# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
If you're an environmentally aware meat-eater, you probably carry at least a little guilt to the dinner table. The meat on our plates comes at a significant environmental cost through deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions, and air and water pollution - an uncomfortable reality, given the world's urgent need to deal with climate change.

That's a big reason there's such a buzz today around a newcomer to supermarket shelves and burger-joint menus: products that look like real meat but are made entirely without animal ingredients. Unlike the bean- or grain-based veggie burgers of past decades, these "plant-based meats," the best known of which are Impossible Burger and Beyond Meat, are marketed heavily toward traditional meat-eaters. They claim to replicate the taste and texture of real ground meat at a fraction of the environmental cost.

If these newfangled meat alternatives can fill a large part of our demand for meat - and if they're as green as they claim, which is not easy to verify independently - they might offer carnivores a way to reduce the environmental impact of their dining choices without giving up their favorite recipes.

That could be a game-changer, some think. "People have been educated a long time on the harms of animal agriculture, yet the percentage of vegans and vegetarians generally remains low," says Elliot Swartz, a scientist with the Good Food Institute, an international nonprofit organization that supports the development of alternatives to meat. "Rather than forcing people to make behavior changes, we think it will be more effective to substitute products into their diets where they don't have to make a behavior switch."

There's no question that today's meat industry is bad for the planet. Livestock account for about 15 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions both directly (from methane burped out by cattle and other grazing animals and released by manure from feedlots and pig and chicken barns) and indirectly (largely from fossil fuels used to grow feed crops). Indeed, if the globe's cattle were a country, their greenhouse gas emissions alone would rank second in the world, trailing only China.

Worse yet, the United Nations projects that global demand for meat will swell by 15 percent by 2031 as the world's increasing - and increasingly affluent - population seeks more meat on their plates. That means more methane emissions and expansion of pastureland and cropland into formerly forested areas such as the Amazon - deforestation that threatens biodiversity and contributes further to emissions.

Not all kinds of meat animals contribute equally to the problem, however. Grazing animals such as cattle, sheep and goats have a far larger greenhouse gas footprint than non-grazers such as pigs and chickens. In large part that's because only the former burp methane, which happens as gut microbes digest the cellulose in grasses and other forage.

Pigs and chickens are also much more efficient at converting feed into edible flesh: Chickens need less than two pounds of feed, and pigs need roughly three to five pounds, to put on a pound of body weight. (The rest goes to the energy costs of daily life: circulating blood, moving around, keeping warm, fighting germs and the like.) Compare that to the six to 10 pounds of feed per pound of cow.

As a result, the greenhouse gas emissions of beef cattle per pound of meat are more than six times those of pigs and nearly nine times those of chicken. (Paradoxically, grass-fed cattle - often thought of as a greener alternative to feedlot beef - are actually bigger climate sinners, because grass-fed animals mature more slowly and thus spend more months burping methane.)

Building fake meat

Plant-based meats aim to improve on that dismal environmental performance. Stanford University biochemist Pat Brown, for example, founded Impossible Foods after asking himself what single step he could take to make the biggest difference environmentally. His answer: Replace meat.

To do that, Impossible and its competitors basically deconstruct meat into its component parts, then build an equivalent product from plant-based ingredients. The manufacturers start with plant protein - mostly soy for Impossible, pea for Beyond, and potato, oat or equivalent proteins for others - and add carefully selected ingredients to simulate meat-like qualities. Most include coconut oil for its resemblance to the mouthfeel of animal fats, and yeast extract or other flavorings to add meaty flavors. Impossible even adds a plant-derived version of heme, a protein found in animal blood, to yield an even more meat-like appearance and flavor.

All this requires significant processing, notes William Aimutis, a food protein chemist at North Carolina State University, who wrote about plant-based proteins in the 2022 Annual Review of Food Science and Technology. Soybeans, for example, are typically first milled into flour, and then the oils are removed. The proteins are isolated and concentrated, then pasteurized and spray-dried to yield the relatively pure protein for the final formulation. Every step consumes energy, which raises the question: With all this processing, are these meat alternatives really greener than what they seek to replace?

To answer that question, environmental scientists conduct what's known as a life cycle analysis. This involves taking each ingredient in the final product - soy protein, coconut oil, heme and so forth - and tracing it back to its origin, logging all the environmental costs involved. In the case of soy protein, for example, the life cycle analysis would include the fossil fuels, water and land needed to grow the soybeans, including fossil fuel emissions from the fertilizer, pesticides and transportation to the processing plant. Then it would add the energy and water consumed in milling, defatting, protein extraction and drying.

Similar calculations would apply to all the other ingredients, and to the final process of assembly and packaging. Put it all together, and you end up with an estimate of the total environmental footprint of the product.

Unfortunately, not all those numbers are readily available. For many products, especially unique ones like the new generation of plant-based meats, product details are secrets closely held by the companies involved. "They will know how much energy they use and where they get their fat and protein from, but they will not disclose that to the general public," says Ricardo San Martin, a chemical engineer who codirects the Alternative Meats Lab at the University of California, Berkeley. As a result, most life cycle analyses of plant-based meat products have been commissioned by the companies themselves, including both Beyond and Impossible. Outsiders have little way of independently verifying them.

Even so, those analyses suggest that plant-based meats offer clear environmental advantages over their animal-based equivalents. Impossible's burger, for example, causes just 11 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions that would come from an equivalent amount of beef burger, according to a study the company commissioned from the sustainability consulting firm Quantis. Beyond's life cycle analysis, conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan, found their burger's greenhouse gas emissions were 10 percent of those of real beef.

Indeed, when independent researchers at Johns Hopkins University decided to get the best estimates they could by combing through the published literature, they found that in the 11 life cycle analyses they turned up, the average greenhouse gas footprint from plant-based meats was just 7 percent of beef for an equivalent amount of protein. The plant-based products were also more climate-friendly than pork or chicken - although less strikingly so, with greenhouse gas emissions just 57 percent and 37 percent, respectively, of those for the actual meats.

Similarly, the Hopkins team found that producing plant-based meats used less water: 23 percent that of beef, 11 percent that of pork and 24 percent that of chicken for the same amount of protein. There were big savings, too, for land, with the plant-based products using 2 percent that of beef, 18 percent that of pork and 23 percent that of chicken for a given amount of protein. The saving of land is important because, if plant-based meats end up claiming a significant market share, the surplus land could be allowed to revert to forest or other natural vegetation; these store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and contribute to biodiversity conservation. Other studies show that plant-based milks offer similar environmental benefits over cow's milk (see Box).

A caution on cultivation methods

Of course, how green plant-based meats actually are depends on the farming practices that underlie them. (The same is true for meat itself - the greenhouse gas emissions generated by a pound of beef can vary more than tenfold from the most efficient producers to the least.) Plant-based ingredients such as palm oil grown in plantations that used to be rainforest, or heavily irrigated crops grown in arid regions, cause much more damage than more sustainably raised crops. And cultivation of soybeans, an important ingredient for some plant-based meats, is a major contributor to Amazon deforestation.

However, for most ingredients it seems likely that even poorly produced plant-based meats are better, environmentally, than meat from well-raised livestock. Plant-based meats need much less soy than would be fed to actual livestock, notes Matin Qaim, an agricultural economist at the University of Bonn, Germany, who wrote about meat and sustainability in the 2022 Annual Review of Resource Economics. "The reason we're seeing deforestation in the Amazon," he explains, "is because the demand for food and feed is growing. When we move away from meat and more toward plant-based diets, we need less area in total, and the soybeans don't necessarily have to grow in the Amazon."

But green as they are, plant-based meats have a few hurdles to clear before they can hope to replace meat. For one thing, plant-based meats currently cost an average of 43 percent more than the products they hope to replace, according to the Good Food Institute. That helps to explain why plant-based meats account for less than 1 percent of meat sales in the US. Advocates are optimistic that the price will come down as the market develops, but it hasn't happened yet. And achieving those economies of scale will take a lot of work: Even growing to a mere 6 percent of the market will require a $27 billion investment in new facilities, says Swartz.

Steak hasn't yet been well done

In addition, all of today's plant-based meats seek to replace ground-meat products like burgers and chicken nuggets. Whole-muscle meats like steak or chicken breast have a more complex, fibrous structure that the alt-meat companies have not yet managed to mimic outside the lab.

Part of the problem is that most plant proteins are globular in shape, while real muscle proteins tend to form long fibers. To form a textured meat-like product, scientists essentially have to turn golf balls into string, says David Julian McClements, a food scientist at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and an editor of the Annual Review of Food Science and Technology. There are ways to do that, often involving high-pressure extrusion or other complex technology, but so far no one has a whole-muscle product ready for market. (A fungal product, sold for decades in some countries as Quorn, is naturally fibrous, but its sales have never taken off in the US. Other companies are also working on meat substitutes based on fungal proteins.)

McClements is experimenting with another approach to make plant-based bacon: creating separate plant-based analogs of muscle and fat, then 3D-printing the distinctive marbling of the bacon. "I think we've got all the elements to put it together," he says.

Some critics also note that a shift toward plant-based meat may reinforce the industrialization of global food systems in an undesirable way. Most alternative meat products are formulated in factories, and their demand for plant proteins and other ingredients favors Big Agriculture, with its well-documented problems of monoculture, pesticide use, soil erosion and water pollution from fertilizer runoff. Plant-based meats will reduce the impact of these unsustainable farming practices, but they won't eliminate them unless current farming practices change substantially.

Of course, all the to-do about alternative meats overlooks another dietary option, one with the lowest environmental footprint of all: Simply eat less meat and more beans, grains and vegetables. The additional processing involved in plant-based meats means that they generate 4.6 times more greenhouse gas than beans, and seven times more than peas, per unit of protein, according to the Hopkins researchers. Even traditional, minimally processed plant protein such as tofu beats plant-based meats when it comes to greenhouse gas. Moreover, most people in wealthy countries eat far more protein than they need, so they can simply cut back on their protein consumption without seeking out a replacement.

But that option may not appeal to the meat-eating majority today, which makes alternative meats a useful stopgap. "Would I prefer that people were eating beans and grains and tofu, and lots of fruits and vegetables? Yes," says Bonnie Liebman, director of nutrition at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy organization supporting healthy eating.

"But there are a lot of people who enjoy the taste of meat and are probably not going to be won over by tofu. If you can win them over with Beyond Meat, and that helps reduce climate change, I'm all for it."

Plant-based milks

Meat isn't the only source of animal protein with a high environmental cost. Dairy, too, causes large emissions of greenhouse gas from cud-chewing cows and sheep, and from growing feed. Here, too, plant-based alternatives, many of which are already mainstream options in the grocery store, may be an environmentally friendlier alternative - in some ways, at least.

Just how much friendlier they are, though, depends on how you measure their footprint. One option is to express environmental costs per quart of milk. By that measure, all plant-based milks shine. Soy milk, for example, requires just 7 percent as much land and 4 percent as much water as real milk, while emitting only 31 percent as much greenhouse gas. Oat milk needs 8 percent of the land and 8 percent of the water, while releasing just 29 percent as much greenhouse gas. Even almond milk - often regarded as a poor choice because almond orchards guzzle so much fresh water - uses just 59 percent as much water as real milk.

But not all plant-based milks deliver the same nutrient punch. While soy milk provides almost the same amount of protein as cow's milk, almond milk provides only about 20 percent as much - an important consideration for some. On a per-unit-protein basis, therefore, almond milk actually generates more greenhouse gas and uses more water than cow's milk.
- Bob Holmes
Lea en español

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Marketed to meat lovers, plant-based burgers like Impossible and Beyond claim to taste like the real thing and to have far lighter environmental footprints. Here's what the numbers have to say.

# data[].attributes.body
https://impossiblefoods.com/sustainable-food/burger-life-cycle-assessment-2019

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Prepared by: Sofia Khan (Quantis), Jon Dettling (Quantis), Cristóbal Loyola (Quantis), Joshua Hester (Quantis), Rebekah Moses (Impossible Foods)

OVERVIEW

This year, we launched a new recipe for the Impossible Burger. We enlisted Quantis(opens in a new tab) to evaluate the environmental benefit of choosing an Impossible Burger over a burger from a cow, using science-based life cycle assessment (LCA). Here are the findings -- to be incorporated into our strategy and shared with the world.

Dietary choices can meaningfully reduce overall environmental impact. Our current livestock farming system pushes many environmental thresholds past what can be considered sustainable or scalable. Animal farming occupies about half of all vegetated land (at the expense of forests and grasslands that store carbon), uses about one third of all freshwater, contributes about one seventh of global GHGs and generates nutrient pollution2 (which creates enormous 'dead zones' in coastal ecosystems). In the US, beef provides just 3% of our calories but generates half of agricultural greenhouse gases and uses nearly half of the contiguous land area.1

To implement strategies needed to keep global warming below a 1.5 °C rise -- as adopted by the 2016 Paris Agreement(opens in a new tab) -- we need truly sustainable options that can satisfy the growing consumer demand for meat and dairy.

Enter the Impossible Burger®, made from plants. The average American eats approximately three burgers worth of ground beef per week, equivalent to 50 billion burgers per year. The Impossible Burger was made for this market -- made with the same nutrition, flavor, aroma, and "beefiness" as meat from a cow, but made entirely from plants and with a vastly reduced environmental impact.

HOW IT WORKS

LCAs should be considered within the broader ecological cost of relying on livestock for meat and dairy. Our LCA methodology compares the potential environmental impacts of Impossible Burger® and conventional, industrial ground beef burger -- from farm field to manufacturing gate. Here are the results per kilogram of frozen, ready-to-ship burger patty:

Compared to conventional ground beef, the Impossible Burger® reduces environmental impacts across every impact category studied in this report -- 87% less water, 96% less land, 89% fewer GHG emissions, and 92% less aquatic pollutants.

Table 1. Baseline results for a kg of Impossible Burger® and beef burger (IMPACT 2002+ v2.28).

IMPACT INDICATORS

The most significant life-cycle stages for the Impossible Burger® in terms of positive impact are ingredient production and manufacturing -- with packaging adding negligible contributions to all impact categories. For both products, the raw material production stage contributes the most to total environmental impact across the four impact indicators: aquatic eutrophication, global warming potential (measured by greenhouse gas emissions), land occupation and water consumption.

Impacts in the field are more significant than impacts from transit or production:

Figure 1: Results comparison of Impossible Burger® and Beef Burger (Impact 2002+ v2.28).

CONCLUSION

There are clear environmental benefits to replacing conventional ground beef with Impossible Burger®. When consumers choose an Impossible Burger® over a conventional ground beef burger, they reduce environmental impacts across every impact category studied in this report between 87% and 96%.

Market interventions will be necessary to reduce our reliance on animal farming and attachment to resource-intensive products like steak and sausage. The growth of the plant-based sector is critical. Only with appealing, viable plant-based options like the Impossible Burger will we be able to feed our world and keep climate and biodiversity within safe thresholds for our planet.

REFERENCES

QUESTIONS?

