How Nature Changed My Mind: The Story Behind Debunked by Nature

By Mollie Engelhart

How Nature Changed My Mind: The Story Behind Debunked by Nature

Changing my mind publicly was not easy—but it wasn’t exactly hard either.

For years, I was known as the vegan chef. It wasn’t just what I ate—it was who I was. It shaped how I saw the world, how I made my living, how people introduced me at events and described me online. I built my brand around it, opened four vegan restaurants, and poured my passion into plant-based cuisine.

But in 2018, something shifted. I wanted to bring our restaurant’s food waste back to the land. I wanted to close the loop between kitchen and soil. And to do that—I needed a farm.

That dream came true when we closed escrow on a beautiful piece of land in Fillmore, California. A place with live water winding through it. A place where you could hear the frogs sing and see the stars at night. I remember walking the land that first week, looking up at the sky and down at the earth, thinking: This is all God’s creation.

I was in awe. And in that place of awe, something interesting happened—ideology began to fall away. I wasn’t trying to prove anything. I was simply observing nature, as it was.

And what I saw changed everything.

Because in nature, veganism doesn’t exist.

Everything—plants, animals, fungi, microbes—participates in death. It’s not a failure. It’s a function of life. A holy one. I realized that no matter what we eat, death is involved. Carrots die. Bugs die. Mice get tilled up in the soil. Animals are displaced. Food is wasted. And even most organic crops—yes, the ones used in vegan diets—are grown using fertilizer that comes from the conventional feedlot system. That means industrial animal agriculture is already a hidden part of the food system, even for those trying to avoid it. The question wasn’t how to avoid death—it was how to honor it. How to live in right relationship with it.

And that was the beginning of the unraveling of my most firmly held belief.

I came to see that the answer wasn’t to avoid meat. The answer was to return to our role as the keystone species. To work with nature, not against her. To focus not on eliminating entire food groups from our plates, but on how animals are raised and how ecosystems are treated. Regeneration. Respect. Reverence. Integration.

That one realization cracked everything open. And when COVID hit, it was like the floodgates of new ideas opened in my mind. Suddenly, I was no longer trying to force the world to match my worldview. I was simply watching. Listening. Asking better questions.

Nature, it turns out, is not progressive in the modern sense. Nature is conservative—not politically, but functionally. She values order. Structure. Boundaries. Hierarchies. Interdependence. She reflects a kind of divine wisdom that we are just beginning to remember.

And in seeing that—my entire belief system began to shift.

That journey—raw, personal, challenging, liberating—is the story behind my new book, Debunked by Nature. It’s the story of how a vegan chef became a regenerative farmer. How the land itself taught me to think differently. How the death of my best friend, the stillness of a farm morning, and the lessons of soil, birth, animals, and God completely changed my life.

It’s not a book of answers. It’s a book of questions. And stories. And transformation.

I’m so excited that it’s coming out this September—and it’s available for pre-order now.

To those who have loved me for my soul and not just my beliefs—thank you. Beliefs shift. That’s what happens when we’re alive and open. When we’re brave enough to observe the world as it truly is, not just how we want it to be.

This is the journey of Debunked by Nature.

And I can’t wait to share it with you.

Learn more about Debunked by Nature!