Various substitutes for meat have been receiving a considerable amount of media attention lately. I am not talking about the relatively simple garden burger that you maybe tried in the 1990s, with an ingredient list mostly composed of whole grains, pulses, and vegetables. I am talking about products that tout how much they taste, smell and look like meat but are not meat. They may be grown in a lab or manufactured from a whole host of plant, fungal, and insect ingredients, but they are designed to be meat substitutes. Some companies who make them call them ‘clean’ meats, but I will just call them fake meats to not confuse you all (since I know how hard many of you work to produce and process the cleanest animal meats possible).
First, a little science on how fake meats compare to a real meat- in this case chicken.
The peer-reviewed article in The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, Meat alternatives: life cycle assessment of most known meat substitutes, Sept. 2015, by Sergiy Smetana, Mathys, Knoch, and Heinz, uses a functional unit approach for comparing chicken meat with six other meat substitutes. These products include: dairy-based, lab grown, insect-based, gluten-based, soybean-based, and mycoprotein based meat substitutes. The research compared the average cradle to plate life cycle of each product and specifically looked at 17 environmental factors and 2 nutritional factors (food energy and protein content). Since many of the meat substitutes are still in development phase, often taking place in small quantities in a lab setting rather than a manufacturing scale, the energy use can be quite high. In fact, this study found that lab grown meat had the highest overall environmental impacts (considering all 17 factors) and the lowest was insect and soy-based meat substitutes. Chicken fell in the middle. However, for food energy, chicken performed the best. Lab grown meat substitutes also performed the worst for food energy and protein content compared to the other products. If anyone wants to read the full article, I can email it to you. It is quite fascinating and one of the only studies that I could find of this nature.
The media is strongly influencing consumer perception of fake meats. One study in Meat Science by Goodwin and Shoulders, Nov. 2013, showed that the vast majority of media either discussed the problems with current livestock production or shared the perceived benefits of cultured, lab grown meats. The most common sources sites in print media in the US and Europe were cultured meat industry scientists, academia, and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) or New Harvest (a private cellular agriculture research organization). Because of the sources of information and the inherent bias of the articles, consumers are likely to be more influenced to accept fake meats.
The popular media often likes to focus on the mass investment pouring into the fake meats sector and how potentially ‘disruptive’ it could be (although rarely if ever mentioning the actual disruptions to land use and livelihoods if meat sales diminish). From the Forbes article, Why Bill Gates and Richard Branson Invested in ‘Clean’ Meat, these billionaires are investing millions into the sector for two main reasons- to disrupt an industry and to make money. They think they can capture a share of the trillion dollar meat market while creating products they believe are better for the environment and human health. Says Branson, "I’m thrilled to have invested in Memphis Meats (a maker of stem cell meat analogues). I believe that in 30 years or so we will no longer need to kill any animals and that all meat will either be clean or plant-based, taste the same and also be much healthier for everyone.”
After reading these studies and articles, I wrote my own article for Local Harvest, a large online community of farmers and consumers looking for local food. Here is an excerpt, with a link to the whole thing. It has generated a lively debate in the comments section, to be sure.
There has been considerable media hype about how different fake meat products (and all imitation animal products, such as those trying to replace milk, eggs, leather, fibers, etc) are clearly more environmentally sustainable, better for human health, and better for the animals if they don't have to die to produce your food. In reality, things are not so clear. There is significant wealth and whole organizations tied up with convincing consumers that "meat analogues" and plant-based meat replacements are the ones you should be choosing. Just to be clear, none of these organizations or investors would make any money should people choose to just eat less meat or buy better sources of meat. They only make money if consumers shift to the new processed products that they have invested in.
The fake meat industry will tout how it has a lower environmental footprint, yet there is actually almost no scientific research that shows this. Most of the fake meat industry is incredibly opaque, full of trade secrets and very little data sharing. As a result, nobody actually knows the full life cycle impacts of these products. Yet we know very well the life cycle of a beef steer, of a sheep, or of a chicken. And we know that we can make tremendous improvements towards reducing the environmental footprint of meat by purchasing it closer to where it was raised, from rotationally grazed animals, from breeds that thrive in a specific environment, and by eating the whole animal so there is less waste.
Next time you read about or hear someone touting the solution that is fake meats, ask them why they think it is a solution and what will it solve for? What data do they have to back up their claims? You will find, most often, they have nothing to say. It is just a seductive story with no substance.
You can find the full article, “Fake Meats, False Solutions” here. I would love to hear your thoughts or other research that you know regarding meat substitutes in the comment section.
May you pursue the truth using critical thought,
-Rebecca Thistlethwaite
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