Reach out to us at [email protected]

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Impossible Burger Environmental Life Cycle Assessment 2019

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Prepared by: Sofia Khan (Quantis), Jon Dettling (Quantis), Cristóbal Loyola (Quantis), Joshua Hester (Quantis), Rebekah Moses (Impossible Foods) This year, we launched a new recipe for the Impossible Burger. We enlisted Quantis(opens in a new tab) to evaluate the environmental benefit of choosing an Impossible Burger over a burger from a cow, using science-based life cycle assessment (LCA).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
2019 has been an incredible year for a niche industry: alternative meats.

First, Impossible Foods, a leading creator of plant-based meatlike burgers, announced the Impossible Burger 2.0, an improved recipe over previous meat substitutes that tastes, well, a lot meatier. In April, Burger King announced the launch of the Impossible Whopper, Qdoba said it would make Impossible Meat bowls and tacos available at all of its US locations, and Del Taco announced it would offer Beyond Meat's beef alternative.

And in May, investors jumped aboard the bandwagon, big time. Beyond Meat went public, initially selling its stock for $25, and has since seen it jump to an astounding $80- which means the company now has a market capitalization of more than $5 billion. Impossible Foods closed an additional $300 million in investor funding.

Meat alternatives are clearly having a moment - and it's offering us a glimpse into a different future for meat. Every year, more than 9 billion animals in the US are raised and killed on factory farms. Our factory farm system has contributed to a range of problems, from increasing antibiotic resistance to the climate crisis. Proponents of meat alternatives say they could help change that equation.

Let's sort the hype from the reality. Here are nine questions you might have had about meatless meat products and their leap to the mainstream.

1) What are meat alternatives? Veggie burgers have been around for a while - are these new products any different?

Meat alternatives aren't new. There have been veggie burgers available in grocery stores for a long time.

But the meatless meat products on the market today are different in one important way: An alternative meat, like a Beyond Meat burger or the Impossible Burger, is a product made from plants that is meant to taste like meat, be marketed to meat-eating customers, and replace some of those customers' meat purchases. That's what makes them different from veggie burgers, which have typically been aimed mostly at vegetarians.

There's another kind of meat alternative on the horizon: so-called cell-based (or lab-grown, or cultured) meat products are made from real animal cells but are grown in a food production plant instead of taken from animals raised in captivity and slaughtered for consumption. These aren't on the market yet - and some are skeptical that they'll work out - but they aremeat alternatives too, and they might be part of the big picture as we try to move away from relying on factory farming to supply the meat consumers want. (More on them below.)

Caroline Bushnell oversees retail research at the Good Food Institute, a nonprofit that works to promote meat alternatives. "Veggie burgers have been around for many decades," she told me. "Plant-based meats are still just getting started. The next generation is really designed for meat eaters, so the stakes are higher for what the products need to deliver on. People really like the taste of meat. Instead of trying to convince them to eat a kale and quinoa bowl, why not try to make meat for them in a better way?"

The rise of meat alternatives was driven, researchers and marketing experts told me, by one realization: that alternative meats didn't have to be a niche product just for vegans or vegetarians, who make up about 3 percent of the US population. There are lots of Americans who are meat eaters and always will be, but who are up for trying plant-based products as long as they're tasty, cheap, and nutritious. Those consumers, not vegetarians and vegans, would be the target of the next generation of meat alternatives.

The teams behind meat alternatives work to ensure their products have the flavor, macronutrient balance, and cooking experience of meat. The Impossible Burger famously bleeds, thanks to a meat protein called heme, which the company produces from yeast.

The leading companies that produce meatless meat products have actually gone out of their way to make sure their products won't be tarred as just for vegetarians. Burger King's Impossible Whopper, for example, comes slathered in mayo - not vegan at all - and when I went to get an Impossible Burger at a San Francisco restaurant, nearly every selection paired it with bacon bits.

So that's the big difference: Veggie burgers are a niche product targeted toward vegetarians. But the makers of meatless meat are betting they can find their way onto everyone's plate.

2) Okay, but do they actually taste like meat?

Some of the leading meat alternatives on the market today are burgers, ground beef, and sausages from two companies: Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat.

"Both companies have really led with taste," Zak Weston, an analyst at the Good Food Institute, told me. Everyone agrees that taste will be the big make-or-break factor for these companies. Does their meat really, actually taste like meat?

Food reviewers have delivered mixed verdicts so far. Reviewers at Food & Wine loved the Beyond Burger and Impossible Burger, and were less impressed with more traditional veggie burgers. The Washington Post's Tim Carman wrote, "the Impossible Whopper patty, all by itself, has more flavor than the meaty one," though he noted that while you can't tell the difference on the first bite, you can tell eventually.

Adam Rothbarth at Thrillist was l ess impressed, writing that his burger had been overcooked and as a result, "it's very one-note in its flavor and texture ... the question shouldn't be whether it tastes like a Whopper (it does), it should be whether it tastes good (not especially)."

It's fair to say that we're at the point where whether Beyond Meat or Impossible Meat taste like meat to a given person depends on that person, and the specifics they pay attention to in their food experience. It's good enough for some, but not good enough for all - yet.

3) I've been hearing a lot about meatless meat lately. Why now?

Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat have both grabbed a lot of headlines in the past few months. Impossible scored a partnership with Burger King to offer meatlessWhoppers. Burger King joined White Castle, which sells Impossible Foods sliders, and Carl's Jr., which sells burgers from Impossible Foods' competitor Beyond Meat. Del Taco announced it'll offer Beyond Meat too. And Qdoba announced that it will offer the Impossible Bowl and the Impossible Taco at all its US locations.

The two companies have also gotten attention in the financial pages. Beyond Meat's stock surged after its IPO in early May; Impossible Foods raised $300 million in more funding and may be looking at an IPO itself.

What happened, and how did it happen so fast? Experts told me they see a virtuous cycle, where consumers - more concerned with health and sustainability than ever before - demand the products, which then feeds publicity, which then fuels more customer demand.

Ricardo San Martin, who studies meat alternatives at UC Berkeley, told me that many restaurants and food manufacturers had been waiting to see whether the popularity of plant-based meat was a fad. As consumer interest has grown, "companies have become more aware that this is here to stay" - and they're placing their own orders. That generates more publicity, which makes more consumers interested in the products and convinces other companies that the trend is for real.

Michele Simon, the executive director of the Plant Based Foods Association, saw the same pattern - that publicity meant more consumers were aware of the products, which increased demand.

"It's a combination of increased consumer interest in healthier eating in general, and then combined with innovation and an explosion of more great-tasting meat alternatives for consumers to choose from. With that has come the mainstreaming of these types of foods," Simon told me.

Now the burst of publicity is "getting consumers more familiar and breaking down some of the myths around them, like that they won't taste good, that you're sacrificing something by giving up conventional meat."

4) Is eating meatless meat healthier than eating actual meat?

In general, eating vegetables is good for you. So many people might think it's obvious that plant-based meat is healthier than regular meat. But that's not quite true.

Plant-based meat is absolutely safe - but it's not a health food. While there's a lot of uncertainty in nutrition science, and meatless meat may avoid the cancer risks of red meat, for the most part, it isprobably about as good for you as the meat it's imitating.

San Martin called the assumptions about health effects a major misconception about plant-based foods. "Plant-based means it's of ingredients that come from plants," he told me, but that doesn't mean you're eating a salad - "they are processed foods." As a result, they're likely less healthy than unprocessed veggies.

Moreover, most meat alternatives attempt to imitate meat as closely as possible, including in macronutrient profile and calorie content. That's because meatless meat makers want consumers to know what they're getting. If eating a Beyond Burger was not nearly as filling as eating a real burger, that would probably leave consumers dissatisfied (indeed, a Beyond Burger provides the same amount of protein as a beef burger). As a result, there's only so much that meat alternatives can do to be healthier than animal-based meat products.

That's not to say there are no health benefits at all. Some people report sensitivities to the growth hormones or antibiotics fed to cows that then make it into burgers and steaks, a problem that plant-based meats don't have. Plant-based meat should be able to avoid worries about food poisoning from undercooking and mad cow disease entirely. But ultimately, if you're ordering a Whopper at Burger King, it's not going to be health food, even if it's an Impossible Whopper.

Some people have raised health concerns specific to meatless meats - for example, worrying that the heme in Impossible Foods could somehow be harmful. There is no reason to worry on those grounds.

Beyond Meat doesn't use GMOs and other ingredients that health-conscious consumers often fret about. (To be clear, there are no signs that GMOs are dangerous to consumers, but many of the health-conscious consumers Beyond Meat caters to may nonetheless be wary of it.) Beyond's products are also soy-free and gluten-free, which similarly have no known health impacts for the typical person but are priorities for health-conscious consumers.

The Impossible Burger "bleeds" like meat because it uses heme, a protein found in red meat that Impossible Foods grows from yeast. Some analysts raised worries that the Impossible Burger might, due to the heme, have the same negative health effects - like elevated risk of cancer and heart attacks - sometimes associated with red meat. An exhaustive review of the nutrition literature by Business Insider last year found that there are no signs heme is the reason red meat has those effects.

So plant-based meat products are safe, and they are likely at least as healthy as the products they're replacing. But if you're hoping for a burger that's as good for you as a salad, food science still has a long way to go. Of course, maybe that's beside the point. "The real point of comparison is a meat burger, not a bowl of broccoli," Weston told me. By that standard, meatless meat is perfectly fine.

5) Is meatless meat better for the environment than regular meat?

Yes - meatless meat can make a huge difference for the environment by almost every metric, including land use, water use, and fighting climate change. Right now, however, it's too small a share of the market to significantly impact those problems.

A big driver of interest in meat alternatives is meat's effect on the environment. Livestock cultivation is one of the most greenhouse gas-intensive activities out there.

This is the driving motivation of Pat Brown, the CEO of Impossible Foods. In a recent interview with Business Insider, asked why he cares so much about replacing meat, he said, "We are now in the advanced stages of the biggest environmental catastrophe that our planet has ever faced, and overwhelmingly the largest driver of that is animal-based food technology." (In fact, a bout 15 percent of greenhouse gas emissions are from livestock.)

Plant-based foods have the potential to have a vastly lower carbon footprint. In general, you have to feed an animal 10 calories of plants to get one calorie of meat, so you can expect plant-based foods to have about a tenth the carbon costs of animal-based foods.

That's an extremely rough guideline, but it's surprisingly close to the results you get from a much more careful calculation. An analysis of the Impossible Burger 2.0found that its carbon footprint is 89 percent smaller than a burger made from a cow. It also uses 87 percent less water and 96 percent less land. That's an improvement from the 1.0,and Impossible Foods hopes it can slice the carbon footprint even more as it scales its operations.

So there's potential for meatless meat to make a huge difference for the environment. But the analysts I spoke to raised one major point of skepticism: scale.

Right now, the entire meatless meat industry makes up less than 1 percent of the product volume of the meat industry. Yes, it's growing fast, and yes, it's in the headlines, but nearly all meat sold in the US and worldwide is traditional meat. As long as meatless meat remains a niche industry, it simply can't affect the climate because it's too small to matter.

Christie Lagally, the CEO of Seattle Food Tech, which makes meatless chicken, told me, "If you're going to make any impact on the amount of chicken in the world, and address all the health and environmental concerns, you have to be able to make chicken at scale." Until then, all these restaurant announcements and all these taste tests won't have the slightest effect on climate change. "One of the big concerns in the plant-based meat industry is that it really does have to scale," Lagally told me. "Being able to redesign how manufacturing occurs for plant-based meat is what will make it work."

Scale is the big challenge for Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat too. Both companies cited it as a motivation for their recent efforts to raise more money. "We had tough years both 2017 and 2018 because we weren't able to keep in stock," Seth Goldman, the executive chair of Beyond Meat, told me. "One of the reasons we raised this money" - that is, the hundreds of millions raised in Beyond Meat's successful IPO - "was to address these problems."

If they succeed, and if meatless meat becomes a significant share of the meat market, then the returns for climate change could be enormous. But the transition from novelty product to consumer staple isn't easy, and there's a lot that could still go wrong along the way.

6) What about "cell-based"/"lab-grown"/"cultured" meat? How is that the same, and different, from plant-based meat?

There's another meatless meat idea that is even further from being realized, and that's cell-based or lab-grown meat. (Producers are still trying to figure out which label accurately conveys what the product is without sounding too alien to customers.) While plant-based meat products try to imitate the overall taste and nutrition profile of meat using plants, cell-based meat uses actual animal cells, grown in a serum instead of as part of a cow or a chicken.

If it succeeds, it won't just taste like meat - such products would actually be meat on a molecular level. But unlike plant-based meats, which are already workable, cell-based meat products are still a long way away.

"With the numbers we have today," UC Berkeley's San Martin told me, "we don't see how [cell-based meat] can scale up and deliver products soon at a competitive price. Besides all of the technological hurdles, the scaling up can be very complex. So far, I haven't seen a medium-sized operation cultivating these kinds of cells for this purpose. It's very hard, and with what we know today, maybe it's not the right approach."

There are still a number of hurdles to overcome before cell-based meat makes it into stores. First, there's a challenge called "scaffolding" - figuring out how to shape cultured cells into tissue. Right now, cell-based meat techniques can make a decent replacement for, say, ground beef. But to replace a steak, you need to grow the cells into the tissues they grow into in living animals. Researchers are still figuring out how to do that.

Once you have a product, there's the question of scaling it. The hope for cell-based meat is that it can eventually meet all of the world's demand for meat, which is steadily increasing as the world gets wealthier. To do that, it's not enough to be able to make one steak - you need to be able to make steaks at the same incredible scale that factory farms do.

But investors are optimistic that with enough effort, funding, and researcher attention, the remaining technical challenges will prove to have a solution. Meat producers like Tyson Foods have invested in Memphis Meats, a leading cell-based meat company, and more new companies are joining the emerging field: There are at least nine in the US and more than 20 worldwide.

If cell-based meat can succeed, it will likely be able to win over some consumers who aren't sold on anything made from plants, no matter how similar the taste.

7) Does all this progress on meat alternatives signal the end of meat?

In a word, no - not yet, anyway.

Demand for meat actually grew last year. And demand is projected to grow even further.

"As emerging economies grow and become wealthier," Weston told me, "one of the first things that changes is that their diet becomes more like the Western diet." That means more meat.

It's a great thing that the rest of the world is becoming richer, and it isn't surprising that they'd want the same luxuries that people in wealthy countries enjoy. But the increasing demand for meat poses a lot of challenges.

One is antibiotic resistance. Animals in factory farms are mass-fed antibiotics to limit the sicknesses that would otherwise sweep through animals in such close quarters. But that means that bacteria develop resistance to the antibiotics. This is a huge problem in the United States, and an even bigger problem in emerging economies like China, which haven't agreed to US restrictions on antibiotics being fed to animals.

And then, of course, there's climate change. Eating more meat is just one of the ways consumers in the developing world cause more greenhouse gas emissions as they become wealthier.

All of these are reasons why it would be a huge deal if we could meet the increasing demand for meat - or even just some of it - with meatless meat.

