Biology and medicine
The big eco-footprint Our increasing meat consumption is damaging the environment. But even
of lab-grown meat
Text: Julia Richter Infographics: CANA atelier graphique
replacement products can have detrimental ecological side-effects.
What consumers think about it
This is why people have long been trying to find suitable replacement products that look, smell and taste like meat and are also better for the climate and make less use of resources. But not all the possible alternatives keep what they promise.
Quantifying the impact Life-cycle analyses can help us to measure the eco-footprint of a product. Alexander Mathys at ETH Zurich has conducted a study comparing one kilogram of meat with a kilo of its replacement products, adding up the combined environmental impact of producing the raw materials plus the actual production and processing of the meat or substitute. Greenhouse gas emissions and resource consumption are here divided into individual influence factors (such as ozone depletion, radiation, and land and water pollution). These various damage indicators are then brought together under the categories of human health, the ecosystem and resources. In this manner, Mathys can demonstrate how, for example, burning fossil fuels has an impact on human life expectancy and health via the air pollution that it causes (e.g., respiratory diseases and cancer). His data is taken from foodstuff databases and from publications on the production and processing of meat substitute products.
SOYA
CHICKEN
Poultry is surprisingly eco-friendly
Highest energy consumption in the frying pan
Chicken is popular. In Switzerland, everyone consumes an average of 12 kilos of chicken per person each year. The average for the whole world is almost two kilos more. In comparison to beef or pork, poultry is environmentally friendly and doesn’t compare badly even to the meat substitute products that were investigated. In the categories health, ecosystem and resources, it’s in the middle. The most environmentally damaging aspect is the feed that chickens need, because it uses up resources such as land and water.
Soya can be used to make schnitzels and sausages that are in some cases very similar to the original, and contain both iron and vitamins such as folic acid. One well-known example of a soya substitute product is tofu.
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The soya meal analysed here is a side-product created during the production of soya oil. This means it has a good eco-footprint in the life-cycle analysis; what uses most of the energy involved in its preparation is cooking it in the kitchen. Large land areas are used to produce soya today because three-quarters of global soya crops are actually fed to livestock.
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0,16
Y. Schlup and T. Brunner: Prospects for insects as food in Switzerland: A tobit regression. Food Quality and Preference (2018) S. Smetana et al.: Meat alternatives: life cycle assessment of most known meat substitutes. International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment (2015)
Since the 1960s, the global consumption of meat has increased by a factor of four, which in turn has meant a huge increase in the resources we use up. For example, a third of all available land on Earth today is used exclusively for animal husbandry, and some 40% of our crops are fed to animals.
INSECTS
The first burger made of in vitro meat wasn’t very convincing from a consumer’s perspective. In 2013, this lab-grown burger had a value of 250,000 dollars and didn’t even taste particularly good. It lacked fat and connective tissue. Since then, researchers have been working to optimise lab-made meat for the market, both in its ecological impact and in its taste. But we’re still a long way from seeing it sold in the aisles of our supermarkets.
IN VITRO MEAT
Twice as much edible product as beef
The lab-grown burger is a climate-change sinner
Insects contain proteins, unsaturated fatty acids, vitamins and fibre. Furthermore, the foodstuffs made from these little creatures are cheap and ecologically advantageous. Whereas we only eat 40% of a cow, for example, we can eat 80% of a cricket. Life-cycle analysis rates the insect-sourced meat substitute highly in all three categories investigated.
In meat produced in vitro, cells are taken from an animal and are reproduced in nutrient solutions. They produce proteins and after a few weeks can be ‘harvested’ as meat. This lab-made meat needs only a few cells instead of a whole animal, so people imagine it could bring about a significant decrease in the global consumption of land and water resources. However, with today’s technology, it is doubtful whether the lab-grown burger will show any improvement in its eco-footprint in future when compared to normal meat. As the life-cycle analysis shows, in vitro meat products score well in the categories of land use and the pollution of land or water. But they need the most energy for their actual production, and this has a negative impact on their eco-footprint in all three categories.
Besides the price, the degree of consumer acceptance is an important factor for the market success of a product. We can see this in the case of insects: as a survey of the Bern University of Applied Sciences has demonstrated, many Swiss citizens recognise the potential advantages of eating insects, but still don’t want to put creepy-crawlies into their mouths. The foodstuffs law in Switzerland has allowed the sale of specific insect types since May 2017, but it will take a while before eating insects becomes common here. Julia Richter is a freelance journalist.
In millipoints (mPt) RESOURCES ECOSYSTEMS
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1,49
HUMAN HEALTH This enables Mathys to compare the eco-footprint of the production of a kilo of meat or its substitute with the overall annual eco-footprint of an average Central European person, which corresponds to one point (Pt) or one thousand millipoints (mPt).
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