"The Environmental Impacts of Plant-Based Meat Substitutes"
“There is increasing consensus that transitioning towards
reduced meat consumption and more plant-based diets is a key feature
to address important health and sustainability challenges”
facing humanity; yet, this has been the trajectory
of global meat consumption.
According to the United Nations, we would “have to double
the production of meat and dairy to meet the predicted demand
[for] animal proteins in 2050”, when, in fact,
we’d have to do the exact opposite if we were to contain
the ecological damage.
“[N]early every credible forecast shows that if we’re to have
any chance of meeting future food in a sustainable fashion,
lowering our meat consumption will be absolutely essential.”
While more centralized governments may be effective in influencing
consumption patterns, since the main drivers of global meat consumption
are things like rising incomes, urbanization, and Western culture,
“the main identified drivers of meat demand are difficult to influence
through direct policy intervention.”
Thus, we have to take our case directly to the consumer;
but information and education may not be enough.
We may need the increased availability
of ready-made plant-based products.
Too often “ethics and sustainability alone
does not stand much of a chance in a world of consumers.”
“Many consumers seem deaf to ethical arguments,”
which may be quickly forgotten when it comes down to buying food.
When it comes to consumer- perceived barriers
to following a plant-based diet, the largest barrier
may simply be meat appreciation. People enjoy the taste of meat.
So, in practice, if we want people to shift over
to plant-based options, “the taste, structure, and nutritional value
of vegetarian meals could be developed to more closely follow
the preferences of meat eaters.”
I mean, no point in designing a veggie burger for vegetarians—
they’re already not eating meat.
So, when Pat Brown founded Impossible Foods, his goal was
to create something “a burger- lover would say is better
than any burger they’ve ever had.”
Or the Beyond Burger created by Beyond Meat, a company founded
to tackle climate change by creating plant-based products
that were “Juicy, Meaty and Delicious.”
But how much better are they for the climate?
Both the Beyond Burger and the Impossible Burger have had
environmental lifecycle assessments published by reputable groups.
I did a little piece for the Swiss investment firm UBS
summarizing the results, and indeed, switching to either
drops greenhouse gas emissions, land use,
and water footprints down about 90%.
Similar analyses have been done
on more than 50 different plant-based meats.
All such studies found them to be vastly more sustainable,
with no real diﬀerences in greenhouse gas emissions observed
between the diﬀerent sources of protein they used,
whether it’s wheat or soy or whatever.
Though, obviously, any products containing egg binders
would be significantly worse.
Now, of course, if you went straight to the unprocessed peas
and soybeans from which the Beyond and Impossible Burgers are made,
you could get not just a 90% lower impact, but like a 99% lower impact,
but that impact drops to zero if no one is willing to eat it.
A review on consumer research of meat substitutes found
that although things like health and environment can persuade
consumers to try a meat substitute, it’s the “appearance and taste…
that are crucial factors for their consumption on a regular basis.”
Interestingly, these days plant-based foods may actually have a leg up.
If you give college students actual animal-based chocolate milk,
mac and cheese, chicken tenders, and meatballs, but lie to them
and tell them they’re actually made from plants,
surprisingly and unexpectedly, the researchers found that when
“subjects tasted the food and rated how much they liked the taste,
those who were told the food was vegan liked the food
signiﬁcantly better than did those who were told the [truth].”
Just “thinking a food was vegan actually increased liking
for the taste of that food.”
Other demographics may have a different reaction, though,
in which case there’s always sustainability by stealth,
using blended products that substitute out
some of the animal protein for plant protein.
In the last year, such hybrid products have made a promising entrance,
so much so that major meat producers, Perdue and Tyson,
are bragging about the incorporation of plant protein
into their blended products.