So far, prospects look pretty good. Surveys find consumers in India and China - two of the biggest markets in the world - eager to try cell-based meat products once those exist, and broadly enthusiastic about plant-based meat too. In fact, by one survey, they're way more interested in plant-based meat than Americans are:

It looks like there's a large share of American consumers who refuse to purchase plant-based meat products, and there's no similar contingent among consumers in India or China. There are more consumers who say they're very likely or extremely likely to buy, too.

That suggests it might be possible for plant-based meat to absorb much of the increase in demand for meat. That'd make a huge difference all by itself. But replacing meat entirely doesn't look like it's on the horizon anytime soon.

8) Are there other ways to reduce meat consumption?

The rise of meatless meat has accompanied a lot of other interesting trends in vegan and vegetarian advocacy. For decades, advocates have tried to raise awareness of factory farming and convince people to go vegetarian or vegan. But rates of vegetarianism and veganism remain pretty low, surveys find that many vegetarians still eat meat sometimes, and advocates have begun looking at other ways to combat factory farming.

That's the change in thinking that has driven the rise of Meatless Mondays, campaigns to serve meat-free meals once a week in schools and offices. The idea is that going meatless one day a week does a seventh as much good as going meatless full time - and if you can persuade seven times as many people to commit to it, then it's a better bet.

The same idea is behind the rise of the awkwardly named "reducetarianism." As Brian Kateman, founder and CEO of the Reducetarian Foundation, told Vox, we tend to see meat as an "all-or-nothing premise." Either you're a good vegetarian or you don't think about meat in your diet. But if you eat a lot of meat, cutting back that quantity by half does a lot more for the environment - and a lot more to combat the harms of factory farming - than cutting that last favorite food out of a mostly vegetarian diet.

Another proposal to reduce meat consumption is taxing meat, which would allow us to accurately account for its effects on the environment but which would disproportionately affect low-income people. A more moderate version of the proposal is to just stop subsidizing meat. Currently, the US spends an estimated $20billion a year on subsidizing agribusinesses, and much of that goes toward feed for animals. Commentators on both the left and the right have called for an end to this giveaway.

But there is, as you might have noticed, a common thread here. Many of these other approaches to reducing meat consumption work a lot better if there's a good alternative right there for consumers to switch to. Increasing costs of beef will affect consumers less if there are cheap products nearly identical to beef. Voluntary diet change to stop climate change is a lot easier if people can replace favorite foods with options that are just as tasty.

"Consumers want to make healthier choices, they want to make sustainable choices, but the product has to taste great," Bushnell told me.

Ultimately, all the ways of reducing meat consumption are much simpler to make progress on if there are good meat alternatives.

9) What should we be on the lookout for next?

So what's next for meat alternatives?

There's actually a lot to look forward to in the coming months. If you're trying to get a sense of the destiny of the meatless meat movement, one place to look is agreements between Beyond Meat, Impossible Foods, and major chain restaurants. As discussed earlier, these agreements expose more consumers to the products, and if there are more such agreements over the next few months, that'd be a good sign that offering meatless meat continues to look to retailers like a smart business decision.

One major restaurant chain that has been conspicuously silent in the spree of recent announcements is McDonald's. Competitors like Burger King, White Castle, Qdoba, Del Taco, and Carl's Jr. now offer meatless meat products, and Taco Bell has offered its own in-house meat alternative product in the UK while teasing a big announcement in the US sometime soon. That's led to speculation - especially in the runup to Beyond Meat's IPO - that a deal with McDonald's is in the works.

Insiders have claimed that McDonald's is waiting to commit to plant-based meat until it is sure that it's not a passing fad.

Another thing to look out for is competition. Major meat companies, such as Tyson and Purdue Farms, are launching their own plant-based meat products. Those launches might be bad for Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, but they're almost definitely great news for the industry. More competition keeps prices down and makes it likelier that the industry can scale up to meet the growing demand for meat.

Finally, the most important thing to look out for is one you can check for yourself at a Burger King, Qdoba, Del Taco, or grocery store near you. How does meatless meat measure up? How does it compete on taste? On price? On availability? Ultimately, it's consumers who will decide whether meatless meat is up to the task in front of it.
Hungry for more? Bring your questions about meatless meat to a Reddit Q&A with Kelsey Piper on Wednesday, May 29th. She'll be in the Sign up for the Future Perfect newsletter. Twice a week, you'll get a roundup of ideas and solutions for tackling our biggest challenges: improving public health, decreasing human and animal suffering, easing catastrophic risks, and - to put it simply - getting better at doing good. at 2 pm ET/11 am PT. See you there!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
2019 has been an incredible year for a niche industry: alternative meats. First, Impossible Foods, a leading creator of plant-based meatlike burgers, announced the Impossible Burger 2.0, an improved recipe over previous meat substitutes that tastes, well, a lot meatier.

# data[].attributes.headline
PERCENTUALI RIGUARDO LE EMISSIONI e IL CARBON PRINT E IMPATTO SALUTISTICO DEL CONSUMO DI CARNE

# data[].attributes.subject
PERCENTUALI RIGUARDO LE EMISSIONI e IL CARBON PRINT E IMPATTO SALUTISTICO DEL CONSUMO DI CARNE

# data[].attributes.body
https://css.umich.edu/publications/research-publications/beyond-meats-beyond-burger-life-cycle-assessment-detailed

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Beyond Meat commissioned the Center for Sustainable Systems at University of Michigan to conduct a "cradle-to-distribution" life cycle assessment of the Beyond Burger, a plant-based patty designed to look, cook and taste like fresh ground beef. The purpose of the study is to compare environmental impacts - chosen here as greenhouse gas emissions, cumulative energy demand (energy use), water use, and land use - with those from typical beef production in the U.S. A secondary purpose is to highlight opportunities for improvement in the environmental performance of the Beyond Burger product chain and provide Beyond Meat with a benchmark against which improvement efforts can be measured. The primary audiences are both internal stakeholders at Beyond Meat as well as external customers, consumers, and interested stakeholders.

The Beyond Burger is considered functionally and nutritionally similar to beef; therefore the chosen functional unit for comparison was defined as 4 oz. (quarter pound, 0.113 kg) uncooked burger patty delivered to retail outlets. This is the marketed patty size of the Beyond Burger and a standard consumer product size for beef patties. System boundaries included upstream ingredient and raw material supply (including farm production of agricultural crops), processing and packaging operations, cold storage, distribution to point of sale, and disposal of packaging materials. Retail and consumer stages, including potential losses at those stages, were excluded, as they were considered equivalent in both product systems. Beyond Meat provided specific information on production of the Beyond Burger, including directly measured processing electricity consumption. This was complemented with information from primary ingredient suppliers. Environmental impact of U.S. beef production was drawn from an existing LCA study commissioned by the National Cattleman's Beef Association (Thoma et al., 2017). The Beyond Burger LCA was evaluated using the same impact assessment methods used in the U.S. beef study.

Based on a comparative assessment of the current Beyond Burger production system with the 2017 beef LCA by Thoma et al, the Beyond Burger generates 90% less greenhouse gas emissions, requires 46% less energy, has >99% less impact on water scarcity and 93% less impact on land use than a ¼ pound of U.S. beef.

Production of the dominant ingredients - pea protein, canola oil, coconut oil - represent important contributions to greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE), energy use and land use. Packaging also is an important contributor across all impact categories: the polypropylene tray is the largest contributor to packaging's share of GHGE, energy use, and water use, whereas fiber production for cardboard and pallets make notable contributions to land use. We estimate that switching to a polypropylene tray made of 100% postconsumer recycled content could reduce the overall GHGE of the BB life cycle by 2% and reduce energy use by 10%.

Heller, Martin C. and Gregory A. Keoleian. (2018) "Beyond Meat's Beyond Burger Life Cycle Assessment: A detailed comparison between a plant-based and an animal-based protein source." CSS Report, University of Michigan: Ann Arbor 1-38.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Beyond Meat's Beyond Burger Life Cycle Assessment: A detailed comparison between a plant-based and an animal-based protein source

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Beyond Meat commissioned the Center for Sustainable Systems at University of Michigan to conduct a "cradle-to-distribution" life cycle assessment of the Beyond Burger, a plant-based patty designed to look, cook and taste like fresh ground beef.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
At the moment, meat is still king.

By some estimates, 30% of the calories consumed globally by humans come from meat products, including beef, chicken, and pork.

That translates to staggering numbers of animals grown for food: there are over 30 million head of beef cows in the US, and 21 million pigs in Iowa alone.

The meat industry has evolved into a complex global business that involves farms and feed lots, as well as meat middle-men, like processing and storage centers, transportation and logistics, slaughterhouses, and more.

Together, the 7 largest meat companies combine for over $71B in market capitalization, with the largest, Tyson, boasting a $26B valuation.

The industry has seen massive consolidation, as companies like Hormel and Brazil-based JBS have grown bigger and bigger through the acquisition of new meat brands and products.

Another prominent deal was the 2013 acquisition of US-based Smithfield Foods, which owns brands such as Armour and Farmland. Smithfield was purchased by WH Group, the largest pork producer in both China and the US. At the time of the deal, Smithfield was valued at $7.1B.

Despite high-profile deals in the sector, the industrial meat industry faces a rising tide of challenges, in the form of interrelated business, ethical, and environmental concerns.

Meanwhile, startups using technology to engineer meat in labs or manufacture it from plant-based products are rising in popularity. Meatless food products from beef-free burgers to pea-based shrimp threaten the future of the meat giants.

In addition to offering new products, these startups have the potential to upend all parts of the meat production process.

Going forward, the meat value chain could be simplified dramatically, as the "clean meat" lab or factory could take the place of farms, feed lots, and slaughterhouses.

Especially vulnerable to these changes are food companies such as Tyson, Pilgrim's, and Sanderson Farms, which rely on meat products for 80% or more of their revenue, as seen below.

Using CB Insights data, we dug into some of the major trends in the growing meatless industry, from startups to watch, to key investors, to future trends and challenges.

Table of contents

Startups innovating across the meatless ecosystem

Startups are disrupting the meat production value chain through the development of high-tech protein products, threatening established players like Tyson.

The graphic below provides a snapshot of companies that are producing meatless products that attack many of the markets targeted by Tyson's existing meat product lines. Meat substitute startups are not only competing with prepared and frozen meats, but are also creating alternative snacks (such as Beyond the Shoreline' s kelp jerky).

Tyson itself, as we'll see below, is an aggressive participant in the alternative protein movement.

While the environmental benefits to lab-grown meat are potentially huge, as of now meatless products are still significantly more expensive on a per-pound basis than the alternatives.

Meal replacement & dairy substitutes can also displace traditional meat

It's not just meat substitutes disrupting the traditional food chain: meal replacement alternatives are also gaining momentum in the food space.

Among these startups, Soylent leads the pack with over $71M in disclosed funding from investors like Andreessen Horowitz, Lerer Hippeau Ventures, Google Ventures, and others. (Soylent has also already entered mainstream culture as the favored meal replacement drink of tech programmers in Silicon Valley.)

The drink has run into some problems, including a recent ban in Canada, where regulators said it does not meet all the specific requirements for meal-replacement products.

But Soylent has expanded distribution steadily and is now available in some local stores, including at 7-11s in Los Angeles.

Dairy alternatives are also seeing greater investor and consumer attention, as consumers are increasingly leaning towards plant-based diets and protein alternatives.

Companies like pea-protein milk producer Ripple Foods, non-dairy cheese provider Kite Hill, and AI-powered eggless mayo producer NotCo already are selling their products in grocery stores for everyday consumption.

Another company, Perfect Day, is applying gene sequencing and 3D printing to create milk without the cow. The company has raised over $2M in disclosed equity funding from Temasek Holdings and other investors.

By providing new food sources, meal and dairy substitutes could further chip away at traditional meat market share.

Insect protein goes mainstream

While the taboo against eating bugs is strong in most cultures, the creatures are nonetheless trending as an environmentally-friendly protein source. To make insect consumption more palatable, the new trend focuses on using insects to create alternative ingredients.

Manufacturers are making flour from crickets, mealworms, and other insects, which can be raised at scale.

Many companies are using cricket flour or insects and worms for snacks, protein bars, and even insect-enriched pasta. Exo, for example, produces cricket-based protein bars.

Cricket-raising results in 100x lower greenhouse gas emissions than beef cow production, and crickets also have higher proportions of protein than beef or chicken. And because crickets require proportionally less feed than livestock animals, production is more efficient.

Insect-based protein brands could eventually displace meat-based snacks by offering healthier and more sustainable options.

trends in meat-free "meat"

Plant-based burgers that 'bleed' and taste like the real thing

Plant-based burgers have recently become a lot more popular.

Startups producing these burgers are targeting both plant-based and meat-based diets by 1) increasing options for vegetarians and vegans and 2) enticing meat eaters to consume environmentally-friendly meat without compromising on taste.

"We think of it as meat made a better way ... Meat today basically is made using pre-historic technology, using animals to turn plants into this very special category of food ... But to your typical consumer ... the value proposition of meat has nothing to do with its coming from an animal."

- Pat Brown, CEO of Impossible Foods

Impossible Foods, a major player in the space, leverages molecular engineering to create "bleeding" plant-based burgers that the company claims is nearly indistinguishable from meat.

The company's discovery of heme, an iron-rich molecule in animal proteins, has enabled it to replicate the "meaty" flavor in their plant-based products.

Impossible Foods closed a $75M late-stage round in August, to aid in ramping up production and distribution channels. Earlier this month, the company announced that it's expanding distribution channels to university cafeterias, museum cafes, and other retail outlets. Impossible Foods' burger is already available at some Bareburger chains.

In the future, Impossible Foods could apply its technology to new animal-free substitutes, such as pork, seafood, and lamb - even further disrupting traditional meat corporates' frozen or prepared food products.

Beyond Meat is another major company making plant-based burgers and other imitation meat products such as chicken strips and beef crumbles.

The company also has been experimenting with a plant-based pork product.

Plant-based meat companies have been seeing larger and larger rounds from venture capital and other types of investors.

With $258M in disclosed financing, Impossible Foods has the most funding out of any startup in the meat substitutes space, while Beyond Meat has the most investors, from Tyson New Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers to, most recently, actor Leonardo DiCaprio.

Investors back lab-grown meat

Lab-grown or "cultured meat" could be a bridge between real meat and plant-based products.

San Francisco-based Memphis Meats produces meat from self-reproducing cells, thereby producing meat that is an "animal-based" product but avoiding the need to breed, raise, and slaughter huge numbers of animals.

The company debuted its first synthetic meatball in 2016 and followed up with the world's first cell-cultured chicken and duck earlier this year.

Memphis Meats aims to decrease the cost of lab-grown meat in order to compete with commercial meat.

While its original meat cost $18,000 a pound, by May the company announced it had gotten costs down to $3,800 per pound. The company also claims that it can produce animal-free products using just 1% of the land and 1% of the water compared to meat-producer incumbents.

In August, Memphis Meats raised a large $17M Series A led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson, who invested alongside other notable investors including Bill Gates and Richard Branson.

Both plant-based meat products and lab-grown "clean" meat have seen notable investors, including some top VCs (Khosla Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers), meat corporates (Tyson Foods, Cargill), and others.

