Plant-based Meat Doesn’t Stack up as a Planet Saver, Scientists Warn
The environmental credentials of alternative proteins and plant-based foods are increasingly being scrutinised by scientists and academics and the report card is far from rosy.
Some experts are now warning the spin doctoring employed by promoters of fake beef is distracting from real climate solutions and the big polluters.
Ultra-processed plant foods do not stack up as a climate-friendly alternative to natural red meat, they say.
In the wake of a United Nations opinion poll which found switching to plant-based diets was not a favoured solution for addressing climate change in any one of the 50 countries surveyed, the focus has been on what livestock’s real impact on the climate is.
Professor Frank Mitloehner, from the University of California Davis’ Department of Animal Science, is at the forefront of cutting-edge research into quantifying and reducing animal agriculture’s environmental footprint. He will be a keynote CQUniversity Beef Australia Symposium speaker at Beef Australia in Rockhampton in early May.