Fake meat's real impacts
What do we know so far about how faux burgers and nuggets affect food choices, the environment, and health?
According to the popular narrative, meatless meat is not the greatest thing since sliced bread. It’s much, much better. Unlike other vegan foods, technology has given companies the ability to convince avowed meat eaters to swap their burgers for plant-based patties that bleed, their nuggets for chunks of chicken grown from cells in a lab.
Over the past few months, stories of the industry’s progress have been everywhere. During the Future Food-Tech conference, I tuned in to a livestream tour of what SuperMeat billed as “the world's first production-to-fork cultured meat manufacturing facility” in Tel Aviv. After, in a press release, SuperMeat’s CEO said he “is working closely with local industries in the US, EU and UAE” to build similar facilities in 2022. Reuters reported that Impossible Foods is preparing to go public with a $10 billion valuation. And Good Food Institute (GFI), a group that promotes alt-meat, released data that showed investment in the industry tripled between 2019 and 2020, topping $3 billion last year.
“The investor community is waking up to the massive social and economic potential of food technology to radically remake our food system,” GFI senior investor engagement specialist Sharyn Murray said, of the numbers.
It is now a well-established fact that we will have to produce and eat less meat—especially beef—if we want to reduce global emissions enough to avoid the most catastrophic consequences of climate change. Shifting away from industrial meat production (not all meat, in my opinion) would also reduce air and water pollution that disproportionately affects vulnerable communities, eliminate animal suffering, and curb public health threats including antibiotic resistance and (ahem) viral pandemics.
But whether or not an effective path towards accelerating that shift is for corporations to sell Beyond Sausage breakfast sandwiches at Dunkin’ and Impossible Whoppers at Burger King is still an open question. What kind of “radical remake” are these companies promising? And what can we find out about whether they’re delivering on it so far? This week, I’m digging into some real data on fake meat.
(Note: I’m not talking about veggie burgers or baked tofu in this article, I’m specifically looking at the new-age meat alternatives made by venture capital-backed tech companies that are specifically trying to imitate meat.)
Unwrapped
The first claim is simple. Most people love meat, and they don’t want to give it up. If companies can manufacture substitutes that perfectly mimic the taste and texture of burgers and steak, eaters will be more willing to swap them into their meals.
But so far, there’s no evidence that’s happening. According to recently released US Department of Agriculture (USDA) data, over the past few years, as these faux meats have picked up steam at the bank, in restaurants, and on grocery store shelves, total per capita meat consumption has continued to rise. Last month, the meat industry’s annual “Power of Meat” report revealed 43 percent of the Americans surveyed said they now buy more meat than before the COVID-19 pandemic. That is likely at least partially due to eating more meals at home. Lela Nargi’s story in The Counter also points to one other overall explanation worth considering: that demand for “protein” has gone up so much, meat consumption would be even higher without the alternatives that now proliferate.
Still, the bottom line is that while the alternatives are very new and this could change in the coming years, there’s no evidence yet that Americans, in particular, are choosing fake meats to replace actual meat in any meaningful way.
The second claim seems straightforward but is complicated by many factors. Since we know that meat generally has a higher climate footprint than plant foods, faux meat companies claim the products are a climate solution.
However, if soybeans have a lower climate footprint than beef, that doesn’t necessarily mean a burger manufactured with various processed forms of soy does. To make that determination, you’ve got to take into account all of the ingredient inputs and manufacturing processes.
In 2020, researchers at the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future published a research article that “provides the most comprehensive review to date of the greenhouse gas footprints, land use, and blue (i.e., irrigation) water footprints of plant-based substitutes and cell-based meat.” I interviewed one of the lead researchers, Raychel Santo, about the findings on The Farm Report last November. “Nearly every environmental impact we looked at followed a general pattern, which was, generally speaking, whether plant-based or cell-based, it likely has lower environmental impacts compared to beef,” she said. The plant-based meats also resulted in fewer greenhouse gas emissions compared to other meats like poultry and pork, per serving of protein, but the benefits there were less pronounced. This is important though: “Emissions were higher than those associated with...tofu and less-processed pulses and peas.”
For cell-based meats, the potential greenhouse gases per serving were comparable to or slightly higher than those of poultry, pork, and eggs. This is a pretty significant conclusion, but I say “potential” because the studies could only model what the emissions might be, given the industry is so new and no real data exists yet. The models are highly speculative, and things are changing so rapidly, they’re likely already out of date. And even with plant-based meats, Santo first articulated that the team found very few peer-reviewed studies to draw from. A lot more research will be needed.
So, on greenhouse gases, the faux meats all do better than commodity beef. After that, it’s a mixed bag and we need more information. And they’re likely all more climate intensive than less processed plant-based protein sources like legumes.
It’s also worth noting that companies like Impossible are using commodity soy as their main ingredient. So environmental issues like soil degradation, pesticide use, and water pollution from monoculture production are real. A farm that grows vegetables, maybe grains and/or legumes in rotations, and raises animals in integrated, responsible systems, is likely going to do better across the board on environmental metrics.