Companies in adjacent spaces also have a stake in the meatless revolution. Vegan mayo producer Just (formerly Hampton Creek) recently announced expansion into clean meat products.

Just released the below video in August, illustrating its vision for the future of clean meat. Transparency, food security, and environmental efficiency are all in focus for the company's clean meat products.

In September, the company announced new patents - including one for machine learning-based analysis of plants for potential products - that will help it manufacture this clean meat at scale.

Just anticipates its clean meat product could reach groceries by 2018.

Methane-based protein sees early funding

"We'd sell it [protein] to someone else who makes it into a steak-like product, or a fish-like product, or something like a tofu perhaps, that we could grill and eat..."

- Ezhil Subbian, Founder & CEO at String Bio

Biotech companies are even exploring methods for engineering meat-like products from methane. While companies are already creating methane-based animal feed, startups are now expressing interest in engineering methane-based protein fit for human consumption.

California-based Calysta recently raised $40M in Series D funding, while India-based String Bio has received $100K from Future Food Asia to commercialize its technology.

While protein products developed by these companies are not currently fit for human consumption, methane-based proteins could improve the environmental impact of meat production, and eventually further fuel the meatless revolution by creating another food source for developing economies in Africa and Asia.

Per Ezhil Subbian's comment, the first step is creating a methane-based protein that can be marketed to humans and subsequently integrated into their diets.

Open source clean meat could popularize animal-free products

Some companies in the meatless space are competing to be first-to-market with animal-free products. Taking a different approach, Yuki Hanyu, founder of Tokyo-based Integriculture and nonprofit Shojinmeat Project, is working to acclimate future generations to a meatless future through open source tech.

Hanyu is providing Japanese high school students access to high-tech heated boxes that allow them to culture animal cells at home and grow them into meat-like products.

The concept may seem far-flung, but the Shojinmeat Project is looking to establish a crowd-sourced, bottoms-up approach to meat development that allows people to play with and ultimately integrate lab-grown meat into their diets.

Fish-free hits seafood substitutes

"Shrimp has one of the worst supply chains in the seafood industry," - Dominique Barnes, New Wave Foods Co-Founder & CEO

In addition to land-based meat, companies are applying similar processes to create sustainable seafood alternatives.

Companies in this space are seeing greater media attention and funding. For example, Finless Foods uses cellular agriculture to develop faux fish meat, while New Wave Foods produces pea protein and algae-based imitation shrimp.

French startup ODONOTELLA, which produces algae-based salmon, raised an angel round in October 2017.

While still in early stages of R&D, fish-free products are further expanding the possibilities of an animal-free future. As with animal-free meat, fishless foods could radically simplify and clean up the seafood production value chain.

Corporates and accelerators back the meatless future

Corporates Bet on new protein sources

Large corporations involved in the meat industry are themselves also investing in meat innovation as a form of outsourced R&D.

Food-trading giant Cargill participated in Memphis Meats' Series A round, while Nestle, which owns a number of frozen food brands that incorporate meat, acquired vegan prepared foods producer Sweet Earth in September.

"Plant-based protein is growing almost, at this point, a little faster than animal-based, so I think the migration may continue in that direction."

Tom Hayes CEO, Tyson Foods

Additionally, the rise of funds with a strong emphasis on alternative meat production and innovation, such as Tyson New Ventures, indicates that meat producers foresee the possibility of a meatless future.

Tyson New Ventures made its first investment in Beyond Meat in October 2016. With the launch of this "Internet of Food" fund, we see Tyson looking to pivot from a meat producer to a more broadly protein-friendly brand.

IndieBio and New Crop Capital bets point to a meatless-minded future

Beyond corporates, venture capital firms and accelerators are also funding research and development into these high-tech foods. Biotech accelerator IndieBio has placed many bets in animal-free foods, with notable investments in Memphis Meats, New Wave Foods, and Finless Foods, as well as startups focusing on dairy and gelatin substitutes.

Early-stage venture capital fund New Crop Capital funds startups that develop cultured and plant-based meat, dairy, and egg products, along with service companies that facilitate the promotion and sale of these products.

New Crop Capital's investments include a $1.2M seed round to Sunfed Meats, which produces "chicken-free chicken" made of pea protein, as well as a seed investment in Ocean Hugger Foods, which has developed ahimi, a tomato-based substitute for raw tuna. Ocean Hugger Foods is also working on eggplant-based eel and carrot-based salmon substitutes.

Why the shift towards meatless?

There are several macro reasons for the shift toward a more meatless future.

Urbanization, population growth, and a rising middle class lead to greater meat consumption. In 2016, approximately 55% of the world's population lived in urban settlements, and this percentage is expected to increase to 60% by 2030, according to the UN.

Meanwhile, the world's population is expected to surge to 9.6B by 2050, leading to a 61% increase in food production. Emerging markets are driving this growth: China, in particular, is the world's largest consumer of meat, with protein consumption expected to grow 3 - 4% a year thanks to a rising middle class.

This increasing demand begs the question of how society will sustainably feed future generations, and meatless companies are looking to fill the gap.

Alternative protein sources can reduce negative environmental impact. As mentioned above, livestock is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, reducing livestock could free up global cropland, decrease soil erosion, and relieve pressure on the world's water supply.

Consumers are seeking healthier food alternatives. Rising obesity rates across the globe coupled with consumer interest in healthier food alternatives are also driving demand for meatless proteins.

Nonprofit initiative Meatless Monday and US-based food delivery platform GrubHub recently partnered to demonstrate the growing popularity of meat alternatives. According to the analysis, demand for meatless dishes is increasing every day of the week, not just Mondays.

Advances in ag tech and synthetic biology are enabling high-tech meatless products. Cellular agriculture and molecular engineering are fueling tech-enabled meat substitutes that are better emulating the flavor and texture of real meat.

Meatless consumption could alleviate ethical questions around meat consumption. The meat industry has long been subject to ethical concerns behind meat production practices. To help address such concerns, Cargill recently announced it is testing blockchain to show meat buyers where their individual bird came from.

A spike in the discussion of blockchain in conjunction with meat and food indicates a rising consumer desire for transparency around the food supply chain.

Alternative meats could reduce contamination. Growing lab-grown meat in a sterile environment can cut back on contamination and eliminate antibiotics from the meat production process. This could play a role in reducing global health problems caused by the current food production value chain.

The meatless revolution is global...

The greatest concentration of meat substitute deals has occurred in the United States, which is home to a well-developed food and beverage sector. At the same time, there is also a developed meatless market in Europe, as well as expected growth of the meatless sector in Asia.

Earlier in September, China announced a $300M deal to import lab-grown meat from three Israel-based companies - SuperMeat, Future Meat Technologies, and Meat the Future - as part of a broader plan to decrease the country's meat consumption by 50%.

Such cross-country collaboration indicates that we can expect to see more experimentation across the globe on alternative protein sources.

Regulation is also starting to play a bigger role, as regulators explore cellular agriculture as a viable food source in the future.

In March, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in Washington, D.C. released a report on the future of biotechnology developments and regulation, while the White House launched a review of how U.S. agencies regulate agricultural biotechnology.

As of now, artificial meat regulation is still in early stages. Regulatory responsibility in an animal-free ecosystem could extend across multiple bodies, as biotechnology for food overlaps with many regulatory systems.

Or, a single regulatory agency could be created in the future to deal with the unique challenges of artificial meat regulation.

...but a truly meatless future has challenges to overcome

While plant-based products and other protein sources are taking off, lab-grown meat, in particular, faces a few obstacles.

Fake meat sounds icky. Many consumers face a psychological barrier towards eating lab-grown foods and may prefer the familiar taste of real meat products.

While groups like aforementioned Shojinmeat Project are acclimating future consumers to cultured meat, this socialization will need to happen on a global scale.

High-tech meat is expensive. Cost remains a largely prohibitive factor, with high-tech meat alternatives priced as luxury goods.

One of the main reasons that lab-grown meat is so expensive is due to the prevalence of fetal bovine serum, or FBS, in meatless products. FBS, which is extracted from cow fetuses, is a core and costly ingredient in lab-grown meat.

However, startups are looking to eliminate FBS from the meatless equation, in order to cut costs. Just has reported that it has developed a method to grow cell cultured chicken without FBS, while Memphis Meats is validating methods to produce its meats without the ingredient.

Can clean meat scale? Though many startups in the space claim that their products will revolutionize meat consumption, the question remains whether clean meat will provide a scalable method to feed the future - or whether it's simply a new wave of molecular gastronomy.

Aforementioned cost considerations are crucial in scaling these products for mainstream consumption.

Will meatless products really be better for the environment? Despite claims that less meat consumption will reduce environmental impact, lab-based technologies come with their own high costs for electricity, heating, and other resources.

The automation of meat production could have far-reaching job implications for the agriculture industry. The meat sector is the largest employer within US agriculture, and mainstream meatless consumption could create chaos and eliminate jobs across the entire meat production value chain.

Meat producers, lobbyists, and other bodies have a great deal at risk when considering the effects of automation across the meat industry. (To learn more about the effect of automation on jobs, check out our State of Automation Report.)

Where is the meatless revolution headed?

The race is on.

Cost and scale are immediate considerations in moving these products from novelty purchases to kitchen staples. In the next few years, we can likely expect to see the cost of lab-grown meat decrease considerably.

From there, it's just a matter of which companies will get their products to market first and best position their products as worth the price.

Continued advances in genetic engineering and plant-based innovation will enhance taste, flavor, and health benefits to incentivize consumption.

These technologies will also continue to expand across largely untouched meat and seafood categories (e.g. pork, duck, eel, etc.). We could see direct competitors to meat incumbent brands across virtually all frozen and prepared food categories.

Regardless of the hurdles to a meatless future, clean meat products are clearly diversifying and growing, capturing investor and public attention alike.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Our Meatless Future: How The $90B Global Meat Market Gets Disrupted

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
At the moment, meat is still king. By some estimates, 30% of the calories consumed globally by humans come from meat products, including beef, chicken, and pork. That translates to staggering numbers of animals grown for food: there are over 30 million head of beef cows in the US, and 21 million pigs in Iowa alone.

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Schematic-representation-of-steps-involved-in-plant-based-meat-analogue-production_fig1_353206254

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Considering Plant-Based Meat Substitutes and Cell-Based Meats: A Public Health and Food Systems Perspective

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Over the past decade, there has been growing interest in the development and production of plant-based and cell-based alternatives to farmed meat. Although promoted for their capacity to avoid or reduce the environmental, animal welfare, and, in some cases, public health problems associated with far…

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Impossible Beef is made from plants for people who love meat. You can make plant-based versions of your favorite ground beef recipes! Savory, juicy, and mouthwatering Impossible Beef handles and cooks like ground beef so you can use it on all of your favorite dishes. You can shape it into patties, crumble it, grill it, griddle it, sauté it and more.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
With 19g of protein and 0mg of cholesterol, Impossible™ Burger is good for you and for the planet. Learn more about our ingredients and nutrition here.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
As a nutritionist and athlete I get asked all the time: Are plant-based meat alternatives bad for you? That's a complicated answer since what is really bad for you is saturated fat in red meat and processed meats, which the World Health Organization has categorized as a carcinogen. Anyone trying to minimize their intake of red meat for the sake of heart health is making a sound decision, especially if they replace it with legumes, quinoa, soy and other plant-based sources of protein.

Yet it's unrealistic to expect that someone who is plant-curious (but not fully committed to eating a vegan diet) will leap into a whole food plant-based diet and cut out meat and dairy altogether. Instead, more consumers are self-defining as "flexitarian" and trying to eat more plant-based and less meat. To that end, sales of meatless meat, or plant-based meat alternatives, have grown at a multiple of other food products. They are touted by companies that make them (including Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods) as better for the planet and better for the animals, but few people actually claim say they are better for you.

These are highly processed formulas that are not as good for you as, say, a bean burger or mushroom burger you'd make in your own kitchen. Still, there is a way of determining where meatless products sit on the spectrum of health foods, and the answer is that they lie somewhere between a beef burger and a quinoa salad.

Whether you've decided to take a step toward Meatless Mondays or are considering going fully vegan or you watched a documentary like What the Health and want to cut way back on meat, you may be wondering, are those plant-based meat alternatives (PBMAs) actually good for me? We are here to answer that question and clear up some common misperceptions about the role meatless protein plays in the future of our food systems.

Are Plant-Based Meat Alternatives Healthy?

A 2021 study showed that plant-based meat alternatives that mimic meat in taste, texture, and experience could help people who can't imagine a life without meat shift their diets away from animal products. Instead of eating foods produced by a grossly inefficient food system, people can enjoy the experience of many of their favorite meat dishes in a more sustainable plant form. The best way to get more people to eat more plants is by meeting them where they live, dietary speaking, not guilt-tripping them about their current food preferences.

Like many of us, you may want to help combat climate change and reduce animal suffering without sacrificing your favorite foods. To help you in your decision, here are the pros and cons of swapping meat for plant-based alternatives.

The Pros of Plant-Based Meats

1. Rich in fiber, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and other nutrients

The most significant advantage of plant-based meat alternatives over conventional meat is that they contain fiber - an essential nutrient critical for good health. An estimated 95 percent of Americans don't consume the recommended amount of fiber per day. (At least 25 grams for women and 38 grams for men is the accepted minimal amount of fiber to aim for.) And when it comes to gut health, fiber plays a key role in digestion and cultivating beneficial bacteria for a healthy microbiome.

In a recent study of 40 people, researchers looked at the impact of plant-based meat alternatives on gut health. Participants who replaced animal meat with plant alternatives for several weeks experienced an "increased metabolizing potential of butyrate." Meaning? The fiber in plant-based meat alternatives, once digested, causes the growth of healthy gut bacteria, which release butyrate - an important short-chain fatty acid with anti-inflammatory properties that improves digestion and promotes gut health. Alternatively, red meat and dairy promote less healthy gut bacteria, which can contribute to high cholesterol and other early markers of increased risk for heart disease.

In addition to fiber, PBMAs can pack more nutrition than animal meat. "Plant-based meats are rich in fiber, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and other nutrients that animal meats lack," explains Brittany Lubeck, RD, a registered dietitian and nutrition writer. "Because of their nutrition profile, eating more plant-based foods has been linked to lower rates of heart disease, diabetes, and certain types of cancer."

2. Better for the environment

With the global population expected to increase for the remainder of the century and the effects of climate change already being felt, there hasn't been a better time to swap meat for plant-based alternatives to reduce your environmental footprint substantially. "As the global population grows, the negative environmental impacts of animal [agriculture] may become even worse. This means it may take a large plant-based meat movement to make a difference on the environment," observes Lubeck.

Plant agriculture requires significantly less land, water, and energy than animal agriculture. Consequently, eating a plant-forward diet that includes plant-based meat alternatives is one of the most effective strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE) and agricultural land use related to food production and consumption. By choosing PBMAs over conventional meat, you're supporting companies in favor of helping the environment.

