Welcome to 2017, the year of the omnivore.

As we ring in 2017, one issue that’s poised to dominate many aspects of food and agriculture is the debate over the place of meat in the modern diet. This struggle strikes at our omnivorous nature, tugs at our heart strings, tempts our palates, challenges our intellects and presents myriad health impacts.

The more I learn about the impact that the world’s livestock practices have on world hunger and changing climate, the more foolhardy and selfish eating animal products appears to be – unless, perhaps, you’re raising or hunting your own, or purchasing from a operation that’s sensitive to its environmental footprint.

Not coincidentally, 2016 was the year that the veggie burger came into its own, largely on the back of the Impossible Burger. This plant-based, umami-rich burger sizzles and browns in the pan, and sheds plant-based red “blood” with each bite. Even the least apologetic of meat eaters have admitted to respecting it.

The fake animal product space has also exploded with the likes of vegan cheese alternatives made from cultured nuts, pink-hued fake shrimp and crab meat, nut and grain-based “milk” products like almond and soy, egg-free “mayo,” and every kind of vegan substitutes for egg, chicken and most every other flesh.

It’s not just vegans that are are into this stuff. Locavores, climatarians, ovo-lacto-paleo-bacon-vores, and good old-fashioned omnivorous are finding their way to animal product-free alternatives for entirely different reasons.

Me, I eat meat. Mostly wild game, for which I feel zero guilt, assuming the hunt goes well. While I don’t avoid animal products, for phlegm-related reasons I do limit my intake of mammal milk products. I know it isn’t cool to admit it, but I like soy milk. I like milk, too. And heavy cream. And cheese, though I long-ago settled on mayonnaise as my go-to cheese alternative. In recent years I’ve determined grapeseed oil Vegenaise is the best mayo on the market – unrelated to the fact that it doesn’t contain eggs.

The various animal products industries pushed back big time in 2016. Unilever, owner of the Hellman’s and Best Foods brands of mayo, took vegan food processor Hampton Creek to court for using the word “mayo” on the label. The National Dairy Council attempted, and failed, to make it illegal to use the word “milk” to describe nut – and grain-based substitutes. Makers of cultured nut products have lost their ability to label their products as “cheese.” It seems a matter of when and not if the beef industry goes after Impossible Burger over its use of the word “burger.”

While many vegetarian diets often attempt to re-create animal products, this is not to be confused with vegetable-based cuisine. Veg cookery doesn’t carry the implicit inferiority complex. It celebrates the qualities of the vegetable or plant part. So my final prediction for 2017: Don’t sleep on vegetables.

With each passing study, vegetables continue to accumulate almost zero baggage. The debate over the pros and cons of vegetables is nonexistent. Vegetables are good and not bad.

And luckily, one of 2016’s biggest food trends, one that will likely grow stronger in 2017, is the push to sell imperfect produce, or so-called “ugly” fruits and vegetables, at a discount. Like cage-free eggs, imperfect is available at Walmart.

But animals are not necessarily always all bad either. In fact, there is an increasingly solid argument to be made in favor of eating them. Some of them, anyway.

In 2016, public understanding and perceptions of fat continued to be turned inside out, especially saturated fat, which has long been assumed to be behind obesity and heart disease. This position is now being openly questioned, as expert opinion regards sugar as the primary dietary culprit behind obesity.

“Saturated fat” is a fancy way of saying “animal fat,” but with the one big exception: a pair of oils, coconut and palm, derived from closely related tree species. Saturated fats are increasingly understood to benefit brain health, as well as other crucial body functions. The relative merits of unsaturated fats, meanwhile – especially those found in grain-based oils like canola, safflower, sunflower and soy – seem to worsen the more we learn about omega-6 fatty acids, in which the oils are high. (Olive oil and other fruit and nut oils are in a vastly better category of plant oil, with more omega-3.)

Meanwhile, a vocal minority of ranchers are making the ecology-based case that certain landscapes can benefit from properly managed herds of certain ungulates. In the absence of buffalo and other native grazers, many ecosystems could spin out of control.

Rotational grazing, if done correctly, can result in healthier ecosystems and carbon sequestration, proponents claim. It’s a compelling vision, but even if it’s true, the cattle-carrying capacity of the landscape is much less under rotational grazing than under feedlot rules.

To recap: This will be the year of the fight over the word “burger” and a year of glory for plant parts. But amid the angst, celebration, and exploration of a plant-based diet, don’t be surprised if meat makes a little comeback. The places of meat and plants in an omnivorous animal in a modern context will continue to be a fluid, evolving situation in 2017.