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How plant-based meat will trump the classic meat industry. What is plant-based meat? Plant-based meat is ‘meat’ but made from plants which is designed to mimic the taste of real meat with very similar texture, taste, appearance and smell but without the need to slaughter an animal for it. According to one of the biggest plant-based meat companies, the ingredients include peas, mung peas, faba beans, brown rice, coconut butter, coconut oil, expeller-pressed canola oil, potato starch, salt, potassium chloride, beat juice and apple extract. Environmental benefits: Plant-based meat is obviously going to have many environmental benefits compared to real meat. Plant-based meat has shown to use 46% less energy, 75% to 95% less water and 93% less land to make. All up, plant-based meat produces 90% less emissions than real meat. This all plays a large part in helping the environment and significantly reducing our annual emissions. When all parts of agriculture are taken into consideration it makes up 29% of all emissions. By eliminating a large percentage of that with no need to cultivate livestock, it will play a vital role in reducing the overall impact we have on the planet and decrease the potential damage that may come from horrendous climate change and global warming later. An increase in animal welfare: With plant-based meat becoming a genuine thing and multibillion dollar fast-food companies joining in, this is surely saving animal lives, right? Animal Welfare Org said in 2019 that plant-based fast-food burgers alone are saving 250,000 animal lives each year. With plant-based food slowly becoming more mainstream, this is obviously going to

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Page 1: How plant-based meat will trump the classic meat industry

How plant-based meat will trump the classic meat industry.

What is plant-based meat?

Plant-based meat is ‘meat’ but made from plants which is designed to mimic the taste of real meat with very similar texture, taste, appearance and smell but without the need to slaughter an animal for it. According to one of the biggest plant-based meat companies, the ingredients include peas, mung peas, faba beans, brown rice, coconut butter, coconut oil, expeller-pressed canola oil, potato starch, salt, potassium chloride, beat juice and apple extract.

Environmental benefits:

Plant-based meat is obviously going to have many environmental benefits compared to real meat. Plant-based meat has shown to use 46% less energy, 75% to 95% less water and 93% less land to make. All up, plant-based meat produces 90% less emissions than real meat. This all plays a large part in helping the environment and significantly reducing our annual emissions. When all parts of agriculture are taken into consideration it makes up 29% of all emissions. By eliminating a large percentage of that with no need to cultivate livestock, it will play a vital role in reducing the overall impact we have on the planet and decrease the potential damage that may come from horrendous climate change and global warming later.

An increase in animal welfare:

With plant-based meat becoming a genuine thing and multibillion dollar fast-food companies joining in, this is surely saving animal lives, right?

Animal Welfare Org said in 2019 that plant-based fast-food burgers alone are saving 250,000 animal lives each year. With plant-based food slowly becoming more mainstream, this is obviously going to

Page 2: How plant-based meat will trump the classic meat industry

mean that the need for meat will only reduce resulting in less animals being slaughtered and animals being placed in truly horrible set-ups, cages, rooms, etc purely so someday they can be provided to humans on a food plate. By removing meat from our daily food diet, our health will increase as well as providing animals with a far better, safer life.

Plant-based meat expected growth:

The plant-based meat industry has grown to be worth 27.13 billion Australian dollars (20 billion USD) and is expected to grow to 31.47 billion Australian dollars (23.2 billion USD) by 2024. While this may sound good, the classic meat industry is still dominating as it is currently worth 1.13 trillion Australian dollars (838.3 billion USD) and is expected to be worth 1.49 trillion Australian dollars (1.1 trillion USD) by 2025. So, as it currently stands the real meat industry is more dominant than the plant-based model. However, many companies and business believe that by only the end of 2022, the amount of plant-based meat in places like restaurants will increase by 35% on menus and as consumers and companies/business look for alternatives and pushing for a more sustainable future, there is no doubt that plant-based meat will soon rise above and beyond the classic meat industry, it may just take a little while.

Who are the leading companies in plant-based meat?