Companies like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods are part of the growing sustainability trend. In 2017, Beyond Meat engaged the Center for Sustainable Systems at the University of Michigan to assess the Beyond Burger. When compared to a quarter pound of beef, the results found that the Beyond Burger:

3. Generates 90 percent less greenhouse gas emissions

Requires 46 percent less energy

Has 99 percent less impact on water scarcity

Has 93 percent less impact on land use

Similar results were found for another popular seller, Impossible Burger, which has an 89 percent lower carbon footprint than beef burgers. The statistics leave no doubt that PBMAs are the better option for the planet when compared to conventional meat.

4. Lower risk of heart disease

Research says that choosing the veggie burger over a sirloin can significantly lower your risk of heart disease. A small 2020 study examined the effects of animal-based meat and plant-based meat alternatives on heart health. Researchers had 36 people include animal meat as part of their typical diet for eight weeks, then swap the meat for PBMAs for another eight weeks while keeping the rest of their diet the same as before.

Researchers observed that the plant-based meat alternatives stage improved several cardiovascular disease risk factors, including reduced TMAO and cholesterol, due to less saturated fat and increased fiber intake. Also, the American Heart Association (AHA) recommends eating more plant protein in place of animal protein for reduced risk of cardiovascular disease.

Cons of Plant-Based Meat Alternatives

1. They're highly processed and not as healthy as whole foods

"One con of plant-based meats is they're not always the better-for-you option, making it somewhat difficult to choose the best brands," Lubeck says. "Some plant-based meats are just as high or higher in sodium and saturated fat than animal meats, which may not be suitable for people with certain health conditions, such as high blood pressure, heart disease, and kidney disease."

Many PBMAs contain added sugars, hydrogenated oils, high amounts of sodium, and other filler ingredients to enhance flavor and modify the texture to more closely resemble animal meat, according to a 2019 study published in Nutrients.

A few of the regular additives to plant-based meat are controversial, such as carrageenan which while deemed safe by the FDA, is known to cause inflammation. Look at the label. If the item has more than ten ingredients, chances are it's a highly processed food with many additives that should be parsed individually for their health value.

The following table compares the nutrients of various plant-based meat alternatives with their animal-based counterparts.

Overall, plant-based meat alternatives are the healthier option when compared to animal-based meat. However, in the pursuit of mimicking meat, PBMAs are highly processed products that are no match when compared to whole plant foods in terms of delivering health benefits. It's worth noting that research still needs to be done on the long-term health effects of regularly consuming plant-based meat.

2. More expensive than meat

The cost of PBMAs is a major deterrent for many people. Currently, plant-based meat products are on average 38 percent more expensive than animal meat, according to a new report by the Agri-Food Analytics Lab (AAL). Fortunately, lower prices are on the horizon. A recent report from the Good Food Institute (GFI) projects that plant-based meat products will be cheaper than conventional meat by 2023, giving customers more affordable options when shopping for alternative proteins.

The Bottom Line: Plant-Based Meats Are Better for Your Health - in Moderation.

Plant-based meat products contain more fiber, vitamins, minerals, and essential nutrients, and have a significantly smaller environmental impact than conventional meat. Although plant-based meat alternatives are heavily processed and high in sodium and saturated fat, they can be part of a healthful diet when enjoyed in moderation and in place of animal products.
For more expert advice, visit The Beet's Health & Nutrition articles.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Are Plant-Based Meats Bad for You? An Expert Answers | The Beet

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Are plant-based meat alternatives better for you and the environment? An expert breaks down the latest research.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
by 1,* ,

National Soybean Processing Industry Technology Innovation Center, Beijing Technology and Business University (BTBU), Beijing 100048, China

Plant Meat (Hangzhou) Health Technology Limited Company, Hangzhou 311121, China

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

1. Introduction

In the above framework, a literature review was carried out to understand consumer behavior and preferences with respect to PBM products in different countries in recent years. Published studies from 2020 to 2022 addressing the present standing and consumers' perceptions of plant-based meat were included in order to give updated information that has not been reported extensively. Considering this aim, we further deliberated on how to integrate PBM with current values and introduce it into the cooking practices of people. This review is structured in three parts. The introductory section presents the driving forces, importance, and current progress of PBM and the impact of COVID-19 on dietary shifts. The second section provides an overview of consumer attitudes and the drivers of consumer behavior. Based on the second part, the final section discusses the responses to these attitudes and considers whether and how they are evolving to show how PBM alternatives might gain in popularity over time.

2. Dietary Shifts during COVID-19

Food security is based on having access to affordable, safe, and healthy food. Nearly all economic sectors, including agriculture, have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the word "important" has been frequently used regarding the food industry [ 69]. COVID-19 resulted in the closure of food manufacturing facilities, restricted food trade policies, and subsequent changes in consumer demand, and thus the food supply chain has been under financial pressure to produce products necessary for daily life [ 70]. The pandemic served as a reminder of our dependance on a global food value chain and our susceptibility to interruptions in this important sector [ 71]. In countries that depend on seasonal migrant workers in the agri-food sector, a sudden lack of mobility across borders and within countries led to labor shortages, which in turn had an impact on the availability, supply, and cost of food globally [ 72]. On the other hand, the great infection rate among employees at slaughterhouses and meat processing facilities was of particular concern. During the subsequent quarantine and lockdown periods worldwide, disruption to the meat supply chain was noticed and almost everyone faced one of the major issues, i.e., food insecurity. Consumers suffered from meat shortages, price fluctuations, and meat safety issues because of the closure of meat handling plants. Taking into account that meat shortages may cause prices to increase, consumer demand was further reduced [ 52, 58]. There was an imbalance in all food supply chains, and the main drivers of dietary shifts were disease prevention and better health status [ 2, 60, 73]. As a result, the pandemic put the world's population at risk of zoonotic infections spreading to humans through the consumption of food products derived from animals [ 74]. The influence of the pandemic on the food chain and on dietary shifts in consumers is represented in Figure 2.

3. Opinions about and Predilections of Consumers for PBM around the World

Consumer behavior and preferences are a dynamic field of study that enables marketers to understand and predict the choices, purchasing behaviors, and preferences of consumers. For the success of a new food product, consumer acceptability and perceptions are crucial since they determine whether it will be accepted or rejected. Therefore, negative opinions are associated with the failure of an innovative product [ 44, 64, 77]. The demand for meat and meat products will continue to rise as the world's population grows. In order to lessen the burden of meat production from an ethical, environmental, and dietary perspective, switching to PBM could be a possible alternative [ 78]. Although there is still debate over PBM acceptance, it is crucial to understand customer demands to improve the quality of PBM and deliver similar textures and flavors that are comparable to those of animal meat products [ 24, 79]. Country and region are relevant to consumers' perceptions and motivations, due to the differences in cultures, attitudes, traditions, environments, and behaviors across the world [ 66, 67]. Up till now, various surveys have been conducted about consumer acceptance of PBM in various countries, and, due to cross-cultural differences, varied responses have been recorded. Table 2 details the previous studies on consumer behavior and preferences in different countries which may contribute to understanding the diversity of responses to PBM around the world. The recent growth in the PBM sector is associated with the interest in healthier dietary patterns. In addition, there is a trend toward reducing meat consumption or switching to a flexitarian diet in order to increase nutrient density while still eating meat occasionally [ 80, 81].

4. Barriers to Switching Diet towards PBM

5. PBM Pleasure Drivers and Factors Involved in Product Success

5.3. Awareness of New Technologies and Novel Foods

Food neophobia is a typical response that manifests when new technologies are used or when food defies consumers' food/gastronomic cultures [ 66]. Some people believe that new technologies violate norms and are not ethical, producing moral issues and leading to the failure of food [ 22, 84]. Uncertainties, health and environmental risks, and concerns about new technologies are important issues to be addressed, as they are associated with the acceptance of products. Michel et al. [ 35] reported concerns about whether those who are motivated to eat more environmentally friendly foods have the knowledge necessary to make the right judgments and whether good intentions could lead to poor choices due to ignorance. However, better information and knowledge may help people choose sustainable foods, and an information interpretation guide may also be required [ 89]. According to Jung et al. [ 66], PBM is becoming more popular among consumers as an alternative to animal meat because it is a sustainable protein source and does not raise any moral dilemmas. To meet the expanding market demand, less expensive and energy-intensive processing methods should be considered.

5.4. Food Literacy and Cooking Ability

The ability to manage, choose, prepare, and consume healthy foods to fulfill needs and determine intake is known as food literacy. It is a modern idea that gives a framework for comprehending the connection between food related knowledge, skills, and dietary consumption [ 41, 82]. Nutritionists have long been interested about how people go about feeding themselves. They have considered cooking, nutritional knowledge, food involvement, food safety, and food skills [ 4, 32]. The concept of food choice value guides individuals when choosing foods to buy or consume [ 37]. In daily life, food choices are often habitual and influenced by many interacting factors. To promote the consumption of PBM, food literacy is needed. Additionally, cooking ability is crucial for the adoption of any food ingredient since understanding how to use the ingredients and which recipes they complement can increase their demand and acceptance [ 39, 87]. In addition, when new products enter the market, most consumers do not always know how to use them. Thus, consumers should be provided with recipes or be informed about ways to easily integrate the products into their routines. Since cooking expertise is thought to be learned through practice, a consumer's level of sensory discrimination may vary depending on their level of culinary ability. Consumers with less or no cooking skills may pay less attention to a food's intrinsic characteristics than consumers with better skills, which could be a result of a lower level of interest in food [ 3, 41]. According to Hellwig et al. [ 48], it could be helpful to use recipes from traditional food-cooking cultures while preparing new products. Therefore, considering how food is cooked might help improving flavor and taste. Serving new foods with ingredients that peoples are already familiar with does not always improve their willingness to try them. Cuisine recipes featured in the media also reflect the originality and tradition of products. The use of PBM as a meat substitute in recipes supported by renowned chefs should have included both classic and modern dishes (in Asian cuisine, for instance) [ 53].

6. Effects of PBM on Rural Life and Animal Farming

The worldwide demand for meat has increased by 58% during the last two decades. By 2050, the population of the globe is expected to reach 9.7 billion, according to UN predictions. Thus, it is anticipated that there will be a sharp rise in the demand for animal products worldwide in the coming years due to increasing population and per capita utilization [ 15, 68]. Numerous economies rely heavily on the animal husbandry industry, and the production and consumption of animal products is often rooted in long-standing social and cultural customs [ 24]. However, the production of meat is becoming more challenging because of problems such as water and land shortages, animal safety, and climate transformation [ 12]. PBM analogs that resemble traditional meat in taste and texture are thus being developed to meet the growing population's need for protein. The demand for different crops as source of plant proteins is likely to increase as the market for PBM expands, which will open a range of options for farmers who already cultivate such crops or who might add them to their rotations [ 96]. However, some people and communities (who depend on animal husbandry for their livelihoods or commercial viability) perceive PBM as a direct threat, though the rise of the PBM industry may not pose a threat to the sustainability of the animal meat sector [ 5, 10]. In general, it is quite unlikely that people would entirely switch from animal meat to PBM. The primary purpose of PBM would be to satisfy expanding protein demands rather than completely replace animal meat products. The fear that traditional livestock farmers/ranchers will inevitably experience financial hardship or lose their means of subsistence is unfounded [ 81]. Additionally, PBM can also help feed people in poor countries and disaster-prone regions (e.g., flood and earthquake zones) to fulfill their protein needs, where food supply and preservation are difficult. Thus, the capability of PBM to satisfy the demand for protein in poorer or developing countries is strictly subject to affordable price levels.

7. Economic Sustainability

The ability of the PBM industry to price its products competitively with respect to conventional meat is one of the keys to success. The higher consumer acceptability of PBM depends on price equality with animal meat, which is related to the capability of the industry to scale up production [ 31, 101]. PBM needs to become more affordable to compete with animal-based meat products, as affordability is associated with purchasing intentions. Price is an important factor that must be taken into consideration to make PBM appealing to consumers and to gain market share [ 64, 73]. In addition to taste and texture, a competitive price is crucial for market penetration, as price is a factor that could either encourage or discourage consumers from buying PBM products [ 102]. Consumers are often very familiar with meat prices and are therefore price sensitive to PBM. PBM products are still priced at a premium compared to conventional meat [ 103]. Garnett et al. [ 102] found in a field experiment that small price changes can raise vegetarian and vegan meal sales and reduce sales of fish and meat, but only for diners with higher prior levels of vegan and vegetarian meal choices. The cost of plant-based proteins was found to be a huge barrier for people looking to include plant-based foods into their diet.

8. Conclusions

Consumer acceptance is the main factor in the success of any food product. Consumer perceptions about PBM vary greatly across the world due to differences in culture, behavior, taste, and food habits. However, many factors are similar, e.g., familiarity with food, sensory and textural preferences, and certain food motives. Focusing on knowledge and practical function as paradigms to predict and describe PBM adoption may result in long-term dietary adjustments. Alternative meat products that are similar to meat in terms of appearance, sensory attributes, and cooking may have higher acceptance rates. Food industries must understand the demands and advantages expected by consumers who desire to lower their meat intake. PBM products must satisfy the sensory preferences and expectations of consumers. In addition to taste and texture, price is an important factor that must be taken into consideration to make PBM appealing to consumers and gain market share. In the future, there should be a focus on improving technology and resources to make PBM affordable and improve the texture, nutritional value, and sensory attributes with low environmental impact.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, H.L., B.S. and X.L; methodology, H.L, B.S., H.Z., J.C, T.Z. and Z.Y.; investigation, H.L. and B.S.; writing-original draft preparation, B.S.; writing-review and editing, H.Z., J.C., T.Z. and Z.Y.; resources, H.L. and X.L.; supervision, H.L. and X.L.; project administration, H.L. and X.L.; funding acquisition, H.L. and X.L. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

The research was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2021YFC2101405).

Data Availability Statement

The data presented in this article are available on request from the corresponding author.

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the National Key Research and Development Program of China for their support.

Conflicts of Interest

Author Haochun Zhou, Jinnuo Cao, and Zhiwei Ying were employed by Plant Meat (Hangzhou) Health Technology Limited. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of commercial or financial relationships that could be constructed as a potential conflict of interest. The authors have declared that the current study have not received any funding from Plant Meat (Hangzhou) Health Technology Limited Company.

References

1. Hassoun, A.; Aït-Kaddour, A.; Abu-Mahfouz, A.M.; Rathod, N.B.; Bader, F.; Barba, F.J.; Biancolillo, A.; Cropotova, J.; Galanakis, C.M.; Jambrak, A.R.; et al. The Fourth Industrial Revolution in the Food Industry-Part I: Industry 4.0 Technologies. Crit. Rev. Food Sci. Nutr. 2022, 1-17. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed]

2. Marodin, G. The Acceptance of Plant-Based Meat Analogues in Brazil. Master Thesis, Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands, 2021. Available online: https://edepot.wur.nl/566903 (accessed on 5 October 2022).

