Like meat, but better
Alternative, plant-based proteins are part of the solution
Simple climate action at home // I S S U E 1 1 // F O O D
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The Hothouse Challenge: Lowering your carbon forkprint
Earlier this month we asked you to make a note of your food shopping habits for one week - what types of protein you buy, checking you’re not eating foods flown in from the other side of the world, and whether you have any foods that might be produced on deforested lands.
Last week we set about reducing that carbon footprint by swapping out some produce for lower carbon foods. We have one more week to try changing our food shopping habits. In the meantime, here are a few more tips we’ve discovered.
Changing life-long habits is hard. Be kind to yourself by teaming up with a friend or family member for motivation, and set yourself some realistic targets. You could cut out one beef meal every week this month, two the following month, three the following month.
If you only do one thing, cutting down or cutting out beef is by far the most impactful step. Beef generates 60 times more carbon emissions than the production of pea protein. An analysis of the carbon impacts of different types of meat shows us that eating less meat is almost always better than eating the most sustainable meat.
Foods transported a long distance by road, rail or ship don’t necessarily have a big footprint — it’s air-freighted produce that is the problem. Only a small amount of produce is transported this way and it won’t be labeled as air freighted, but keep an eye out for fresh produce with a short shelf life that’s been grown overseas. Berries, asparagus, and green beans are often air-freighted, especially out of season. If in doubt, stick to local and seasonal.
Here are a few low-carbon recipes to get you started from E-Mission in the UK, a low-carbon food project.
Send us your results in this simple form — however difficult you’re finding it and however small the changes you’re making. We want to hear how it feels to try and make these changes, what helps, and what’s stopping you.
A hunter on the future of meat
Zack Parisa grew up fishing and hunting in the hollows of Alabama, and has devoted his career to forestry by founding SilviaTerra, a climate startup dedicated to funding forest conservation. Zack is intimately acquainted with the environmental ethics of eating meat: he regularly hunts pig, turkey, and deer in the mountains of California, and understands the ecology of the landscape. He’s also a big fan of new proteins like Beyond Meat and Impossible. These new options, he says, could allow us to rethink what a burger means, as well as the future of carbon-intensive meat production.
As told to Michael Coren
My relationship with food has changed dramatically since I was a kid. I grew up on Velveeta. Eating out was a big event, and for a special occasion, maybe twice a year, we’d go to a Chinese restaurant. My parents liked to cook, but it was very much in the 80s and 90s era of processed foods, so I didn’t think a lot about the origin of my food. That changed at college and grad school when I was exposed to people that thought a lot about food — it was the focus of their life. And so I really learned about the impacts on myself and on the community.
I do what I can to purchase meat that doesn’t come from the lowest-cost source. That often means the least humane and least dignified life for the animal. I still want some of my meat to come from hunting, and the rest to come from farming practices that are demonstratively and transparently humane. I’d like to go to the farm and know that life wasn’t in any way disrespected.
The first time I ever went hunting I was 13 or 14. My mother had talked about hunting squirrels when she was little, so we went hunting and killed and ate squirrel. Anyone who's ever actually killed an animal, and respectfully prepared that meat, knows it’s a laborious and time-consuming thing. But it’s also very grounding.
I carry a backpack that is probably 36 pounds, and hike in about six miles. I am quiet and observant, and set up over an area that I can observe with binoculars. I sit quietly in the same place for hours leading up to dusk until it's time to move on. I’m scanning the landscape and looking for signs of animals. The whole time you're trying to assess where these animals are living. And then where you need to be able to take an ethical shot. It is exceptionally difficult, and they're difficult to see. I'm talking about belly crawling through brush and over rocks. You're very intimate with the landscape. You see nature unfold in ways you don't when you just blast through the landscape. I don't expect everyone to appreciate that, but for me, it is physically and mentally engaging.
Massive effort goes into carrying a deer out, which is a wildly difficult thing physically. This animal weighs as much, or more, than you, and you're going to take it out of the woods with all your other gear. You can pay somebody to butcher it, or you can butcher it yourself. You explore what the different cuts of meat are, what’s useful for what, and you try to use as much as you can. Grass-fed beef oftentimes is still corn finished, which is fattier and has a more neutral flavor. Deer in a sense are what they eat, and you can taste that.
In 10 years meat will be more of a boutique thing. I have really high hopes that there's going to be a market transition so people choose plant-based proteins that are delicious. Eventually, these should be less expensive to produce than other things — not only from a carbon or energy standpoint but also from a cost standpoint.
I'm actually really excited about Impossible and Beyond Meat. Truthfully, they aren’t the best burgers I've ever had, but I prefer them to a mediocre beef burger. It tastes great, and I feel better physically. To me, it is directionally correct. I want to be part of the dollar-voting public that pushes this change in the market.
For farmers in the southern US states, crops like pea protein can now be a big part of their story. There's nothing about a finishing yard for cattle or a slaughterhouse that invokes a great feeling. This is not the best of our society. We have a long tradition of adopting technology that helps propel our society forward, and plant-based proteins are part of that.
Hothouse is a weekly climate action newsletter written and edited by Jemima Kiss, Mike Coren and Jim Giles. We rely on readers to support us, and everything we publish is free to read.