Some of the largest plant-based meat companies include:

• Beyond Meat Inc.• Impossible Foods Inc.• Kellogg’s Co.• Quorn Foods LTD.• Boca Foods Co.• Amy’s Kitchen Inc.

These are probably the biggest companies who are leading the way in transferring consumers from real meat to a plant-based future. Many of these companies have been very fortunate enough to collect monster deals with huge companies who sell their products. A few include Impossible Foods who have captured deals with Qdoba, Disney and Burger King. Beyond Meat have also found some very good partners including McDonalds, Subway, TGI Friday, Dunkin’ and KFC. Quorn Foods LTD has partnered with Liverpool football club, Netmums and more. Amy’s Kitchen Inc, Boca Foods Co and Kellogg’s Co have also formed great partnerships but Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods are going gang busters!

What does Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods sell?

Beyond meat sell many different plant-based products. A few include ground meat, original, hot Italian or sweet Italian sausages, meatballs, patties, beef and crumbles.

What about Impossible Foods?

Impossible foods have a more restricted list to choose from with only burgers and sausages. However, you can buy these products in all different ways including:

Burgers: ground burgers, burger patties as well as frozen patties.

Sausages: Ground sausage savory and ground sausage spicy.

Page 3: How plant-based meat will trump the classic meat industry

Is plant-based meat healthier than traditional meat?

A well-known burger sold at a prominent fast-food outlet has a few statistics that would suggest regular meat is slightly healthier than its eco meat counterpart. The fat levels are both very similar but it’s the sodium that is the large difference. The traditional well-known burger contains 980 milligrams compared to 1,240 milligrams in the plant-based version.

With that being said, we will still investigate the difference in health between the two in other plant-based meats and conventional meats as many fast-food outlets have never really been known for their healthy foods.

According to the U.S. National Institute of Health, some of the healthier plant-based meat options like Beyond Meat, Hilary’s and Boca Foods have a really good source of folate, fiber and iron while containing a lot less saturated fat compared to conventional meat.

A researcher at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health said, “switching from ground beef to a plant-based ground beef alternative product can be a healthier choice in some ways”.

At the university, they tested Amy’s kitchen, Beyond Meat, Conagra, Impossible Foods, Kellogg’s, Marlow Foods, Tofurky and Worthington. The researchers said that all these alternatives are certainly going to be better for your health than conventional meat.

Another study conducted shown in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition had multiple participants swap out two or more servings of real meat a day and replaced it with the plant-based option. It showed that after six weeks they had far lower levels of TMAO (Trimethylamine N-oxide) which can lead to a higher chance of developing cardiovascular disease. These people werealso shown to have lower cholesterol compared to the opposition who were consuming conventionalmeat.

Some people tend to hold off on trying or moving completely over to plant-based meat and one of those reasons is because people don’t believe it contains any iron. Well, a few studies/papers have come out actually showing that because some of the vegetables used for these alternatives have iron minerals stored within them, the plant-based meats do surprisingly contain a decent amount of iron. They may not contain as much iron as conventional meat but will still tick off your iron intake needs.

With all this information considered, I believe it is fairly safe to say that plant-based meat certainly has its place in the list of healthy alternatives to food products such as meat and in the long term, might serve your health better than the conventional option.

(Note: If you are keen on trying to decide what option is better for your health, I also suggest reading many other websites as that should help you make a more stable and confident decision).

Just give plant-based meat ago, your health may thank you.

Page 4: How plant-based meat will trump the classic meat industry

3-D printed meat:

Now 3-D printed meat or any food quite frankly may not sit very well with you as well as not sounding all that pleasing, but this is a legitimate idea that has already started no matter how strange or confusing it may seem. KFC have partnered with a Russian (3-D) bioprinting lab. This idea is only half plant-based as it requires vegetables but also animal cells (for KFC, they were interested in chicken cells for obvious reasons). The process is simply collecting cells, combining them with vegetables and then once the ingredients are mixed together into a liquid, they then use the 3-D printer to bioprint the substance into apetri dish. The machine is very similar andfollows a similar process to making otherproducts such as plastic. After a little while, theliquid will form into what appears to be a pieceof meat.