3. Vaskelainen, T.; Siltaoja, M.; Hoskonen, H. Hypes and the Birth of New Sustainable Market Categories-A Socio-Cultural Perspective on the Emergence of the Meat Substitute Category in Finland. Technol. Anal. Strateg. Manag. 2022, 1-13. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]

4. Zhao, S.; Wang, L.; Hu, W.; Zheng, Y. Meet the Meatless: Demand for New Generation Plant-Based Meat Alternatives. Appl. Econ. Perspect. Policy 2022, 13232. Available online: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/aepp.13232 (accessed on 5 October 2022). [CrossRef]

5. Tonsor, G.T.; Lusk, J.L.; Schroeder, T.C. Market Potential of New Plant-Based Protein Alternatives: Insights from Four US Consumer Experiments. Appl. Econ. Perspect. Policy 2022. [CrossRef]

6. Anusha Siddiqui, S.; Bahmid, N.A.; Mahmud, C.M.M.; Boukid, F.; Lamri, M.; Gagaoua, M. Consumer Acceptability of Plant-, Seaweed-, and Insect-Based Foods as Alternatives to Meat: A Critical Compilation of a Decade of Research. Crit. Rev. Food Sci. Nutr. 2022, 1-22. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]

7. Cornovan, D. Italian Consumer Behaviour towards Plant-Based Meat. Master's Thesis, Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Venice, Italy, 2022. Available online: http://dspace.unive.it/bitstream/handle/10579/20804/861853-1254687.pdf?sequence=2 (accessed on 6 October 2022).

8. Caputo, V.; Sogari, G.; Van Loo, E.J. Do Plant-Based and Blend Meat Alternatives Taste like Meat? A Combined Sensory and Choice Experiment Study. Appl. Econ. Perspect. Policy 2022. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]

9. Li, Z. Discover How Celebrity Endorsement Advertisement Impacts Consumer Purchasing Behavior in the Case of Pepsi-Cola. Bachelor's Thesis, Wenzhou-Kean University Intellectual Research Environment, Wenzhou, China, 2020. Available online: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12540/442 (accessed on 6 October 2022).

10. Katare, B.; Yim, H.; Byrne, A.; Wang, H.H.; Wetzstein, M. Consumer Willingness to Pay for Environmentally Sustainable Meat and a Plant-Based Meat Substitute. Appl. Econ. Perspect. Policy 2022. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]

Subject Matter

Analyzed Aspects

Verdicts

Reference

Pea- and microalgae-protein-based MAs

Pea protein and Haematococcus pluvialis residue (HPR) were used in MA production employing HRE

The incorporation of HPR improved the appearance of MA. HPR can be used as a raw material for HRE to enhance the physical properties of MA

[ 58]

Aim of Study

Country

Method

Finding

Reference

Factors influencing PBM and CM buying intentions

Korea

An online survey in two separate sections for CM (n = 513) and PBMA (n = 504)

Sustainability, food neophobia, food curiosity, unnaturalness, and suspicion of biotechnology influence buying intentions

[ 6]

Consumers' attitudes towards PBM and CM over two consecutive years

Belgium

Cross-sectional online surveys using CAWI in 2019 (n = 1001) and 2020 (n = 1000)

Positive attitudes towards PBM increased from 44% (2019) to 51% in 2020. PBM was more appealing to younger consumers

[ 82]

Effect of labeling terminology on eating intentions with respect to PBM products

UK

The online study was conducted in two parts: 1. Do MA product labels (meat/vegetarian-related) appeal to people's preferences? 2. The moderating role of gender on label preferences

1. Willingness to eat was higher when meat substitutes had meat-associated labels.
2. Labeling preferences respecting meat were independent of gender

[ 89]

Publisher's Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Safdar, B.; Zhou, H.; Li, H.; Cao, J.; Zhang, T.; Ying, Z.; Liu, X. Prospects for Plant-Based Meat: Current Standing, Consumer Perceptions, and Shifting Trends. Foods 2022, 11, 3770. https://doi.org/10.3390/foods11233770

AMA Style

Safdar B, Zhou H, Li H, Cao J, Zhang T, Ying Z, Liu X. Prospects for Plant-Based Meat: Current Standing, Consumer Perceptions, and Shifting Trends. Foods. 2022; 11(23):3770. https://doi.org/10.3390/foods11233770

Chicago/Turabian Style

Safdar, Bushra, Haochun Zhou, He Li, Jinnuo Cao, Tianyu Zhang, Zhiwei Ying, and Xinqi Liu. 2022. "Prospects for Plant-Based Meat: Current Standing, Consumer Perceptions, and Shifting Trends" Foods 11, no. 23: 3770. https://doi.org/10.3390/foods11233770

Note that from the first issue of 2016, this journal uses article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Prospects for Plant-Based Meat: Current Standing, Consumer Perceptions, and Shifting Trends

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Dietary habits have a substantial influence on both planet and individual health. High intake of animal products has significant negative effects on the environment and on human health; hence, a reduction in meat consumption is necessary. The transition towards plant-based meat (PBM) is one of the potential solutions for environmental and health issues.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Agriculture has a significant environmental impact in three key ways.

First, it requires large amounts of fresh water, which can cause significant environmental pressures in regions with water stress. It needs water as input and pollutes rivers, lakes, and oceans by releasing nutrients.

It is a crucial driver of climate change, responsible for around one-quarter of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.

Finally, agriculture has a massive impact on the world's environment due to its enormous land use. Half of the world's habitable land is used for agriculture.

Large parts of the world that were once covered by forests and wildlands are now used for agriculture. This loss of natural habitat has been the main driver for reducing the world's biodiversity. Wildlife can rebound if we reduce agricultural land use and allow natural lands to restore.

Ensuring everyone has access to a nutritious diet sustainably is one of the most significant challenges we face. On this page, you can find our data, visualizations, and writing relating to the environmental impacts of food.

Key insights on the Environmental Impacts of Food

Food production has a large environmental impact in several ways

What are the environmental impacts of food and agriculture?

The visualization here shows a summary of some of the main global impacts:

Food production accounts for over a quarter (26%) of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Half of the world's habitable land is used for agriculture. Habitable land is land that is ice- and desert-free.

70% of global freshwater withdrawals are used for agriculture.

78% of global ocean and freshwater eutrophication is caused by agriculture. Eutrophication is the pollution of waterways with nutrient-rich water.

94% of non-human mammal biomass is livestock. This means livestock outweigh wild mammals by a factor of 15-to-1. This share is 97% when only land-based mammals are included.

71% of bird biomass is poultry livestock. This means poultry livestock outweigh wild birds by a factor of more than 3-to-1.

Tackling what we eat, and how we produce our food, plays a key role in tackling climate change, reducing water stress and pollution, restoring lands back to forests or grasslands, and protecting the world's wildlife.

Half of the world's habitable land is used for agriculture

Around half of the world's habitable land is used for agriculture. Habitable land is land that is ice- and desert-free. This is what the visualization shows.

Agricultural land is the sum of pasture used for livestock grazing, and cropland used for direct human consumption and animal feed.

Agriculture is, therefore, the world's largest land user, taking up more area than forests, or wild grasslands.

Three-quarters of this agricultural land is used for livestock, which is pasture plus cropland used for the production of animal feed. This gives the world just 18% of global calories, and 37% of its protein. The other quarter of land is for crops for human consumption, which provide the majority of the world's calories and protein.

What you should know about this data

Other studies find similar distributions of global land: in an analysis of how humans have transformed global land use in recent centuries, Ellis et al. (2010) found that by 2000, 55% of Earth's ice-free (not simply habitable) land had been converted into cropland, pasture, and urban areas. This left only 45% as 'natural' or 'semi-natural' land.

The study by Joseph Poore and Thomas Nemecek (2018) estimates that 43% of ice- and desert-free land is used for agriculture. 83% of this is used for animal-sourced foods.

The difference in these figures is often due to the uncertainty of the size of 'rangelands'. Rangelands are grasslands, shrublands, woodlands, wetlands, and deserts that are grazed by domestic livestock or wild animals. The intensity of grazing on rangelands can vary a lot. That can make it difficult to accurately quantify how much rangelands are used for grazing, and therefore how much is used for food production.

But as the review above showed, despite this uncertainty, most analyses tend to converge on an estimate of close to half of habitable land being used for agriculture.

Food is responsible for one-quarter of the world's emissions

Food systems are responsible for around one-quarter (26%) of global greenhouse gas emissions.

This includes emissions from land use change, on-farm production, processing, transport, packaging, and retail.

We can break these food system emissions down into four broad categories:

30% of food emissions come directly from livestock and fisheries. Ruminant livestock - mainly cattle - for example, produce methane through their digestive processes. Manure and pasture management also fall into this category.

1% comes from wild fisheries, most of which is fuel consumption from fishing vessels.

Crop production accounts for around a quarter of food emissions. This includes crops for human consumption and animal feed.

Land use accounts for 24% of food emissions. Twice as many emissions result from land use for livestock (16%) as for crops for human consumption (8%).

Finally, supply chains account for 18% of food emissions. This includes food processing, distribution, transport, packaging, and retail.

Other studies estimate that an even larger fraction - up to one-third - of the world's greenhouse gas emissions come from food production. These differences come from the inclusion of non-food agricultural products - such as textiles, biofuels, and industrial crops - plus uncertainties in food waste and land use emissions.

What you should know about this data

The source of this data is the meta-analysis of global food systems from Joseph Poore and Thomas Nemecek (2018), published in Science. This dataset is based on data from 38,700 commercially viable farms in 119 countries and 40 products.

Environmental impacts are calculated based on life-cycle analyses that consider impacts across the supply chain, including land use change, on-farm emissions, the production of agricultural inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides, food processing, transport, packaging, and retail.

Greenhouse gas emissions are measured in carbon dioxide equivalents (CO₂eq). This means each greenhouse gas is weighted by its global warming potential value. Global warming potential measures the amount of warming a gas creates compared to CO₂. In this study, CO₂eq and warming effects are measured over a 100-year timescale (GWP₁₀₀).

Emissions from food alone would take us past 1.5°C or 2°C this century

One-quarter to one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions come from our food systems. The rest comes from energy.

While energy and industry make a bigger contribution than food, we must tackle both food and energy systems to address climate change.

Michael Clark and colleagues modeled the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that would be emitted from food systems this century across a range of scenarios.

In a business-as-usual scenario, the authors expect the world to emit around 1356 billion tonnes of CO 2-we by 2100.

As the visualization shows, this would take us well beyond the carbon budget for 1.5°C - we would emit two to three times more than this budget. And it would consume almost all of our budget for 2°C.

Ignoring food emissions is simply not an option if we want to get close to our international climate targets.

Even if we stopped burning fossil fuels tomorrow - an impossibility - we would still go well beyond our 1.5°C target, and nearly miss our 2°C target.

What you should know about this data

The source of this data is the meta-analyses of global food systems from Michael Clark et al. (2020), published in Science.

Their 'business-as-usual' projection makes the following assumptions: global population increases in line with the UN's medium fertility scenario; per capita diets change as people around the world get richer (shifting towards more diverse diets with more meat and dairy); crop yields continue to increase in line with historical improvements, and rates of food loss and the emissions intensity of food production remain constant.

This is measured in global warming potential CO₂ warming-equivalents (CO2-we). This accounts for the range of greenhouse gasses, not just CO₂ but also others such as methane and nitrous oxide. We look at the differences in greenhouse gas metrics at the end of our articleon the carbon footprint of foods.

What we eat matters much more than how far it has traveled

'Eat local' is a common recommendation to reduce the carbon footprint of your diet. But it's often a misguided one.

Transport tends to be a small part of a food's carbon footprint. Globally, transport accounts for just 5% of food system emissions. Most of food's emissions come from land use change and emissions from their production on the farm.

Since transport emissions are typically small, and the differences between foods are large, what types of food we eat matter much more than how far it has traveled. Locally-produced beef will have a much larger footprint than peas, regardless of whether it's shipped across continents or not.

The visualization shows this.

Producing a kilogram of beef, for example, emits 60 kilograms of greenhouse gasses (CO ₂-equivalents). The production of a kilogram of peas, shown at the bottom of the chart, emits just 1 kilogram of greenhouse gasses. Whether the beef or peas are produced locally will have little impact on the difference between these two foods.

The reason that transport accounts for such a small share of emissions is that most internationally traded food travels by boat, not by plane. Very little food is air-freighted; it accounts for only 0.16% of food miles. For the few products which are transported by air, the emissions can be very high: flying emits 50 times more CO ₂ eq than boat per tonne kilometer.

Unlike aviation, shipping is a very carbon-efficient way to transport goods. So, even shipping food over long distances by boat emits only small amounts of carbon. A classic example of traded food is avocados. Shipping one kilogram of avocados from Mexico to the United Kingdom would generate 0.21kg CO ₂ eq in transport emissions.This is only around 8% of avocados' total footprint.

Even when shipped at great distances, its emissions are much less than locally-produced animal products.

What you should know about this data

The source of this data is the meta-analyses of global food systems from Joseph Poore and Thomas Nemecek (2018), published in Science. This dataset is based on data from 38,700 commercially viable farms in 119 countries and 40 products.

Environmental impacts are calculated based on life-cycle analyses that consider impacts across the supply chain, including land use change, on-farm emissions, the production of agricultural inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides, food processing, transport, packaging, and retail.

Greenhouse gas emissions are measured in carbon dioxide equivalents (CO₂eq). This means each greenhouse gas is weighted by its global warming potential value. Global warming potential measures the amount of warming a gas creates compared to CO₂. In this study, CO₂eq and warming effects are measured over a 100-year timescale (GWP₁₀₀).

When we compare the carbon footprint of different types of foods, a clear hierarchy emerges.

Meat and dairy products tend to emit more greenhouse gasses than plant-based foods. This holds true whether we compare on the basis of mass (per kilogram), per kilocalorie, or per gram of protein, as shown in the chart.

Within meat and dairy products, there is also a consistent pattern: larger animals tend to be less efficient and have a higher footprint. Beef typically has the largest emissions; followed by lamb; pork; chicken; then eggs and fish.

What you should know about this data

This data presents global average values. For some foods - such as beef - there are large differences depending on where it is produced, and the farming practices used. Nonetheless, the lowest-carbon beef and lamb still have a higher carbon footprint than most plant-based foods.

The source of this data is the meta-analyses of global food systems from Joseph Poore and Thomas Nemecek (2018), published in Science. This dataset covers 38,700 commercially viable farms in 119 countries and 40 products.

Environmental impacts are calculated based on life-cycle analyses that consider impacts across the supply chain, including land use change, on-farm emissions, the production of agricultural inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides, food processing, transport, packaging, and retail.

Greenhouse gas emissions are measured in carbon dioxide equivalents (CO₂eq). This means each greenhouse gas is weighted by its global warming potential value. Global warming potential measures the amount of warming a gas creates compared to CO₂. For CO₂eq, this is measured over a 100-year timescale (GWP₁₀₀).

The most effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the food system is to change .

Adopting a more plant-based diet by reducing our consumption of carbon-intensive foods such as meat and dairy - especially beef and lamb - is an effective way for consumers to reduce their carbon footprint.

But there are also opportunities to reduce emissions by optimizing for more carbon-efficient practices and locations to produce foods. For some foods - in particular, beef, lamb, and dairy - there are large differences in emissions depending on how and where they're produced. This is shown in the chart.

