Veganism used to be about health and animal welfare. But the goal posts of a growing plant-based diet movement have shifted, with people increasingly motivated to ditch meat for the sake of the planet.

Read more:Do vegans help prevent climate change?

With around 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions caused by livestock farming, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization, a "new" veganism has emerged on the back of the climate crisis.

In the UK alone, supermarket sales of plant-based substitutesfor animal products many of which claim to be low carbon have grown 31% in the past two years.

Faux animal products boomed in 2019. California-based Beyond Meat hadthe biggest public share offering of the year in May, as its value rose nearly 500% (quarterly sales reported this week also tripled year-on-year).

Impossible Foods founder Pat Brown, who is also a biochemistry professor at Stanford University, wants his plant-based substitutes to drive all livestock farming out of business by 2035. Hetold the New Yorker last month that "we see our mission as the last chance to save the planet from environmental catastrophe."

Set to become a face of the past?

But are these highly processed, plant-based vegan meat brands the best way to reduce livestock emissions and combat land degradation?

Climate savior?

A spate of reports, including by the IPCC and John Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, has stressed the planetary benefits of cutting animal products from our diets.

A Beyond Meat-commissioned life-cycle assessment by the University of Michigan, meanwhile, claims the company's faux burgers, sausages and minces created from pea or mung bean isolate, coconut oil and beetroot juice extract among numerous additives require 90% less carbon gas emissions, 99% less water, 93% less land and 46% less energy than equivalent animal-based products.

Yet such meat alternativesemit around five times more greenhouse gases than unprocessed sources of plant proteinaccording to Marco Springmann, a senior environmental researcher at Oxford University. "They're somewhere between unprocessedlegumes, and chicken," he says of the climate impact of highly engineered, meaty vegan products.

Read more:Opinion: The IPCC is right, if we want food, we have to look after our land

"If you look at it purely from an environmental perspective, they would still make a big contribution to mitigating climate change," Springmann told DW, "just not as big a contribution as moving to an arguably more healthy diet that includes plenty of fruit and vegetables, some nuts and seeds, whole grains, minimallyprocessed beans and lentils."

There might be more to humble beans and lentils than meets the eye

Legumes like beans and lentils are the ultimate climate-friendly source of minerals and proteins. They require no greenhouse-gas-emitting fertilizers because they fix nitrogen from the atmosphere. The best thing for the planet would be to eat beans and lentils as they are, or, if you want something in a burger form, to simply crush them at home and make your own veggie burger, said Springmann.

Still, Caterina Brandmayr, senior policy analyst at UK-based Green Alliance that has written a report calling on government to fund low-carbon food innovations such as plant-based meat and even lab-grown meat, says if meat lovers were willing to switch at least part of the time, it would go some way to helping climate mitigation.

The key here is satisfying a broad range of eating patterns and demands for taste. "We need to respond to a wide spectrum of preferences, to enable, as much as possible, a wider range of people to benefit from the health and lower environmental impact that plant-based eating can provide,"Brandmayr told DW.

Vegan junk food?

Springmann is the co-author of a reporton the climate and health "co-benefits" of dietary change which argues that transitioning toward plant-based diets could limit food-related greenhouse gas emissions by up to 70% by 2050, and reduce global mortality by up to 10%.

This latter metric points to another problem with meat substitutes, which Springmann equates to "still pretty much junk food." Nutrients are lost through processing of the base pea isolate and many of these productshavehigh sodium levels the Impossible Burger sold at Burger King packs more salt that the real meat Whopper Burger.

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Brandmayr is confident faux burgers can improve their health credentials as recipes evolve. "It is still something to be welcomed," she said, suggesting such products could help confirmed carnivores transition to plant-based diets.

But the mania for creating that authentic meat taste means potentially unhealthy and unsustainable ingredients are added.

