Vegan meat, milk not so Earth-friendly

Vegans hoping to save the planet should stick to eating beans and avoid trendy alternatives such as almond milk and lab-grown meat.

Experts said climate-conscious consumers should focus on natural whole foods such as peas, beans and soybeans.

Vegans hoping to save the planet should stick to eating beans and avoid trendy alternatives such as almond milk and lab-grown meat, a report by Oxford University has concluded.

Researchers examined 24 foods used as substitutes for meat and dairy, scoring them on their environmental, nutritional and health benefits. Popular products designed for vegans were found to be relatively bad for the climate, including oat milk, almond milk and vegie burgers.

Some fake meat, such as vegie bacon, got a worse overall score than the pork bacon it is designed to replace. Almond milk was also worse for the environment than dairy milk. Experts said climate-conscious consumers should focus on natural whole foods such as peas, beans and soybeans, and avoid processed fake meat and vegan products full of additives.

Marco Springmann, from Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute, who led the study, said: “Unprocessed legumes such as peas and beans were the clear winner in our assessment. They performed well from all perspectives, including nutritional, health, environmental and cost.

“But a surprising runner-up was tempeh, a traditional Indonesian food made from fermented soybeans, which retains much of the nutritional properties of soybeans without much processing or additives. This and the low cost gave it an edge over more processed alternatives such as vegie burgers.”

The study ranked the foods on six factors: cost, land use, water use, nutrients, greenhouse gases and impact on reducing disease risk. Unprocessed whole plants came out top across all domains but the study said processed vegetarian products such as tofu or vegie burgers “still offered substantial environmental, health, and nutritional benefits compared to animal-source foods”.

Bottom of the list, however, was lab-grown meat, which is made by growing animal cells in the lab and is not yet sold in Britain for human consumption. The researchers said lab-grown meat emissions could be as high as those of beefburgers, as well as being some 40,000 times the cost and as bad for health.

Dr Springmann said: “Public investments in both lab-grown meat and ultra-processed burger patties look like tough sells when considering their relative impacts and available alternatives.”

The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, said the public should be encouraged to cut down on meat and dairy for health and environmental reasons.

It found that replacing all meat or dairy in high-income countries with the same calories from substitute products could cut the risk of early death by up to 6 per cent.

This is largely due to the big increase in fibre, which is good for health and cuts the risk of cancer, as well as reductions in bad cholesterol and an increase in the intake of minerals and vitamins.

“Reducing meat and dairy in high-income countries is essential for limiting climate change, biodiversity loss, and improving health,” Dr Springmann.

“Our study shows that a range of foods and food products exist that would have multiple benefits when replacing meat and dairy in current diets.”

On the climate, the experts said the livestock sector was responsible for most food-related greenhouse gas emissions and for 20 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions overall. “Without dietary changes toward more plant-based diets, the environmental impacts of the food system are projected to pose serious challenges for efforts to define a safe operating space for humanity on a stable Earth system,” they said.

The Times