Producing 100 grams of protein from beef emits 25 kilograms of carbon dioxide-equivalents (CO ₂eq), on average. But this ranges from 9 kilograms to 105 kilograms of CO ₂ eq - a ten-fold difference.

Optimizing production in places where these foods are produced with a smaller footprint could be another effective way of reducing global emissions.

What you should know about this data

The source of this data is the meta-analyses of global food systems from Joseph Poore and Thomas Nemecek (2018), published in Science. This dataset covers 38,700 commercially viable farms in 119 countries and 40 products.

Environmental impacts are calculated based on life-cycle analyses that consider impacts across the supply chain, including land use change, on-farm emissions, the production of agricultural inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides, food processing, transport, packaging, and retail.

Greenhouse gas emissions are measured in carbon dioxide equivalents (CO₂eq). This means each greenhouse gas is weighted by its global warming potential value. Global warming potential measures the amount of warming a gas creates compared to CO₂. For CO₂eq, this is measured over a 100-year timescale (GWP₁₀₀).

Explore data on the Environmental Impacts of Food

Research & Writing

More key articles on the Environmental Impacts of Food

Food production and climate change

Food miles and transport

Environmental impacts of meat and dairy

Land use and deforestation

Other articles on food impacts

Interactive charts on Environmental Impacts of Food Production

Endnotes

1. FAO. (2011). The state of the world's land and water resources for food and agriculture (SOLAW) - Managing systems at risk. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome and Earthscan, London.

2. Ellis, E. C., Klein Goldewijk, K., Siebert, S., Lightman, D., & Ramankutty, N. (2010). Anthropogenic transformation of the biomes, 1700 to 2000. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 19(5), 589-606.

3. Crippa, M., Solazzo, E., Guizzardi, D., Monforti-Ferrario, F., Tubiello, F. N., & Leip, A. J. N. F. (2021). Food systems are responsible for a third of global anthropogenic GHG emissions. Nature Food, 2(3), 198-209.

4. 'Food miles' are measured in tonne-kilometers which represents the transport of one tonne of goods by a given transport mode (road, rail, air, sea, inland waterways, pipeline etc.) over a distance of one kilometer. Poore & Nemecek (2018) report that of the 9.4 billion tonne-kilometers of global food transport, air-freight accounted for only 15 million. This works out at only 0.16% of the total; most foods are transported by boat.

5. We get this footprint value as: [9000km * 0.023kg per tonne-kilometer / 1000 = 0.207kg CO2eq per kg].

Cite this work

Our articles and data visualizations rely on work from many different people and organizations. When citing this topic page, please also cite the underlying data sources. This topic page can be cited as:

Hannah Ritchie, Pablo Rosado and Max Roser (2022) - "Environmental Impacts of Food Production". Published online at OurWorldInData.org. Retrieved from: 'https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food' [Online Resource]

BibTeX citation

@article{owidenvironmentalimpactsoffood, author = {Hannah Ritchie and Pablo Rosado and Max Roser}, title = {Environmental Impacts of Food Production}, journal = {Our World in Data}, year = {2022}, note = {https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food} }

Reuse this work freely

All visualizations, data, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.

The data produced by third parties and made available by Our World in Data is subject to the license terms from the original third-party authors. We will always indicate the original source of the data in our documentation, so you should always check the license of any such third-party data before use and redistribution.

All of our charts can be embedded in any site.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Environmental Impacts of Food Production

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
What are the environmental impacts of food production? How do we reduce the impacts of agriculture on the environment?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A vegetarian burger is a meatless patty made of ground grains or soybean curd, and vegetables. It is often referred to as a veggieburger.

Background

Americans' love affair with hamburgers began sometime in the 1850s when German immigrants introduced the Hamburg steak to their new country. Made with a mixture of ground beef and seasonings and served on a roll, it quickly became the quintessential American meal. In fact, hamburgers were the foundation for the proliferation of fast-food chain restaurants in the United States and eventually around the world. A fat content of 15-30% supplies the juicy taste that consumers love, but has also been linked to health problems. This, and the rise in popularity of a vegetarian diet, led food processors to develop a meatless burger.

Although the term vegetarian did not exist until the 1800s, the theory or practice of following a meatless diet can be traced as far back as the first millennium. The Buddhist religion forbade the killing of animals for food. Buddhist priests who had spent time in China were responsible for introducing tofu, a white cheeselike substance that results from the soaking or boiling of soybeans, to Japan in the eighth century. The sixth century B.C. Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras advocated a kinship between humans and animals, and his followers often adhered to a vegetarian diet. Plato, Epicurus, and Plutarch were other early vegetarians.

In the Christian religion, the avoidance of meat has often been viewed as a penance. Some monastic orders forbid the consumption of meat. For centuries, Catholics were instructed to forgo meat on Fridays and even now avoid it during the season of Lent. In the 1800s, the Bible Christians sect was created when a group separated from the Church of England, citing the Bible's prohibition of meat consumption as one reason for the split. William Metcalf, a Bible Christian minister, and 41 followers, arrived in the United States in 1817. One of those followers was Sylvester Graham who traveled the country extolling the virtues of vegetarianism. One of his particular favorite foodstuffs was whole grain flour, and it is from him that we got Graham crackers.

By 1847, British Bible Christians had established the Vegetarian Society of Great Britain. The American Vegetarian Society followed in 1850. Up until this time, the primary impetus for following a vegetarian diet was a concern for animal life. In the twentieth century, the healthful benefits of a meatless diet became another, equally compelling force. Once again, this came from within the religious community: the Church of Seventh Day Adventists, which claims that 50% of its members and nearly 100% of its clergy are practicing vegetarians.

One of its most famous members was John Harvey Kellogg of corn flake fame. Kellogg was physician-in-chief of the Adventist-run Western Health Reform Institute in Battle Creek, Michigan. Kellogg believed that meat consumption was ruinous to the human colon and thus the Institute's kitchen was strictly vegetarian. Kellogg and his wife developed the first meat substitute, a seasoned peanut and flour mixture called nuttose. Worthington Foods, the country's oldest vegetarian foods company, was established in 1939. Its initial target market was members of the Church of Seventh Day Adventists. Today, the company produces a veggieburger under its Morningstar Farms brand.

By the 1960s, vegetarian restaurants were cropping up throughout the United States. In 1971, Diet for a Small Planet, by Frances Moore Lappe was published. Although Lappe's purpose was to alert the public to the negative effects of animal farming on the environment and people rather than to write a treatise on vegetarianism, her book convinced many to drop meat from their diet. Equally influential was the burgeoning animal rights movement, buoyed by the publication in 1975 of Animal Liberation by Peter Singer, and the founding of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in 1980.

By the close of the twentieth century, vegetarianism was enjoying its strongest popularity, with an estimated 15 million practitioners in the United States alone. An entire industry devoted to the processing of high-protein vegetable foods to simulate the taste of meat has evolved.

One successful meatless burger company is Gardenburger, Inc., founded by Paul Wenner. Wenner became interested in the correlation between nutrition and health in the 1960s. Chronically ill most of his life, Wenner experimented with various food combinations and ultimately became a vegetarian. After working as a cooking teacher for a number of years, he opened the Gardenhouse restaurant and Gourmet Cooking School in Gresham, Oregon. It was here that the original Gardenburger, a mixture of mushrooms, brown rice, onions, oats, and low fat cheeses, was created. In 1985, he was forced to close the restaurant. Undaunted, he established Wholesome and Hearth Foods, Inc., and began to distribute his meatless burger nationwide.

Other major brands include Boca Burger and Harvest Burger. Although some of the smaller firms produce their veggieburgers by hand, most companies employ modern food-processing machinery.

Raw Materials

Veggieburgers are created with a variety of ingredients including, but not limited to soybeans, rice, whole wheat, black beans, corn, lentils, mushrooms, carrots, and zucchini. Some companies add stabilizers such as tapioca starch and vegetable gum. These ingredients are purchased from outside suppliers and then processed in-house. When the grains and vegetables arrive at the plant, they are examined for quality. Rotted specimens are discarded.

The Manufacturing
Process

Washing

1 Grains and vegetables are loaded into separate machines for thorough cleansing to remove dirt, bacteria created by spoilage, chemical residue, and any other foreign materials that may exist. Some factories have conveyer belts that move the food products under high-pressure sprayers. Others use hollow drums that tumble the food while water is sprayed on it.

Cooking the grains

2 The base grain, whether it be whole wheat, rice, or beans, is cooked in large vats of water until softened. The resulting puree is strained, separating the product from excess water, and any remaining foreign matter.

Dicing the vegetables

3 The vegetables are diced into tiny pieces. In some factories, this is done by a machine that is calibrated to slice the vegetables into uniform sizes. Other, smaller companies, still do this by hand.

Combining the grains and
vegetables

4 Pre-measured amounts of the grain puree and the diced vegetables are combined into an industrial mixing bowl that blends the ingredients thoroughly.

Forming the patties

5 The mixture is then loaded into an automatic patty-making machine, or press. The press is a cylindrical device with several stacks of round molds topped by a plunger. When the plunger is depressed, the ground mixture is formed into patties.

Baking the patties

6 The patties are loaded onto perforated baking trays, then placed in an oven for about an hour and a half at a preset temperature.

Patties are quick-frozen

7 The trays are loaded into a freezing chamber in which the temperature is below the freezing point of 32° F (0° C). The goal is to freeze the patties in 30 minutes or less. Because vegetables contain a jelly-like protoplasm, the speedy processes promotes the formation of ice crystals through the tissues. When the patties are cooked, the water is reabsorbed as the ice crystals melt.

Patties are vacuum-packed and
packaged

8 The patties are conveyed to a vacuum-packing machine which envelopes the patties in pre-measured plastic sleeves, drawing out the excess air and sealing each end. Then, they are loaded into pre-printed cardboard packages, usually four patties to a package. The frozen varieties are kept in temperature-controlled refrigerated compartments before and during shipment.

Quality Control

The Food and Drug Administration issues strict standards for the commercial processing of food. These regulations include sterilization of factory equipment, quality of ingredients, and storage safeguards. Raw materials are tasted and judged visually upon their arrival at the plant. Tasters also sample the product at various points along the processing line.

The Future

While the trend toward a more healthful diet is expected to continue, it is not readily apparent that the veggieburger will become an integral part of that diet. The primary challenge facing companies that produce meatless burgers is to create a patty that pleases palates accustomed to beef and the fat that gives it its flavor.

On the positive side, the products received major media coverage toward the end of the 1990s. Boca Burgers were served at the White House and in the Senate. Gardenburger's consumer market share jumped from 24-51% after it purchased advertising time on "Seinfeld," a popular television program. However, most industry analysts think that the real breakthrough will only occur if one of the major hamburger chains, such as Burger King or McDonald's, puts a veggieburger on the menu.

Where to Learn More

Books

Messina, Virginia and Mark Messina. The Vegetarian Way. New York: Harmony Books, 1996.

Wenner, Paul. GardenCuisine: Heal Yourself. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997.

Periodicals

"Veggieburgers Are Ringing Up Meaty Sales." Chicago Tribune, 6 December 1998, sec. 5, p. 1.

Other

Boca Burger. http://www.bocaburger.com (March 4, 1999).

Gardenburger, Inc. 1997. http://www.gardenburger.com (March 4, 1999).

Worthington Foods. http://www.momingstarfarms.com (March 4,1999).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How vegetarian burger is made - making, processing, product, industry, machine, Raw Materials

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A vegetarian burger is a meatless patty made of ground grains or soybean curd, and vegetables. It is often referred to as a veggieburger. Americans' love affair with hamburgers began sometime in the 1850s when German immigrants introduced the Hamburg steak to their new country.

# data[].attributes.headline
da file - comparazione veggie, meat vegan

# data[].attributes.subject
da file - comparazione veggie, meat vegan

# data[].attributes.headline
storia dei veggie burger, magari possiamo dire quando sono stati inventati i primi e come, in poche frasi

# data[].attributes.subject
storia dei veggie burger, magari possiamo dire quando sono stati inventati i primi e come, in poche frasi

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Now mainstream, the hippie food changed vegetarian culture forever in 1982

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
I burger vegetali non sono più salutari di quelli di bovino, inoltre sono più processati a livello industriale. È il risultato di un confronto presentato come La sfida definitiva dal sito NutriMi, basato su di un'elaborazione di Oplà, app che permette di valutare i prodotti alimentari considerando sia l'aspetto nutrizionale che il processo produttivo. Il confronto si basa sui valori nutrizionali medi di un burger di puro bovino contro un 'metaprodotto' con le caratteristiche medie di 10 burger vegetali scelti fra quelli leader di mercato. Le polpette di sola carne bovina sarebbero preferibili perché meno grasse e più naturali, in quanto non prevedono aggiunte di zucchero, sale, né altri ingredienti. È vero che si tratta di un alimento semplice, non ultra-processato, come sono invece gli analoghi vegetali, infatti trasformare soia, piselli o altri vegetali in un prodotto simile alla carne, per sapore e consistenza, richiede diversi ingredienti e processi industriali complessi. Non si può dire però che il burger di bovino sia sempre preferibile a quello veg, perché esistono prodotti a base vegetale molto diversi fra loro, con ingredienti e tabelle nutrizionali differenti. La media fra 10 burger non risulta quindi interessante per il consumatore, che deve fare una scelta fra prodotti sempre più numerosi e differenziati.

Abbiamo confrontato l'hamburger di bovino adulto, 100% carne, a marchio Coop Origine, con alcuni burger vegetali che troviamo sugli scaffali dei supermercati (vedi tabella). Cento grammi di hamburger di bovino forniscono 181 kcal, 11 g di grassi, di cui 5,5 di grassi saturi e 20 g di proteine. Il prodotto non contiene carboidrati, né fibra e pochissimo sale. La maggior parte delle alternative vegetali è prodotta a partire da soia (tofu, farina di soia, proteine di soia o altro), ma anche da ceci oppure piselli, quest'ultimo è un ingrediente più sostenibile della soia e sempre più utilizzato. Come grasso si trova spesso olio di girasole, ma anche di colza, di cocco (più ricco di grassi saturi) e, raramente, il più salutare extravergine d'oliva. Molte ricette prevedono cipolla, pomodoro o altre verdure e sono sempre presenti spezie per insaporire la miscela. In alcuni casi compaiono additivi come stabilizzanti (metilcellulosa), aromi o conservanti (come il sorbato di potassio).

