Trends in vegetarian food science

You have probably heard about Dunkin’s new Beyond Sausage sandwich, Burger King’s Impossible Burger, or even White Castle’s vegan sliders. The new trend of fake meats has been sweeping the nation’s fast food sector, meeting both excitement and resentment. Some say the new trend will help limit greenhouse gases from being released while others have referred to them “as ultra-processed imitations.”

The new push for vegetarian diets has been attributed to the movement to curb climate change. Currently, the food production system is responsible for more than a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions. According to an article by the Food and Agriculture Organization in 2013, livestock production alone accounted for up to 51 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions. The nonprofit Meatless Mondays claims that global livestock production accounts for more greenhouse gas emissions than the entire transportation industry. Nonprofits like Meatless Mondays have successfully encouraged the movement — stating that going meatless even one day a week is a great first step towards reducing climate change, which has inspired a trend towards vegetarian diets. According to surveys by the Sentience Institute, 54 percent of US adults say they are “currently trying to consume fewer animal-based foods (meat, dairy, and/or eggs) and more plant-based foods (fruits, grains, beans, and/or vegetables),” and 47 percent would prefer to eat more cultivated foods than animal foods.

Going meatless can be beneficial for the environment, but the creation of meat substitutes could have some unintended consequences. The increased use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in vegetarian food has called into question the cost of creating a plant-based burger that’s identical to a meat one. As a result of an increase in genetically modified crops, the use of toxic herbicides has risen by more than 15 times the original amount since GMOs were first introduced. In addition, GMOs are responsible for the emergence of “superweeds,” which can only be killed with increasingly dangerous poisons. Beyond Meat, the company behind the new Dunkin’ sandwich, has combated this backlash by committing to using only non-GMO ingredients.

With a strong push for action against climate change, many scientists are researching options to limit emissions from the agricultural sector.

Another alternative trend to plant-based meats is in vitro meats. This concept uses tissue engineering to produce animal meat without the actual animal. The starter cells used as a basis for this process are taken from animals painlessly through a biopsy. From there, the cells are grown in a medium on an edible scaffold. A bioreactor is then used to bring everything together. Through changing temperatures, the muscle cells can grow in a way similar to how they grow via exercise in the body. However, this process is often met with hesitation and resistance to change.

With a strong push for action against climate change, many scientists are researching options to limit emissions from the agricultural sector. The increase in US adults limiting their meat consumption has also pushed more focus on this topic in recent years. Options like in vitro meats, plant-based meat substitutes, and genetically modified plants are growing in popularity. However, these also pose fundamental ethical questions for farmers and researchers using these new alternatives. In the future, plant based or in vitro meat may be commonplace. But for now, this remains simply a new trend.

Johns Hopkins University Press (2010). DOI: 10.1353/con.2010.0006

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (2007). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0701976104

American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (2014). DOI: 10.3945/ajcn.113.071589

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