- Title: Plant burgers could help lead the way to climate salvation
- Date: 12th October 2018
- Summary: TOKYO, JAPAN (FILE - OCTOBER 7, 2016) (REUTERS) BURGERS BEING PUT ON KITCHEN COUNTER, READY TO BE SERVED PEPPER BEING SPRINKLED ONTO BURGERS WOMAN BITING INTO BURGER COUPLE EATING BURGERS WOMAN EATING BURGER VARIOUS OF TWO WOMEN EATING BURGERS
- Embargoed: 26th October 2018 17:25
- Keywords: meatfree meat-free vegetarian meat free burgers burgers Impossible Food Beyond Meat
- Location: CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES / TOKYO, JAPAN / PARIS, FRANCE
- City: CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES / TOKYO, JAPAN / PARIS, FRANCE
- Country: USA
- Topics: Science
- Reuters ID: LVA002921DV8B
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: People should eat far less meat, halve food waste and improve farming practices to limit the effects of global food production on climate change, according to major international research published this month.
Scientists from various institutions, including the University of Oxford and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, analysed the global food system's impact on the environment and concluded that greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced by more than half if people changed their diets to plant-based diets. Their research was published in the prestigious journal Nature.
Two Californian companies, recognised as innovators by the United Nations, aim to make this possible with their plant-based food products that could replace meat. Both companies are driven by environmental concerns raised by global meat production.
Rather than encourage people to switch to plant-based food already available, like tofu, they aim to reproduce the taste and texture of meat in their products.
Beyond Meat creates protein-rich products by sourcing the components that make up meat - protein, fat, trace minerals and water - from plants.
"The core parts of meat with amino acids, lipids, trace minerals, water - those are all available and abundant outside the animal. What we're doing is sourcing those directly from the plant kingdom and then building a piece of meat directly from those core parts," explained CEO and founder Ethan Brown.
Impossible Foods has focused on the molecule the company says gives meat its flavour, heme.
"It's (heme) the magic ingredient in meat from animals. It's what makes meat from animals’ taste unlike anything else. And it's the magic ingredient in our burger for flavour. There's more to it than that, but that's a big part of it," said Impossible Foods' CEO Patrick O' Reilly Brown.
The two food tech companies won the United Nations Champions of the Earth Award in the science and innovation category for their alternative products in September.
On Monday (October 8) the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report saying that global temperatures are likely to rise by 1.5 degrees Celsius between 2030 and 2052 at its current pace and warned of increased risks of heat waves, floods from storms, drought and loss of species. - Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
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