Currently 99.8% of animals aren’t used for human food which is a good thing. However, with the rise of cultivated meat, this will soon open up different opportunities to try all interesting and obscure types of animals while not ever having to harm any of them like we would with normal meat. All that will be required is the exact same as what you see in the above picture. However, because collecting cells from a specific animal will still be required, this could lead towards all other types of wild animals soon being dragged into farm life due to the popularity of the animals taste rising, so it is probably best that we just simply leave them be in the wild.

Cultivated meat is also much better for the environment and ourselves just like the plant-based option. An impressive benefit with this way of creating meat is that we are able to control the nutrition content by simply adjusting certain things as the food is made. This means we are also capable of being able to personalise the meat based on what an individual would prefer. Being able to control the nutrition content means we will also be able to significantly reduce the amount of fat and/or cholesterol content.

Page 5: How plant-based meat will trump the classic meat industry

When will the plant-based and/or cultivated meat industry run down the traditional meat industry?

Experts believe that if all goes to plan, we could see a very low percentage of real meat servings on our plates by 2040. This would suggest that we should be less than 20 years away from seeing close to the end of real meat. They also believe that because the cultivated version does still require cells from a cow, that it should hurry-up the switch to fake meat as it tastes more similar to real meat compared to the plant-based option which many already believe is good enough.

Conclusion:

So, can the environmentally friendly meat alternatives truly trump the classic meat industry? Well, I and many others would certainly believe so especially if cultivated meat can really get off the ground like the plant-based model. With sustainability and looking after the environment becoming more and more important every second and real meat alternatives getting healthier, cheaper, tastier and far more beneficial to the environment, it is only a matter of time until this booming industry takes over. At least I certainly hope so.

Finished on the 20th of August 2021.

-KJDJ

Bibliography:

Works Cited

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Better for Your Health and the Environment.” Sentient Media, sentientmedia.org/benefits-plant-based-meats/. Accessed 14 Aug. 2021.Human Society International. “Plant-Based Eating - Humane Society

International.” Humane Society International, 2018, www.hsi.org/issues/plant-based-eating/. Accessed 15 Aug. 2021.Impossible Foods. “Impossible.” Impossiblefoods.com, 2019, impossiblefoods.com/. Accessed 16 Aug. 2021.Johnson, Kim. “Fast Food Plant-Based Meat Saving a Quarter of a Million

Animals a Year.” Animal Equality | International Animal Protection Organization, 14 Jan. 2020, animalequality.org/blog/2020/01/14/fast-food-beyond-meat-impossible-foods-saving-animals/.

Accessed 16 Aug. 2021.Lamas, Mariana. “How Scientists Make Plant-Based Foods Taste and Look More like Meat.” The Conversation, 6 May 2022, theconversation.com/how-scientists-make-plant-based-foods-taste-and-look-more-like-meat-156839#:~:text=Plant%2Dbased%20meats%20are%20products. Accessed 15 Aug. 2021.Pinduodou. “Plant Based Meat Companies: Firms Disrupting

Meatless Meat.” Stories.pinduoduo-Global.com, 19 May 2021, stories.pinduoduo-global.com/agritech-hub/plant-based-meat-companies. Accessed 15 Aug. 2021.Proctor, Anika Nayak, Kailey. “Why Plant-

Based Meats Are Healthier than Regular Meats, according to Dietitians.” Insider, 26 Mar. 2021, www.insider.com/plant-based-meat. Accessed 19 Aug. 2021.Reinberg, Steven. “How Healthy Are the

New Plant-Based ‘Fake Meats’?” WebMD, 17 June 2021, www.webmd.com/diet/news/20210617/how-healthy-are-the-new-plant-based-fake-meats#1. Accessed 14 Aug. 2021.Undecided with Matt

Ferrell. “The Future of Meat - Lab Grown Meat Explained.” Www.youtube.com, 10 Aug. 2021, www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVBq4Pw2_fQ. Accessed 13 Aug. 2021.