year — sparking conversations, motivating lifestyle shifts, and empowering people with life-changing information.

The Food Revolution Summit: Measurable Impact

The Food Revolution Summit brought together inspiring 372,000 attendees. Each person represents a story of learning, awakening, and transformation, and we’re grateful for every single participant.

We surveyed a small random sample of participants. As with any survey, responses skew toward people who were most engaged, and we only measured impacts on respondents—not the ripple effects on their friends and families. Still, the results offer a meaningful window into real-world change.

Here’s what we heard. Since attending the Summit:

88% said they feel more motivated to improve their food and health choices
More than half reported noticeable health improvements since the Summit, including better digestion, more energy, weight loss, lower blood pressure or cholesterol levels, and improved mood and mental clarity

We also saw a significant drop in red-meat intake:

6% are eating 6 fewer red-meat meals per week
13% are eating 4 fewer
12% are eating 1 fewer

If this data holds across the full Summit audience, that adds up to more than 18 million fewer red-meat meals per year. If those meals were replaced with beans or lentils, the environmental ripple effects would be huge:

Roughly 5 billion gallons of water saved (about a year of household water use for 167,000 Americans)
About 30 square miles of farmland freed up, with potential for forest or grassland restoration
Carbon emissions avoided: Equivalent to removing almost 44,000 cars from the road for a year

Most popular Blog Posts

Of the 104 articles published this year on our website, these were FRN’s most viewed blog articles in 2025:

2025’s Most Popular Recipes:

On the Front Lines of the Food Is Medicine Movement

The Food is Medicine movement is continuing to grow. While most doctors still do not learn much about nutrition in medical school, more and more of them are hungry for this knowledge and are taking it seriously once they encounter it.

The AMA Embraces Plant-Based Eating

In August of 2025, I attended the International Conference on Nutrition in Medicine, where I had the privilege of interviewing Dr. Bobby Mukkamala, the president of the American Medical Association. Dr. Mukkamala shared that the AMA, which represents physicians across the United States, is now endorsing a plant-based dietary pattern to help fight breast cancer and other chronic diseases.

That’s right — the AMA, which is as mainstream a health organization as you can find, is calling for hospitals to remove processed meat from their menus, to serve more plant-based options, and to encourage health care providers to be informed about the power of nutrition to help their patients get well. Dr. Mukkamala recently earned certification in lifestyle medicine. Hearing this kind of leadership from the head of the AMA gives me a lot of hope.

Speaking to Healthcare Providers

In September, I delivered a keynote at the International Conference on Plant-Based Nutrition. Standing in front of 500 healthcare providers, I shared how today’s doctors, nurses, and coaches play a profound and powerful role in advancing the food revolution in their clinics, hospitals, and communities.

In November, I had the privilege of speaking to Northern California Kaiser Permanente physicians as part of their continuing medical education Lifestyle Medicine Series. My presentation, The Intersection of Health and Planet, invited them to see every prescription, every meal, and every policy choice as part of a larger story about human health and the future of life on Earth.

The response was warm and engaged. I have since been invited to speak to additional Kaiser physician groups as part of Kaiser’s deep commitment to supporting lifestyle medicine among its 12 million members. Thanks in part to the organization’s focus on prevention and lifestyle medicine, Kaiser Permanente members are 33% less likely to experience premature death due to heart disease compared with nonmembers in their communities.

In 2025, I also had the joy of serving as a keynote speaker on the Holistic Holiday at Sea cruise. There, surrounded by people who had traveled from around the world to learn, heal, and play, I saw again how many lives are being changed by simple, powerful truths about food. From cruise ships to hospital systems to major medical conferences, the message is the same. Real, whole, plant-powered foods can help prevent, and in many cases even reverse, much of the chronic disease that is driving so much suffering today. And more leaders in health care are starting to listen.

You can find out more and register to join me on the 2026 cruise here.

