This study provides a comprehensive multicriteria assessment of meat and milk alternatives from nutritional, health, environmental, and cost perspectives. The findings suggest that a range of food products exist that when replacing meat and dairy in current diets would have multiple benefits for health and the environment. 

This is a systematic review of dairy alternative products and their outcomes for justice. The researchers argue that the heavy-handed regulation of dairy alternative terminology and the market-driven nature of this transition raise questions about injustices in governance and innovation in this sector.

This systematic review assesses the evidence base of the environmental and health impacts of novel plant-based foods (NPBFs) as compared to animal-based foods (ABFs) in food secure, high-income countries. NPBFs are defined by the researchers as new food products designed to mimic and replace ABFs and be added into habitual diets; examples include vegan meat or plant-based dairy. The researchers find that generally, NPBFs have better health outcomes and better environmental outcomes compared to ABFs. These results, however, vary by product type and context and they warn that caution should be given in the development of dietary guidelines. The authors suggest future research and policy should seek to develop more granular categories of NPBFs that account for these complex and often contextual health and environmental issues.

This review article focuses on the practical implications for livestock farmers and their pastures of a shift towards a plant-based diet in the UK. The authors argue that the majority of pastures are unsuitable for conversion to arable land because of their soil type, making them unreliable sites for plant-based protein production.

This report, written by Jenny Chapman from the Churchill Fellowship, a UK fellowship programme which supports innovation across multiple fields and sectors, details concerns surrounding plant-based meat being “ultra-processed”. The author highlights how the “ultra-processed food” category, designed to identify if a food has been made in a factory or not, is being incorrectly used in nutrition science circles and has been used to suggest that all plant-based meat products are unhealthy.

No Meat Required chronicles the history of vegan politics and practise in the United States and asks whether the original political motivations of the movement have been lost to corporate commodification. The book follows veganism from its roots in the hippy movement, its revival with growing concerns over the climate emergency and its integration into contemporary supermarket retailing, fine dining and junk food products.

This paper is the first system-wide assessment of the effects of substituting animal based products with novel plant based alternatives on a range of food system concerns . The paper analyses four substitution scenarios (corresponding to 10%, 25%, 50% and 90% incremental substitution from 2020 to 2050) and determines the net results for food system outcomes including food availability, undernourishment levels, crop use and food prices, and environmental outcomes including land use change, emissions reduction, biodiversity intactness and nitrogen input.

Recent revelations from Upside Foods employees raise serious questions about how much cultured meat companies have achieved after billions of dollars in investment in recent years, and whether wholecut cultivated meat products will ever be commercially viable. Upside meat has received a fifth of investment in cultured meats up to 2022, using its ability to produce wholecuts (rather than ground meat) as its distinguishing feature against competitors. However, interviews with employees reveal that bioreactors have failed to produce viable products and wholecuts still require intensive human intervention at small scales.

This article examines the dynamics of transition away from an animal product based food system and evaluates the potential for novel plant based products to supplant meat and dairy. The authors found that public funding for the novel products is smaller than that for animal products by factors of 1,200 in the EU and 800 in the US.