Fake It 'Til You Make It Ruby Coates looks at the rise of meat and dairy alternatives
Since humans first established agriculture, livestock products including meat and dairy have constituted a major proportion of our diets. However, the consumption of alternatives to livestock products is becoming more commonplace; plantbased milks, dairy-free cheese, the infamous vegan sausage roll. This movement has partially been triggered by the revelation that food production puts an enormous strain on the environment. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, the livestock sector is responsible for 14.5% of man-made greenhouse gas emissions. The projected impact of reducing meat intake is significant; in a 2018 Nature article, Springmann and colleagues calculated that if global red meat consumption was reduced to 1 serving a week and white meat consumption to 3.5 servings a week, agricultural greenhouse gas emissions would halve by 2050. Aside from meat, a 2018 study published in Science by Poore and Nemecek calculated that 200 mL of cows’ milk requires 120 L of water to produce, releasing 0.6 kg of greenhouse gas emissions in the process. Meanwhile in 2019, 9.4 billion eggs were produced in the USA in January alone. When paired with estimates from researchers at the University of 12
Fake It 'Til You Make It
Oviedo that 12 eggs carry a carbon footprint equivalent to 2.7 kg CO2, the environmental impact of this scale of industry must be considered. Environmental awareness alongside animal welfare concerns have awakened movements towards animal-free eating. The Vegan Society reported that the number of UK vegans quadrupled between 2014 – 2019. However, many people struggle to envision life without meat or dairy. The sharing and enjoyment of food is a key element of the human experience, and inclusion of these food groups is considered essential in many cultures. What options are there for those who want to eat sustainably without having to radically change their diet? The answer may lie in the expanding field of food biotechnology, where scientists and start-ups worldwide have been working on producing livestock products such as meat, milk, and eggs without farming animals at all. Perhaps the most famous example of this is cultured meat, where animal cells are isolated and grown in the laboratory to produce meat. Cultured meat gained media attention in 2013 when Professor Mark Post of Maastricht University unveiled the first cultured meat burger and cooked it live on air. The burger Easter 2020