Springmann points to the heme iron molecule used to create the meaty taste in the Impossible Burger which is derived from plant sources using GMO. Heme iron, normally only present in meat, has been implicated as being part of the reason why red meat intake increases the risk for colon and rectal cancers, Springmann says.

New vegan future

San Francisco-based brand Just has been offering plant-based alternatives to meat and other animal productsfor over five years. Its liquid egg, used for everything from scrambles to French toast, is made primarily from high-protein, non-GMO mung bean protein isolate.

UK-based Moving Mountains burgers also promote a "plant-based meat that requires less land, water and produces less greenhouse emissions." But does the high processing negate some climate benefits?

Can Beyond Burgers and the like shift entrenched meat consumption?

Just Egg claims to use 98% less water, 86% less land, and to have a 93% smaller carbon footprint than conventional animal sources. But while the premium-priced productappeals to new vegans, the energyrequired to process such legumes into an isolate might seem questionable when you consider that theyalso losefiberand nutrients along the way

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Faux meat is a favorite of"flexitarians," who salve their conscience by choosing the occasional fake meat Impossible Burger at Burger King or the Beyond Meat version now being trialled at McDonalds. That might be the first step to full veganism, but with no sign of these fast food chains taking the real thing off their menus, for now it looks like little more than a complement to mass meat consumption.

The recent adoption of vegan meat options at these global chains seems to be partly a response to a demand by global investors in January that the fast food giants significantly reduce the emissions and water usage of their meat and dairy suppliers.

It's something. But if new vegans really want to fight the climate crisis, maybe they should go old school and return to ancient tofu and tempeh-basedmeat substitutes created of course from non-GMO sources.

With climate concerns growing, many people are trying to reduce their environmental impact. Increasingly, they're turning to plant-based meats and investors are taking notice. When Beyond Meat debuted on Wall Street in early May, share prices more than doubled the first day. "Investors recognize a huge business opportunity," Bruce Friedrich, director of the Good Food Institute, told AFP.

Backed by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and stars like Leonardo DiCaprio, meat alternatives including Beyond Meat and Impossible Burger, seen here at left, use new food technology and ingredients like peas, fava beans and soy. Unlike earlier veggie burgers, these meatless patties are said to taste, look, smell and even "bleed" like real meat (the secret is beet juice). They can also be healthier.

But eating less meat isn't just a healthy decision. A 2018 WWF report said cutting animal products from diets would be a "relatively easy and cheap way" to fight climate change. A study by the University of Michigan found the Beyond Burger generates 90% less greenhouse gas emissions, requires 46% less energy to produce and has far less of an impact on water scarcity and land use than a beef patty.

Beyond Meat is already sold in thousands of US supermarkets and restaurants, and major brands are also looking for a piece of the action. Nestle launched its take on the beef patty in Europe in April, and Unilever took over Dutch plant-based meat producer The Vegetarian Butcher in late 2018. Burger King is rolling out a Beyond Meat option US-wide, and McDonald's is testing its own vegan burger.

Industrialized soy crops have been flagged as a contributing factor to widespread deforestation. As Brussels-based environment group Fern points out, more than 1 million square kilometers of land are used to grow soy, almost three times the size of Germany. Only a very small percentag of this, however, is used in meat alternatives. Most goes to animal feed.

There are also nutritional concerns about these highly processed foods. Leading brands can have more than double the saturated fat and as much as seven times the amount of sodium as a lean beef burger. And environmental groups are worried about Impossible Burger's inclusion of GMO yeast, which adds a meaty flavor. Excessive consumption has been linked to cancer but that goes for real meats too.

In Europe, meat alternatives may soon have to be sold as "discs," "tubes" and "slabs" as opposed to burgers, sausages and steaks. The EU Parliament's agriculture committee recently backed a move to ban producers of vegetarian food from using terms that usually describe meat. The full parliament will vote on the measure after the EU elections in late May.

Author: Martin Kuebler

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Vegan meat: The future of planet-saving plant-based eating? - DW (English)