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The Future Of Meat: Exploring The Nutritional Qualities And Environmental Impacts Of Meat Replacements

2016; Wiley; Volume: 30; Issue: S1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1096/fasebj.30.1_supplement.894.8

1530-6860

Maximino Alfredo Mejía, Helen Harwatt, Karen Jaceldo‐Siegl, Sam Soret, Joan Sabaté,

Environmental Impact and Sustainability

Animal products, particularly meat, are increasingly being questioned in terms of their role in an environmentally sustainable food system. Concurrently, there is a rising public consumption of meat analogs, largely driven by health concerns, with environmental concerns, taste and convenience also being important. Meat analogs are high‐protein, manufactured products with some taste and texture resemblance to meats. Hence, meat analogs could play a key role in replacing meat in the diet, however, to date, there has been no systematic assessment of the environmental impacts of meat analogs. Therefore, using primary production data (energy use, water use, ingredients quantities, packaging and processing methods) collected from 2 separate companies for burgers, sausages, mince, slices, rolls and nuggets, we performed Life Cycle Assessment using a specialized software (SimaPro) to calculate the greenhouse gas emissions from 39 meat analog products. Life Cycle Assessment is an internationally recognized and commonly used method to analyze the environmental impacts of products. Greenhouse gas emissions were measured as carbon dioxide equivalents (CO 2 e). The average greenhouse gas impact across all meat analog categories was 2.4 kg CO 2 e/kg product. Results for the individual categories of meat analog were 1.8 kg CO 2 e/kg mince, 2.0 kg CO 2 e/kg slices, 2.0 kg CO 2 e/kg nuggets, 2.3 kg CO 2 e/kg sausages, 2.2 kg CO 2 e/kg rolls, and 4.1 kg CO 2 e/kg burgers. For canned, frozen and dry meat analogs, the average greenhouse gas impacts were 3.0 kg CO 2 e/kg, 2.1 kg CO 2 e/kg, and 0.7 kg CO 2 e/kg, respectively. To provide further context and nutritional relevance, we will compare the meat analogs with 3 of the most popularly consumed animal‐derived meats, in terms of kg CO 2 e per amount of product, protein, saturated fat and iron. Our findings show that meat analogs have much lower environmental impacts and could therefore continue to provide environmentally advantageous alternatives to animal‐derived meat.