Manufacturers of imitation meat stress that their product is one we can "feel good about". It's healthier, it will solve the rising protein needs of our increasing global population, and it will save the planet from the crippling effects of our unsustainable, greenhouse gas-gushing food system.
The problem presented is the need for more protein-rich food at the same time as the need to reduce the greenhouse gases produced by meat production. We can only solve this contradiction by building factories for mass-produced plant-based and cell-based meat substitutes.
Or, are we being lead up the garden path?
"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers." (Thomas Pynchon in 'Gravity's Rainbow' 2000)
Asking the wrong questions is easy. Step 1 is to oversimplify the problem by over-emphasising a single aspect of it (in this case, the key factor is the suggested impending protein shortage).
Step 2 is to reduce the challenge to a single dimension (in this case, the sustainability problem in meat production is reduced to a greenhouse gas).
Step 3 is to ignore the bigger picture (in this case, the focus purely on the western, industrialised, intensive meat production model eclipses the vast diversity of land- and animal-use in different areas and societies across the globe).
The International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food) looked at the problem and questioned the questions.
There's no evidence of a shortage of protein in the world. There is hunger, malnutrition, and nutrient deficiency: these arise from poverty and a lack of access to an adequate, varied diet containing all the nutrients needed for health. Protein from a fake meat factory won't make these underlying problems go away, nor will it supply the disadvantaged with a healthy diet.
Intensively reared livestock rely on huge quantities of government-subsidised, agrichemical-dependent, largely GM feed crops, and occupy nearly 80 percent of global farmland. They're reckoned to account for 14 or 30 percent (depending on how you calculate it) of global greenhouse gas emissions. Livestock are, therefore, easily positioned as an extractive industry posing a barrier to achieving carbon zero in the world.
The sustainability problem, however, is a bigger one, originating in our modern obsession with technology and silver-bullet fixes. In our brave new high-tech world, animals have become the technology we use to produce the protein we need, and grain crops (now largely GM) have become the technology we use to produce the calories we need. Greenhouse gas is just one symptom of this obsession in a world now suffering from human-caused land-degradation, chemical pollution, and loss of biodiversity to mention some of the worst. We need to cure the root cause, not fix the symptoms.
Alternative proteins envisaged through a Global North lens are out of sync with the realities of food insecurity and livelihood challenges in the Global South. Livestock contribute to the livelihoods of 1.7 billion smallholder farmers in the Global South, and play a crucial economic role for approximately 60 percent of rural households in developing countries. Animals provide food, materials and traction, help fertilise soils and act as financial collateral. Raising animals helps to use limited land and resources efficiently, buffer against food shocks, and provide livelihoods where few options are available. Factories with vats of protein have no possible role there.
There's every indication that alternative meat will not come cheap and will not come without a significant carbon footprint [2].
The notion that uniform, untested, highly processed meat-like substances will be any more 'healthy' than all the uniform, untested, highly processed food-like substances we're already eating is hard to swallow.
"The hype around alternative proteins also diverts our attention away from solutions that are already working on the ground: shifting to diversified agroecological production systems, strengthening territorial food chains and markets, and building 'food environments' which increase access to healthy and sustainable diets. These pathways respond holistically to challenges whose breadth and depth have been well-evidence. They entail transformative behavioural and structural shifts. They require sustainable food system transitions, not merely a protein transition." (Howard in Civil Eats)
It's worth reading IPES-Food's eye-opening report, The Politics of Protein (www.ipes-food.org), which examines the claims about livestock and fish 'alternative proteins' and sustainability. Arm yourself to challenge misinformation about the claimed benefits.
Background
[1] IMPOSSIBLE, INCREDIBLE, AWESOME, BEYOND ... - January 2020
[2] FAKE REAL MEAT - July 2022
SOURCES:
The International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food) looked at the problem and questioned the questions.
There's no evidence of a shortage of protein in the world. There is hunger, malnutrition, and nutrient deficiency: these arise from poverty and a lack of access to an adequate, varied diet containing all the nutrients needed for health. Protein from a fake meat factory won't make these underlying problems go away, nor will it supply the disadvantaged with a healthy diet.
Intensively reared livestock rely on huge quantities of government-subsidised, agrichemical-dependent, largely GM feed crops, and occupy nearly 80 percent of global farmland. They're reckoned to account for 14 or 30 percent (depending on how you calculate it) of global greenhouse gas emissions. Livestock are, therefore, easily positioned as an extractive industry posing a barrier to achieving carbon zero in the world.
The sustainability problem, however, is a bigger one, originating in our modern obsession with technology and silver-bullet fixes. In our brave new high-tech world, animals have become the technology we use to produce the protein we need, and grain crops (now largely GM) have become the technology we use to produce the calories we need. Greenhouse gas is just one symptom of this obsession in a world now suffering from human-caused land-degradation, chemical pollution, and loss of biodiversity to mention some of the worst. We need to cure the root cause, not fix the symptoms.
Alternative proteins envisaged through a Global North lens are out of sync with the realities of food insecurity and livelihood challenges in the Global South. Livestock contribute to the livelihoods of 1.7 billion smallholder farmers in the Global South, and play a crucial economic role for approximately 60 percent of rural households in developing countries. Animals provide food, materials and traction, help fertilise soils and act as financial collateral. Raising animals helps to use limited land and resources efficiently, buffer against food shocks, and provide livelihoods where few options are available. Factories with vats of protein have no possible role there.
There's every indication that alternative meat will not come cheap and will not come without a significant carbon footprint [2].
The notion that uniform, untested, highly processed meat-like substances will be any more 'healthy' than all the uniform, untested, highly processed food-like substances we're already eating is hard to swallow.
"The hype around alternative proteins also diverts our attention away from solutions that are already working on the ground: shifting to diversified agroecological production systems, strengthening territorial food chains and markets, and building 'food environments' which increase access to healthy and sustainable diets. These pathways respond holistically to challenges whose breadth and depth have been well-evidence. They entail transformative behavioural and structural shifts. They require sustainable food system transitions, not merely a protein transition." (Howard in Civil Eats)
WHAT YOU CAN DO
It's worth reading IPES-Food's eye-opening report, The Politics of Protein (www.ipes-food.org), which examines the claims about livestock and fish 'alternative proteins' and sustainability. Arm yourself to challenge misinformation about the claimed benefits.
Background
[1] IMPOSSIBLE, INCREDIBLE, AWESOME, BEYOND ... - January 2020
[2] FAKE REAL MEAT - July 2022
SOURCES:
- Philip
Howard, Op-ed: Fake Meat Won't Solve the Climate Crisis, Civil
Eats, 7.04.22
- Philip
Howard, The Politics of Protein, www.ipes-food.org, April 2022
- Food
Innovation Leader Memphis Meats is Now UPSIDE Foods and Officially
Announces Chicken as its First Consumer Product, UPSIDE Foods, 12.05.21
- Eat
Just and Foodpanda Partner on World's First Home Delivery of Cultured Meat,
Business Wire, 19.04.22
- GOOD Meat, a Division of Eat Just, Inc., Secures $170 Million to Scale Meat Without Slaughter as Demand Grows, Business Wire, 18.05.21
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