La composizione nutrizionale dei prodotti considerati varia notevolmente: 100 g forniscono in media circa 200 kcal, un valore vicino a quello dell'hamburger di bovino, ma si va da 154 per il burger di soia Conad a 329 per il prodotto di ceci Pam Panorama in cui i grassi arrivano addirittura al 23%, un valore esagerato se pensiamo che in media siamo intorno al 10-12%. I grassi saturi, quelli a cui dobbiamo fare più attenzione, perché correlati alle patologie cardiovascolari, rimangono di solito intorno all'1% nei prodotti vegetali, contro il 5,5% del bovino che abbiamo preso a confronto. Attenzione, però, perché la quantità può salire in base al grasso utilizzato: si arriva al 6,5% nell'Unconventional burger, che vede fra gli ingredienti olio di cocco. I prodotti vegetali contengono poi una certa quantità di carboidrati complessi (assente nella carne) e fibra vegetale. Mancano invece micronutrienti importanti come il ferro e le vitamine, che troviamo nella carne. Attenzione al sale: assente negli hamburger di sola carne, può superare 1,5 g in una polpetta veg. Un burger, nel pasto, è di solito il piatto più ricco di proteine e il prodotto bovino, con una quota del 20%, ha un ottimo contenuto proteico. Questa quota invece varia notevolmente nei prodotti vegetali: da circa 7 g nei burger Coop e Zerbinati a 21 g del prodotto Garden gourmet, con diversi burger che si attestano intorno a 15 g.

Quest'aspetto non ci deve preoccupare, perché difficilmente la nostra alimentazione risulta carente di proteine, in ogni caso è opportuno considerarlo perché, dal punto di vista nutrizionale, un burger con il 7% di proteine non si può considerare analogo a una pietanza a base di carne. È chiaro quindi che bisogna sempre leggere le etichette con attenzione, considerando grassi, proteine, sale e anche la presenza di additivi come conservanti, presenti per esempio nel burger Kioene, o aromi, nell'Unconventional burger e nel prodotto Valsoia, di cui possiamo fare a meno. Questo tipo di considerazioni vale comunque anche per il prodotti di carne bovina, perché gli hamburger di carne 100% sono una piccola parte, mentre spesso prevedono aggiunte, come pangrattato, fiocchi di patate, erbe aromatiche e sale. Inoltre, il tenore di grassi saturi varia notevolmente a seconda del taglio utilizzato.

Abbiamo chiesto un parere a Enzo Spisni, fisiologo della nutrizione presso l'Università di Bologna. "Non direi proprio che l'hamburger di bovino sia un alimento preferibile in generale ai burger vegetali - dice Spisni -. Si tratta di prodotti completamente diversi: quelli a base vegetale possono essere di scarsa oppure di ottima qualità, in base alle materie prime e agli additivi utilizzati. Nelle scuole primarie si insegna che non si possono sommare pere a patate, nei corsi universitari di statistica che non si possono fare medie di prodotti non omogenei. Fare medie di composizione di prodotti così diversi è scientificamente sbagliato. La carne bovina, d'altra parte, è una carne rossa e il suo consumo deve essere saltuario, perché correlata a patologie come quelle cardiovascolari e il cancro al colon. Per evitare questi rischi è opportuno seguire le frequenze di consumo suggerite dalla piramide alimentare della dieta mediterranea, per cui la carne rossa non andrebbe consumata più di alcune volte al mese. Non dimentichiamo poi la sostenibilità ambientale: anche se i burger vegetali hanno un packaging più complesso rispetto a quelli di carne bovina, che possiamo acquistare dal macellaio, quella della carne bovina rimane la filiera agroalimentare con il più elevato impatto ambientale".

Sul fronte dei prezzi la situazione è variegata. Un hamburger di bovino costa 11 €/kg all'Esselunga e 13 alla Coop e i burger vegetali con il marchio delle stesse catene hanno prezzi analoghi. Per i prodotti vegetali 'firmati', invece, si va dai circa 13 €/kg per il burger Zerbinati agli oltre 23 €/kg per quello a marchio Garden Gourmet. La carne è sicuramente un ingrediente più costoso della soia e dei ceci, come si spiegano allora questi prezzi? In parte sono dovuti alla complessità dei processi produttivi, che richiede notevoli investimenti nella ricerca, poi incide il marketing, necessario per lanciare sul mercato prodotti sempre nuovi. Bisogna comunque notare che i prezzi sono diventati più accessibili, rispetto anche a pochi anni fa, in particolare per i prodotti con il marchio dei supermercati. Per questo i burger vegetali si stanno rapidamente affermando, non tanto sulle tavole dei vegetariani, ma su quelle di tutti coloro che vogliono ridurre il consumo di carne, sia per questioni di salute sia con l'intento di ridurre l'impatto ambientale delle proprie scelte alimentari, aspetto che sta a cuore a un numero crescente di consumatori. La produzione delle lenticchie, per esempio, ha un impatto sul clima 43 volte inferiore a quello della carne bovina. Gli ingredienti e i processi utilizzati per produrrre i burger vegetali richiedono comunque materie prime ed energia. La scelta più efficace, da questo punto di vista, sarebbe quindi quella di consumare cereali e legumi tal quali, oppure preparare a casa burger e crocchette partendo da ceci e lenticchie. In ogni caso, facendo attenzione alle etichette, i prodotti pronti possono essere un'alternativa interessante per un pasto già pronto.

* Prezzi rilevati sui siti delle catene e sulle principali piattaforme di vendita online.

** Il Nutriscore valuta gli aspetti nutrizionali ed è basato su cinque categorie (dalla A alla E, per alimenti da consumare via via meno di frequente). La valutazione Yuka tiene conto sia della composizione nutrizionale che degli additivi ed è basata su un punteggio in centesimi che permette di suddividere i prodotti in quattro categorie.

© Riproduzione riservata; Foto: AdobeStock, Fotolia

Valeria Balboni - 15 Ottobre 2021

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Burger vegetali: l'offerta è differenziata, anche sotto il profilo nutrizionale

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
I burger vegetali non sono più salutari di quelli di bovino, inoltre sono più processati a livello industriale. È il risultato di un confronto presentato come La sfida definitiva dal sito NutriMi, basato su di un'elaborazione di Oplà, app che permette di valutare i prodotti alimentari considerando sia l'aspetto nutrizionale che il processo produttivo.

# data[].attributes.headline
guardalo per dati introduzione e per nuove prospettive

# data[].attributes.subject
guardalo per dati introduzione e per nuove prospettive

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
veggie burger production line for making vegetable burger

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Veggie burger production line is to process vegetables into a patty and then fry, pack, etc. Veggie burgers are popular with Vegetarian restaurants.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Meat - or more specifically, 'industrial meat' - is bad for the planet.

The vast majority of meat bought in the UK is produced in intensive factory farms. These farms are part of a destructive global system of mass-produced industrial meat and dairy.

This system is driven by supermarkets like Tesco, Sainsbury's and Asda; as well as fast food chains like KFC, Burger King and McDonald's. Many of these household names buy from companies owned by JBS - the largest meat processing company in the world. Through its meat production, JBS produces around half the carbon emissions of fossil fuel giants such as Shell or BP, and is driving deforestation in the Amazon.

The industrial meat system requires a huge amount of land to sustain itself. Forests, particularly in South America, are deliberately slashed and burned every year to graze cattle and grow enough crops to feed billions of farmed animals.

Here's why industrial meat is so bad for people and the planet:

1. It causes deforestation and forest fires

Industrial meat is the single biggest cause of deforestation globally. In Brazil, farmers are deliberately setting forest fires - like the Amazon rainforest fires you may have seen in the news - to clear space for cattle ranching and to grow industrial animal feed, like soya, for farms back in the UK.

2. It causes climate change

The climate impact of meat is enormous - roughly equivalent to all the driving and flying of every car, truck and plane in the world.

When forests are destroyed to produce industrial meat, billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide are released into the atmosphere, accelerating global warming. The fallen trees are often left to rot on the forest floor or are burned, creating further emissions.

Healthy trees are essential for absorbing carbon from the atmosphere. If we cut them down, they can no longer help us in the fight against climate change.

3. It's pushing the Amazon rainforest closer to a tipping point

Trees in the Amazon rainforest produce their own rainfall, which keeps the whole forest alive and healthy. If deforestation (for things like industrial meat) continues at the current rate, the Amazon could reach a ' tipping point ', where it can no longer sustain itself as a rainforest.

This would have a devastating impact on the people and animals who live in, or depend on, the forest directly. It could also lead to less rainfall, affecting drinking water and irrigation across large parts of South America; and changes to climate patterns in other parts of the world too.

4. It's responsible for human rights abuses and land-grabbing

Indigenous People and traditional communities - like the geraizeira communities in Brazil - are at the frontline in the fight to protect forests. An investigation by Greenpeace Brazil showed that security forces working for soya producer Agronegócio Estrondo harassed, detained, abducted and shot members of the traditional geraizeira communities.

Meanwhile, President Bolsonaro and his government tacitly encourage illegal loggers, miners and farmers to occupy Indigenous lands, by rolling back historic regulations and trying to legalise land-grabbing. Land invasions often become violent and loggers have killed Indigenous People in these conflicts. Mass meat producer, JBS, has been repeatedly linked to suppliers who operate illegally on protected Indigenous lands.

Cattle ranches and soya producers in Brazil have a history of profiting from modern day slavery. That includes suppliers to JBS (the meat processing giant). JBS' abattoirs have been linked to terrible working conditions, mass outbreaks of Covid-19 and salmonella-ridden chicken exports.

5. It's killing wildlife

By clearing forests, destroying habitats and using toxic pesticides to grow animal food, the industrial meat industry is contributing to the extinction of thousands of species, many of which haven't even been discovered yet.

We depend on a healthy environment for our own survival. The huge abundance and variety of the natural world (sometimes called biodiversity) is essential for food, clean water and medicines. The rapid loss of biodiversity, largely driven by industrial farming, could be as big a threat to our existence as climate change.

6. It's increasing the risk of future pandemics like Covid-19

Destroying forests and other wild areas for animal agriculture is a major cause of new infectious diseases. Three quarters of new diseases affecting humans come from animals. Cutting down and burning forests brings wildlife into closer contact with people, enabling deadly viruses to pass from animals to humans. The more forest that is destroyed, the greater the risk of a new pandemic.

But that's not the only disease risk from industrial meat. Factory farms can also increase the spread of disease, both between animals and from animals to humans. The risk is higher for industrial meat farms because huge numbers of animals are crammed into small spaces, and the animals themselves have weaker immune systems. This means that viruses can develop more rapidly and have the potential to pass to humans.

7. It's an inefficient way to eat

Companies sometimes argue that industrial meat is an efficient way to produce food, but this ignores its true costs. Over a quarter of the world's entire land area is used to graze or grow food for farm animals - food that could have been eaten by people in the first place. Just 1kg of chicken meat takes 3.2kg of crops to produce.

If everyone ate a plant-based diet, we'd need 75% less farmland than we use today. That's an area equivalent to the US, China, Europe and Australia combined. That's because it takes less land to grow food directly for humans, than to feed animals, which humans then eat.

In countries like the UK, we need to be eating 70% less meat and dairy by 2030 to prevent climate breakdown. By eating mostly plant-based food, we could feed more people - with all the calories and nutrition needed for a healthy diet - without destroying forests.

But this isn't just about people's individual choices. The government has a huge role to play too, but right now they're ignoring the huge damage caused by industrial meat and dairy. Join the campaign to put pressure on them to act.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
7 reasons why meat is bad for the environment | Greenpeace UK

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Meat - or more specifically, 'industrial meat' - is bad for the planet. The vast majority of meat bought in the UK is produced in intensive factory farms. These farms are part of a destructive global system of mass-produced industrial meat and dairy.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How Vegan Meat is Made? Production of Plant Based Meat

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Curious about alternative proteins? To start, they are proteins produced from plants, cultivated animal cells, or by way of fermentation.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Considering Plant-Based Meat Substitutes and Cell-Based Meats: A Public Health and Food Systems Perspective

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Over the past decade, there has been growing interest in the development and production of plant-based and cell-based alternatives to farmed meat. Although promoted for their capacity to avoid or reduce the environmental, animal welfare, and, in some cases, public health problems associated with far…

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Timeline: The Rapid Evolution of Plant-Based Alternatives

From plant-based Chick'n Tenders to dairy-free Mylk, consumers are spoilt for choice when it comes to alternatives products on the market.

With an explosion of new options hitting shelves at lightning speed and consumers growing more knowledgeable of plant-based diets, a shift towards eating less meat is being felt across the globe. But how did this movement come to be?

The infographic above from Billy Goat Brands (CSE: GOAT) ("GOAT") maps out the most notable milestones in the last two decades that have contributed to the evolution of this growing market. Let's dive in.

Key Events

Although it may feel like we are undergoing a massive transformation when it comes to alternatives, vegetarianism is nothing new. In fact, meat alternatives like tofu have been around since as early as 200 BCE.

Since then, many cultures have made plants a staple in their diet and as of 2021, there was an estimated 79 million people in the world who eat strictly plant-based.

In the table below, we break down the milestones of note that contributed to the growing plant-based market over the last 20 years:

2002

Quorn enters the North American market

2003

Plant-based food producer Gardein launches

2009

Beyond Meat is founded

2011

Impossible Foods is founded

2011

Sophie's Kitchen-a plant-based seafood alternatives company-is founded

2013

The first plant-based egg substitute is created by San Francisco based startup JUST Egg

2014

Pinnacle Foods buys Gardein for $154 million

2016

Tyson takes a 5% stake in Beyond Meat

2017

Nestlé acquires plant-based food producer Sweet Earth

2021

Plant-based retailers become more prominent

2021

New report predicts plant-based food will reach $143 billion by 2030, and grow 100-fold to $1.4 trillion by 2050

Despite disruptions in the supply chain, 2020 proved to be a pivotal year for alternatives products moving into the mainstream with more people realizing the many benefits that come with a plant-based lifestyle.

U.S. retail sales in 2020 shot up by a whopping 27% as a result, reaching $7 billion according to the Good Food Institute.

The Benefits of Eating Plant-Based

Plant-based alternatives can provide the same, if not more nutrients and protein as meat and dairy products. In fact, there is a long list of reasons why you should eat plant-based, as many alternatives on the market have proven to:

Contain lower saturated fats

Help lower cholesterol

Help lower cardiovascular risks

On top of the health benefits, plant-based alternatives have also been shown to be a better option for the planet:

Reduce reliance on more resource-intensive production processes

Produce lower GHG emissions

Require less water and land use compared to conventional meat production

Ultimately, the reasons for reaching for healthy alternatives far outweigh the benefits of eating conventional meat products.

Investing in the Next Generation of Food

GOAT is a unique platform that gives investors access to a diverse selection of health-conscious, sustainability-focused and ESG-driven companies in the alternatives space including The Vegetarian Butcher.

As Canada's one-stop shop for high quality plant-based alternatives, The Vegetarian Butcher has recently announced its ambitious plan to open a third brick and mortar store after just five years in business.

Will you invest in the future of food?
Learn more about GOAT by clicking this link.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Timeline: The Rapid Evolution of Plant-Based Alternatives

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
From plant-based Chick'n Tenders to dairy-free Mylk, consumers are spoilt for choice when it comes to alternatives products on the market. With an explosion of new options hitting shelves at lightning speed and consumers growing more knowledgeable of plant-based diets, a shift towards eating less meat is being felt across the globe.

# data[].attributes.body
Have you ever eaten plant based food (veggie burger, veggie chicken, veggie sausage etc.)?
If your answer was affirmative, have they satisfied your expectations?
If your answer was negative, would you like to try this type of products?