Citizen Cartwright

AP’s protein problem series: Meat substitutes

For people who want to do their part to limit climate change but find going meatless unpalatable, there are plant-based and lab-grown meat options.

 

Plant-based meat

 

According to a University of Michigan study, if half of U.S. animal-based food was replaced with plant-based substitutes by 2030, the reduction in emissions for that year would be the equivalent of taking 47.5 million vehicles off the road.

"An explosion of new types of plant-based 'meat' — the burgers, nuggets, sausages and other cuts that closely resemble meat but are made from soybeans and other plants — is attracting customers all over the world," says The Associated Press. "Even in Germany, where cities like Hamburg and Frankfurt have given their names to iconic meat dishes, plant-based meat is becoming more popular."

But sales aren’t growing fast enough in enough places to reverse the global boom in meat consumption, AP says. To many people, it's still a novelty.

 

Lab-grown meat

 

More than 150 startups are working on meat that doesn’t require raising and killing animals, that's affordable and tastes and feels like the meat people are used to. 

Companies using cell biology to make so-called “cultivated,” or “cultured” meat, which also is popularly known as “lab-grown” meat, are trying to scale up quickly — partnering with traditional meat companies, drawing more and more investors and breaking ground on new production facilities in the United States and elsewhere, AP says.

But widespread adoption of meat from cells is nowhere near assured: The meat is expensive to make. There are scientific challenges, like learning how to mimic the complex structure of steak. Government regulation is another obstacle; only the United States and Singapore allow sales of cultivated meat.

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AP’s protein problem series: ‘Raising better beef’

Worldwide, beef is the biggest agricultural source of greenhouse gases, and it has a bigger carbon footprint than any other type of protein, reports The Associated Press.

Climate scientists say the remedy is simple: Eat less beef and raise fewer cattle. 

 

But even with the wide availability of plant protein and the popularity of initiatives like Meatless Monday, most people around the world are eating more beef, not less, AP says. And as the population grows and more people move into the middle class, demand is expected to grow.

 

Researchers and an increasing number of ranchers agree that there are solutions that address climate change and satisfy demand, AP says.

 

They point to efforts to change the way cattle are raised to develop feed supplements that reduce gas releases, and to make genetic breakthroughs so animals digest their food without creating harmful gases.

 

For some ranchers, the solution is in the practice of regenerative ranching. In theory, it’s a holistic way to look at the earth, animals and water and the way they all interact. In practice, it’s an exhausting, never-ending process of moving cattle to different pastures in an effort to restore the soil, AP says.

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The world’s ‘protein problem’

Before Thanksgiving, The Associated Press published a series of articles titled “The Protein Problem," on the global increase in animal food products and the environmental impacts.

 

It felt kinda churlish and out of sync to focus on the series in the run up to America’s Turkey Day but seems appropriate now, in the run up to the global climate talks starting Nov. 30.

 

In 1961, there were about 61.5 grams of protein available daily per person worldwide, and 32 percent came from animal sources, AP says. In 2020, 84.5 grams were available, with about 40 percent from animals.

 

"But livestock take up land, and the animals need to be fed," notes AP. "Some eat grains, which need cropland to grow. Others, like cattle and sheep, can eat grasses in pastures. That doesn’t require additional cropland, but the animals nevertheless emit methane, a potent greenhouse gas. And in some places, forests are being cut down to create these pastures."

 

So AP says its series "shows you some of the possible solutions, including better ways to raise beef and farm fish – and even ways to create meat without animals."

 

Let's look at details of some of the articles as time permits over coming days.

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Good news on antibiotic-resistant bacteria, organ transplants

As we pursue a more balanced perspective of global developments than the usual “if it bleeds, it leads” headlines, here is a Thanksgiving weekend offering by Peter Coy, a business and economics columnist for The New York Times.

 

— Artificial intelligence is being used against multidrug-resistant bacteria. In May, scientists reported in the journal Nature Chemical Biology that they'd used machine learning to develop a compound against Acinetobacter baumannii, which can infect people with catheters or on ventilators in hospitals. 

 

— Nanotechnology may eventually enable organ banking, transforming organ transplantation into a planned procedure that more equitably reaches patients regardless of geographical and time constraints, researchers reported in June in the journal Nature Communications.

 

The researchers preserved rat kidneys for 100 days at ultralow temperatures, then 'nanowarmed' them and successfully transplanted them into other rats.

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Key issues at the 2-week COP28 climate talks starting Nov. 30 in Dubai

 

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Note to readers

Warm wishes for a happy Thanksgiving! I’ll see you next on Monday, Nov. 27.

Good news on tuberculosis, emissions in China, reforestation in Colombia Amazon

Among the items in the Nov. 15 newsletter from Australia’s Future Crunch:

 

— After setbacks caused by the pandemic, there's been a significant worldwide recovery in the scale-up of diagnosis and treatment for tuberculosis, the World Health Organization reports. Global efforts against TB have saved more than 75 million lives since 2000. 

 

“For millennia, our ancestors suffered and died with tuberculosis, without knowing what it was, what caused it, or how to stop it,” says Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general. “Today, we have knowledge and tools they could only have dreamed of. We have political commitment, and we have an opportunity that no generation in the history of humanity has had: the opportunity to write the final chapter in the story of TB.” 

 

— China’s carbon dioxide emissions are on track to drop in 2024 due to record growth in the installation of new low-carbon energy sources, says Carbon Brief, a British website covering the latest developments in climate science and policy.

 

— Former fighters of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) — a Marxist-Leninist guerrilla group that entered a peace accord with the government in 2016 to end 5 decades of conflict — are working to restore 1 million native trees to the Colombian Amazon, says Mongabay, an environmental science news platform.