A Personal Note: This Year I Lost My Father and Published Groundbreaking Research — Both Teaching Me That Legacy Lives in Action

On June 11, 2025, my father, John Robbins, left his earthly body after a profound life of 77 years.

For those who knew him through his books, his speaking, or his decades of advocacy, he was a visionary who walked away from the Baskin-Robbins ice cream empire to champion a radically different path — one centered on health, compassion, and the healing power of food. For me, he was also my colleague, my mentor, my coach in running and in life, and my beloved dad.

The last years of his life were marked by post-polio syndrome, a condition that slowly took away the physical strength he’d worked so hard to reclaim after childhood paralysis. Watching this brilliant, fit man lose his ability to walk, to move freely, to live without pain — it seemed unbearably unfair. And yet, in those final years, he cultivated a quality of acceptance and inner peace that was in some ways as powerful as any of his earlier activism.

My dad used to say that those who are not conversant in the language of gratitude can never be on speaking terms with happiness. In his final months, even as he lost so much, he leaned deeper into gratitude than I’d ever seen. He was grateful for every person who cared for him, for every moment of connection, for the legacy we’d built together at Food Revolution Network, and for the powerful community of kindred spirits working to build a more ethical, sane, and loving world.

When he died, I felt something I didn’t expect: His spirit wasn’t diminished by death — it was freed. Free from pain, free from trauma, free from the body that had become so heavy. And what remained felt pure: the love he’d learned, the meaning he’d created, the courage he’d lived.

Before he passed, he told me, “When I die, if I have the option, I want to be a force. I want to be a force for good and healing in this world.” I believe he is. I feel him as an ally now, not just for me, but for anyone touched by his message, his mission, his legacy of love in action.

In 2025, we launched the nonprofit Food Revolution Alliance to advance my dad’s legacy. More than 300 people made donations in my dad’s honor, and their gifts are helping us expand the work he loved: making healthy, ethical, sustainable food available and accessible for all.

My dad’s life proved that we don’t have to accept the world as it is. We can choose differently. We can walk away from harm and toward healing. We can make every bite an act of love — for ourselves, for each other, for the earth.

Now the torch is in all of our hands.

Find out more about his life and legacy on his memorial page, linked here.

Make a tax-deductible contribution to support his legacy through Food Revolution Alliance, here.

Ocean receives the Luminary award on behalf of John Robbins at the International Conference on Plant-Based Nutrition

The Torch Is in Our Hands

The year 2025 tested us. It also showed us our power.

The challenges we faced this year — from political battles over nutritional science and the persistent volatility of the global food system to the rising crisis of diet-related illness — are immense. But so is the progress we’ve seen, together.

The science is clearer than ever: from the landmark EAT-Lancet report to new peer-reviewed studies linking whole-food, plant-based diets to profound health and climate wins, the path forward is visible. We’re seeing systemic shifts, from California’s ultra-processed food phase-out to the rise of Food is Medicine initiatives.

And a lot of this forward momentum is powered by you.

Every ultra-processed and factory-farmed meal not eaten. Every child who learned to love vegetables. Every doctor newly trained in lifestyle medicine. That’s you. That’s us. That’s the revolution happening, on millions of plates.

It is powered by the people who joined the Food Revolution Summit, attended our masterclasses, saw our messages on social media, read our blog (hello, there!), signed up to become plant-based coaches, and collectively committed to personal changes while spreading the word within their own communities.

Hope isn’t a spectator sport; It is a direct result of the actions we take. It comes from the choices you make on your plate every single day.

Thank you for showing up with curiosity, courage, and compassion. Thank you for all the ways that you seek to align your actions with your deepest values. Together, we are building a future where healthy, ethical, and sustainable eating is normal, affordable, and joyful for all people and the planet.

In 2026, let’s keep going. For our health. For our kids. For the planet that makes it all possible.

Onward.

Tell us in the comments:

How has plant-based eating impacted your life this year?
What was your favorite FRN recipe, article, or program?

Food Revolution Network’s 2025 Year-in-Review

Ocean Robbins

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