(Quick aside: I’m not going to get into animal welfare here, but plant-based meat doesn’t involve animals so it very effectively takes care of all potential animal welfare concerns. Most cell-based meat companies, however, still rely on adult animal muscle stem cells to start growing their products, and it’s unclear how many animals are needed for that or how soon it might be before technology eliminates the need for them. Many companies, including the only one currently selling cell-based meat for humans in Singapore, also use fetal bovine serum—a byproduct of cattle slaughterhouses—as a growth medium. If you want to read more, click through to the research article.)
Okay, finally, third big claim: Plant-based diets are healthy, and therefore, fake meat is healthy. Many alt-meats contain similar amounts of protein and similar (or fewer) calories compared to their farmed meat counterparts. But their ingredients are mostly processed forms of protein and additives. There’s nothing inherently alarming about that, but regular consumption of ultra-processed foods is associated with a range of negative health outcomes. That’s as opposed to diets rich in whole, plant-based foods, like the Meditteranean Diet. “The short answer is that eating an Impossible Burger or a Beyond Burger may be a better choice compared to eating a beef burger made from a cow living in a commodity feedlot,” says Keri Glassman, RD, a top nutritionist I worked with for several years. “But both are processed, packaged foods, and I don’t recommend eating them on a regular basis.” Of course, each faux meat product will vary depending on the ingredients. Some will be better than others, so we can’t make blanket statements about their healthfulness.
What does this all add up to? A product pitched as a climate solution is still a product. Big Faux Meat wants to sell as much fake meat as possible. Money is flowing in, products and marketing are flowing out. There’s no value judgement there; that’s how it works. So there are two different lines of inquiry here. As a consumer of products in this system, I can ask myself: Do I need or want this product? As someone who covers effective climate action in the context of food, I can ask: Is this a smart solution?
Beyond makes its burgers with pea protein; Impossible uses soy. Legumes are much cheaper on their own, they’re delicious, and they can be cooked and eaten every which way. I have the privilege of time (for cooking) and access to these nutritious, whole foods, so the answer to the first question, for me, is no. For many people, food choices look very different.
The answer to the second question is trickier, but I come back over and over to the idea that if we already have proven, healthy foods with lower impacts, why not focus on producing more of them in sustainable systems and getting them to more people?
What if the $3 billion invested in creating expensive, complicated systems to transform already delicious, healthy foods into slightly less delicious, less healthy approximations of meat was invested in regenerative farms growing perennial grains, legumes, and vegetables, and grazing livestock to build healthy soil?
What if it was invested in programs that bring those foods into schools and hospital kitchens, where vulnerable populations eat a high proportion of meals?
What if instead of eating tech company products, we regularly filled our plates with nutrient-dense vegetables, beans, whole grains…and occasionally ate a juicy, 100-percent grass-fed burger?
It could be that these hypothetical questions don’t matter in relation to the way our world and food system is now ordered. If our food supply now depends on what sells and can be delivered overnight on Amazon Fresh, faux meat over commodity meat could be as good as things are going to get. Maybe it will even save the world. Who knows? I can only share what we do know, for now.
Wrapped up, to go
*Despite massive investments in fake meat companies and distribution through the biggest grocery chains and fast food restaurants, Americans are not eating less meat.
*The Impossible Whopper is better than an actual Whopper, but it sucks compared to rice and beans or tofu and broccoli.
*The real, measurable environmental benefits of plant- and cell-based meats are still TBD. The real, measurable environmental benefits of shifting diets towards including more plant-based and fewer animal-based foods are not.
Still hungry?
From coal to chickens. Last month, I went to West Virginia to report on a community that is fighting the construction of what will the largest chicken farms ever built in the region. Think close to a million chickens inside, in one place…and then another 750,000-ish a few miles down the road. I got to see a rural town that is shaped by the poultry industry up close. This is the kind of reporting that I really believe in: when I get to simply tell you what things look like, in places most people will never get a chance to see. Read the story on Civil Eats.
“Nutrition security.” Also on Civil Eats, I wrote about a federal policy push to expand and modernize a federal food assistance program that serves low-income mothers and children. It’s part of an overall shift under the Biden administration to focus not just on feeding families who face food insecurity, but on emphasizing the need for nutritious food that improves health outcomes in vulnerable populations.
Actually eating
Last year, I worked on a small organic vegetable farm one day a week. I wanted to gain more insight into some of the topics I report on, to get better at growing some of my own food, and to get away from my computer. It went so well, I decided to return this spring. Over the last two weeks, I’ve started to enjoy the fruits of that labor in the form of abundant leafy greens, herbs, and carrots. It’s the slowest time of year (for eating) as we get everything in the ground. Before you know it, our bins will be overflowing with peas, beans, scallions… And then, summer squash. And then, peppers and eggplant and tomatoes! Just wait until you see all of the tomatoes.
This is a picture of my fellow farmworkers seeding clover in a field that we planted peas in earlier in the day. Since we don’t use herbicides, the clover is used to help crowd out weeds that might otherwise proliferate while keeping the soil healthy and in place.
Let’s be friends
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