Looking for ways to reduce your carbon footprint? At IYASU, we care about our planet and its population. So we wanted to look at some innovative eco-friendly meat alternatives which are being created to satisfy consumer demand for taste, whilst minimising the damaging impact on the environment. Read on!
Why Go for Eco-Friendly Meat Alternatives?
With worldwide recognition of the need to reduce our carbon footprint, much focus is on the food industry to provide solutions, and on consumers to choose to eat less meat. Avoiding meat and dairy has been shown to be the single biggest way to reduce our environmental impact on the planet!
Without meat and dairy consumption, global farmland use could be reduced by more than 75% (equivalent to the area of the USA, China, European Union, and Australia combined).
However, for many people, adopting a vegan diet is difficult, requiring a complete restructuring of meal planning and retraining of taste preferences. Let’s check out how the food industry is trying to make a positive impact on environmental sustainability by creating vegan meat alternatives, whilst acknowledging many people’s love of meat.
Lab-Grown Meat
A company called ORF Genetics (not usually associated with much optimism in farming culture) is currently growing 130,000 genetically modified barley plants in a greenhouse in Iceland. The barley is grown in volcanic pumice from Mount Hekla, one of Iceland’s most active volcanoes.
The pumice is completely inert and does not release any nutrients, meaning that the exact content of minerals and water can be tightly regulated. Once ripe, the barley seeds are harvested and purified to extract growth-factor proteins. These proteins are added to stem cells from cows and used to create lab-grown meat.
And this initial extraction of stem cells is the only requirement for animals in this process. So, this model of food production uses less land, less energy and produces less harmful waste, offering a more viable and sustainable option to support the needs of a growing population.
Believer Meats, an Israeli biotech company, offers products such as lab grown chicken, pork, and lamb. The company claims that its cultured meat products are 20x faster than raising animals, use 99% less land, consume 96% less water, and generate 80% less greenhouse emissions.
If, however, your tastes are more sophisticated, US-based Orbillion Bio, plans to produce cultured delicacies such as Wagyu meatloaf, elk sausages and bison burgers.
Whilst their products do require animal cells, which are then grown in petri dishes in bioreactors, their technology means that far fewer animals would be required to meet consumer demand, and the resulting carbon footprint, significantly lower than traditional methods of meat farming.
Plant-Based Meat Alternatives
Looking for eco-friendly meat alternatives that involve no involvement of animals? Then check out the “impossible Burger” made by Impossible Foods is made entirely from plant sources. It contains a genetically modified ingredient called soy leg hemoglobin which makes the burgers “bleed” like real meat when they are cut into.
The company’s aim is to give people the taste and nutritional benefits of meat, without the negative environmental impact. It is now available in 10,000 locations worldwide including Burger King’s Vegan Whoppers.
Along similar lines, but without any genetically modified ingredients, Beyond Meat supplies McPlant Burgers to McDonalds and Beyond Meatballs for Meatless Meatball Marinara Subs at Subway.
The companies claim that their plant-based burgers use 75% less water, generate 87% fewer greenhouse gases and require 95% less land than conventional ground beef from cows.
The main limiting factor to scaling these industries is reducing the cost of the products to the consumer. However, with an urgent need for a global effort to reduce the risk of global warming, it is comforting to know that science and technology advances are bringing hope of more sustainable, eco-friendly foods.
Challenges
The main limiting factor to scaling these industries is reducing the cost of the products to the consumer.
However, with an urgent need for a global effort to reduce the risk of global warming, it is comforting to know that science and technology advances are bringing hope of more sustainable, eco-friendly meat alternatives.
