Debunked by Nature: Exciting New Book by a Conservative Regenerative Farmer

I've been waiting for a book like this for years!

For over forty years, there’s been a stereotype that only liberals care about the environment. In a nation where the majority of rural people are conservative, that’s a big problem, because organic farming won’t ever become mainstream if conservative farmers feel like it’s a betrayal of their values. Fortunately, that stereotype is becoming less and less true every year, and there are, indeed, many conservative organic farmers—but that fact isn’t widely known.

That’s why I’m so excited about Mollie Engelhart’s new book, Debunked by Nature: How a Vegan-Chef-Turned-Regenerative-Farmer Discovered That Mother Nature Is Conservative (Acres U.S.A., 2025). In her colorful and poignant memoir, Mollie describes how she went from being the liberal founder of a successful vegan restaurant chain to a conservative regenerative farmer who now promotes grassfed beef. She describes how going back to the land and learning some hard lessons from nature (like keeping all the male ducks because they were so cute, only to be heartbroken when they all killed each other) challenged her liberal beliefs about how the world actually works.

When Mollie and her family moved to Fillmore, California, in 2018, she worried about the fact that her neighbors were more conservative than her liberal circle of friends in Los Angeles. Instead, she writes, “What I found were Christian homeschool moms ordering from Azure Standard like I did, raising their own food, people committed to health and freedom. There were Trump signs, sure—but the people weren’t villains. They were kind…The story I’d believed about who these people were just didn’t hold.”

The pivotal moment in Mollie’s life was the pandemic. When she decided not to get the experimental mRNA COVID vaccine, “my friends from the city began to turn on me.” As the pandemic dragged on, she was startled to discover that conservatives were often more concerned about environmental issues than the liberals. “I was confused,” she says. “Weren’t the Democrats supposed to be the ones who cared about the environment? About clean water? About corruption and corporate control? But all I heard was silence. Just crickets from the side I thought was mine.” That’s when she started calling herself a “radical centrist” and later a full conservative.

Mollie’s story doesn’t fit neatly into anyone’s stereotype, and there are some parts that will certainly raise eyebrows on both sides, though for different reasons. Becoming pro-life because God told her on a psychedelic mushroom journey to never have another abortion? Marrying an illegal immigrant, then advocating for border security to defund the smuggling cartels? Drinking raw cow’s milk after years of being a vegan because of a revelation that came while she was breastfeeding? But she handles even the most controversial issues with tact, humility, and honesty.

Whether you identify as liberal, conservative, or neither, Mollie’s book is for you. For liberals, here’s an enjoyable, nonconfrontational peek into what conservatives are really like—which is nothing like the stereotypes portrayed in the liberal media. For conservatives, here’s an encouraging and convicting manifesto of how caring for the earth and its creatures dovetails perfectly with conservative values. Debunked by Nature provides much-needed, long-overdue documentation of how an ever-growing number of conservatives are increasingly leading the charge for regenerative agriculture, healthy food, and environmental stewardship.