Veggie discs and bloody beets: Future of meat

With climate concerns growing, many people are trying to reduce their environmental impact. Increasingly, they're turning to plant-based meats — and investors are taking notice. When Beyond Meat debuted on Wall Street in early May, share prices more than doubled the first day. "Investors recognize … a huge business opportunity," Bruce Friedrich, director of the Good Food Institute, told AFP.

Backed by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and stars like Leonardo DiCaprio, meat alternatives including Beyond Meat and Impossible Burger, seen here at left, use new food technology and ingredients like peas, fava beans and soy. Unlike earlier veggie burgers, these meatless patties are said to taste, look, smell and even "bleed" like real meat (the secret is beet juice). They can also be healthier.

But eating less meat isn't just a healthy decision. A 2018 WWF report said cutting animal products from diets would be a "relatively easy and cheap way" to fight climate change. A study by the University of Michigan found the Beyond Burger generates 90% less greenhouse gas emissions, requires 46% less energy to produce and has far less of an impact on water scarcity and land use than a beef patty.

Beyond Meat is already sold in thousands of US supermarkets and restaurants, and major brands are also looking for a piece of the action. Nestle launched its take on the beef patty in Europe in April, and Unilever took over Dutch plant-based meat producer The Vegetarian Butcher in late 2018. Burger King is rolling out a Beyond Meat option US-wide, and McDonald's is testing its own vegan burger.

Industrialized soy crops have been flagged as a contributing factor to widespread deforestation. As Brussels-based environment group Fern points out, more than 1 million square kilometers of land are used to grow soy, almost three times the size of Germany. Only a very small percentag of this, however, is used in meat alternatives. Most goes to animal feed.

There are also nutritional concerns about these highly processed foods. Leading brands can have more than double the saturated fat and as much as seven times the amount of sodium as a lean beef burger. And environmental groups are worried about Impossible Burger's inclusion of GMO yeast, which adds a meaty flavor. Excessive consumption has been linked to cancer — but that goes for real meats too.

In Europe, meat alternatives may soon have to be sold as "discs," "tubes" and "slabs" as opposed to burgers, sausages and steaks. The EU Parliament's agriculture committee has backed a move to ban producers of vegetarian food from using terms that usually describe meat. The full parliament is yet to vote on the measure however.