Hi, Everyone,
Yesterday I released a video challenging claims by plant-based diet advocates that fake meat is more nutritious than real meat.
tl;dr: it’s not. But do watch the video to get the details.
Another claim about fake meat that you often see in the media is that it’s more environmentally friendly than real meat. But is this true?
The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority just forced Tesco, a manufacturer of fake meat products, to pull a series of ads suggesting “positive environmental differences to the planet compared to their meat equivalents.”
According to an article about the episode in Food Ingredients:
While Tesco relied on general evidence that plant-based diets have lower emissions, ASA resolves that they did not hold any evidence “in relation to the full lifecycle [emissions] of any of the products in the Plant Chef range.”
“We also recognized that specific plant-based products, particularly processed products which could contain a number of different ingredients sourced from around the world, could nevertheless contain ingredients or be produced and transported by methods that had a high carbon or negative environmental impact,” explains the watchdog. [Emphasis added]
This is 100% on target. In fact, a third-party, full life cycle analysis conducted at White Oak Pastures, a Savory Institute hub in Georgia that uses holistic land management practices, found that their beef operation was a net carbon sink—and significantly more environmentally friendly than Impossible Burger (a fake meat product).
If you’re interested in more on this topic, check out the podcast episodes and articles below: