How sustainable are fake meats?
knowablemagazine.org
How sustainable are fake meats?
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Re: How sustainable are fake meats?
#2From the article: "even poorly produced plant-based meats are better, environmentally, than meat from well-raised livestock."
Re: How sustainable are fake meats?
#3From the article: " even poorly produced plant-based meats are better, environmentally, than meat from well-raised livestock. "
I don't know why this is surprising.
Option A: grow plants, eat plants.
Option B: grow plants, breed animals, feed plants to animals, give animal antibiotics to survive breeding pens, give animal hormones to grow faster, slaughter animal, eat animal.
Re: How sustainable are fake meats?
#4If you know much about agriculture, this question has an almost certain answer. The contrast of energy and resource expense between plants and animals is staggering, even if you’re comparing a less demanding animal like chicken. You can refrigerate, process, and ship many plants by sea, truck, and plane and they won’t catch up to animal foods.
We’re also not seeing a clear economic picture in Canada and the USA because subsidies/tax breaks/etc can significantly transform the final costs of something like milk or beef in a grocery store.
My kids like the fake meats, but I’m pretty content with whole grains and legumes covering most of my protein requirements. Once you get over meat, you almost never think about it and the substitutes seem unnecessarily unhealthy (they’re kind of like savoury junk food with a ton of salt and saturated fat).
I think it’s also important to acknowledge how filthy, torturous, destructive, and unethical the vast majority of animal agriculture activities are.
Re: How sustainable are fake meats?
#5answer: more sustainable than "real" meat, sometimes a lot more so.
But sustainability doesn't determine popularity, and all the efforts taken to increase popularity (i.e. more engineering and more processing) do increase environmental cost. But plant-based foods are still a big win, probably: the business realities of these products mean that true numbers are not disclosed.
btw I hate the term "fake" here - it's not like modern animal-derived food, as consumed in a typical meat-based diet. is somehow "real" or unadulterated. (and for those who hasten to point out that they only eat grass-fed beef, the article notes that its carbon footprint is even higher).
Re: How sustainable are fake meats?
#6From the article: " even poorly produced plant-based meats are better, environmentally, than meat from well-raised livestock. "
I don't know why this is surprising. Option A: grow plants, eat plants. Option B: grow plants, breed animals, feed plants to animals, give animal antibiotics to survive breeding pens, give animal hormones to grow faster, slaughter animal, eat animal.
The grow plants, feed to animals step takes up nearly 80% of the world’s agriculture: https://ourworldindata.org/agricultural-land-by-global-diets
Re: How sustainable are fake meats?
#7If you know much about agriculture, this question has an almost certain answer. The contrast of energy and resource expense between plants and animals is staggering, even if you’re comparing a less demanding animal like chicken. You can refrigerate, process, and ship many plants by sea, truck, and plane and they won’t catch up to animal foods. We’re also not seeing a clear economic picture in Canada and the USA becau…
It is so frustrating how much well-entrenched subsidies and tax breaks have distorted our (consumer's) notion of what is "regular" vs "expensive".
Re: How sustainable are fake meats?
#8If you know much about agriculture, this question has an almost certain answer. The contrast of energy and resource expense between plants and animals is staggering, even if you’re comparing a less demanding animal like chicken. You can refrigerate, process, and ship many plants by sea, truck, and plane and they won’t catch up to animal foods. We’re also not seeing a clear economic picture in Canada and the USA becau…
The alternative we do is:
* Order vegetarian when eating out. Non-western cuisines do incredible food that doesn't have any meat in it.
* Only buy meat + eggs from a local farm that effectively does things "small batch". Their farm is open for visitors and you can see pigs and chickens that actually look happy. The pigs even run over to you when they smell you and you can see their cute little tails wigglin'.
* Try to eat less in general.
I don't know if I'll ever personally break from eating meat. But I do think that paying prices that are actually related to the cost of raising the animals, and doing so from a place that actually lets them live a pleasant life before slaughter feels better.
Re: How sustainable are fake meats?
#9If you know much about agriculture, this question has an almost certain answer. The contrast of energy and resource expense between plants and animals is staggering, even if you’re comparing a less demanding animal like chicken. You can refrigerate, process, and ship many plants by sea, truck, and plane and they won’t catch up to animal foods. We’re also not seeing a clear economic picture in Canada and the USA becau…
> We’re also not seeing a clear economic picture in Canada and the USA because subsidies/tax breaks/etc can significantly transform the final costs of something like milk or beef in a grocery store.
Thanks, this was the question I came to ask about the why is my fake meat more expensive than ground beef at the grocery store.
Re: How sustainable are fake meats?
#10If you know much about agriculture, this question has an almost certain answer. The contrast of energy and resource expense between plants and animals is staggering, even if you’re comparing a less demanding animal like chicken. You can refrigerate, process, and ship many plants by sea, truck, and plane and they won’t catch up to animal foods. We’re also not seeing a clear economic picture in Canada and the USA becau…
> the substitutes seem unnecessarily unhealthy
As a meat eater, this has been my philosophy. If you’re gonna go vegetarian, just go for it. Vegeterian food is delicious and there’s so much choice! Entire cultures of amazing natively vegetarian foods with no need for weird meat substitutes.
Personally, legumes don’t have the right macros. Neither do fake meats. Cottage cheese and greek yogurt make better meat substitutes imo.