Israel’s chief Rabbi David Lau recently ruled that lab-grown beef produced by the company Aleph Farms could be considered kosher. Due to the way this beef is produced (the meat is cultivated from stem cells) he concluded that it would be classed as pareve - that is a food that is neither meat nor dairy. However, this ruling came with the caveat that this would only be the case if the lab-grown meat was advertised as a meat alternative rather than real meat.

Yasmin Tayag of The Atlantic discusses her experience tasting plant-based bacon made with ‘lab-grown’ or ‘cultivated’ fat produced by San Francisco start-up Mission Barns. It is hoped that cultivated fat may encourage more people to eat less meat (which would have environmental benefits and address concerns around animal suffering) by providing a plant-based meat alternative that tastes as good as the real thing.

This book provides a behind-the-scenes look at the current food system and its destructive nature. Author Henry Dimbleby explains not just why he thinks the food system is a disaster waiting to happen, but what can be done about it.

The Food Injustice 2020-2022 report by Greenpeace International discusses how modern food systems are dominated by large multinational corporations. It argues that these corporations make massive profits with very little consideration for producers and consumers, which continues to drive increases in world hunger. The Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine are used as case studies for crises that have exacerbated these issues. The report concludes that global policy must focus on promoting food sovereignty so that power shifts from these large multinational corporations back to the consumer and producer.

This report from the Food Research Collaboration looked at both the National Food Strategy for England, The Plan, published in July 2021 and the resulting Government Food Strategy.

The 'meat paradox' is defined as enjoying meat whilst disapproving of animals suffering or being killed. This study looked into how social media videos and TV cookery programmes can influence viewers to overcome the meat paradox. The authors chose to look specifically at British Muslims because studies suggest they are a group whose eating habits are significantly influenced by such media types and also consume more meat per capita than the national average.

There has been a lot of discussion about the health and environmental benefits and risks of animal-source foods (which include meat, fish, eggs and dairy). This paper examined the current evidence on these benefits and risks, finding that these impacts vary massively depending on local context and population development.

This paper used publicly-available remote-sensing and supply chain data to examine the links between cocoa production and deforestation in Côte d'Ivoire, the world's largest cocoa producer. The authors found that cocoa production has led to significant deforestation and degredation, as well as a need for greater transparency in the sector.

This paper estimates that plant-based diets can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease by improving blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and body weight in comparison to traditional meat-containing omnivorous diets. However, it is less clear whether these same benefits are consistent in diets containing processed meat alternatives.