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Three alternative protein critiques, explained

News and resources

This article in Greenbiz explains and discusses three common concerns about plant-based meat alternatives: that many alternative protein startups do not disclose their product’s environmental impacts; that alternative proteins are unhealthy because they are highly processed; and that alternative protein startups fail to disrupt the power structures of the economic status quo.

The Politics of Disgust: What future for protein?

About the author: Rob Percival is the author of The Meat Paradox: Eating, Empathy and the Future of Meat. He works for the Soil Association as Head of Food Policy, leading the organisation’s advocacy on dietary change.

Series 2: Depolarising the future of protein

The future roles of livestock and alternative proteins are heavily contested. The IPES-Food report The Politics of Protein: Examining claims about livestock, fish, ‘alternative proteins’ and sustainability aimed to overcome polarisation by critically assessing the stories commonly told about different proteins and their environmental, nutritional, and social impacts. Did the report achieve its goal? In this TABLE Letterbox exchange, Garrett Broad and Phil Howard discuss whether the report instead reinforced existing media narratives about alternative proteins, and debate the extent to which plant-based and cell-cultured foods can help to resolve the challenges facing the global food system.

Event recording: What is ecomodernism?

Event recording

This event was hosted by TABLE on 15 June 2022 and took the format of a panel discussion with: Dr Tara Garnett (director of TABLE and fellow of the Oxford Martin School); Helen Breewood, research & communications officer at TABLE & author of the explainer on ecomodernism; Linus Blomqvist, co-author of the Ecomodernist Manifesto, former director of the Conservation and Food & Agriculture programmes at the Breakthrough Institute & PhD candidate in Environmental Economics and Science at University of California, Santa Barbara; Sam Bliss, PhD candidate in natural resources at the University of Vermont's Gund Institute for Environment & president of DegrowUS.

Implementing environmental labelling of food products in France

Journal articles

This paper, co-authored by TABLE community member Hayo van der Werf, discusses which environmental issues, data, methods, formats and so on should be used in the environmental labelling of food in France. The motivation for the paper was to consider how the French government’s recent requirements to introduce environmental food labelling can provide relevant information that is feasible to gather.

Climate warming could reduce diversity of soil microbes

Journal articles

The importance of soil health for producing food and the complexity of life found within soil are increasingly visible in food systems debates. This paper investigates how the diversity of microbes within soils may be affected by warming climates.

From rituals to laws: animal slaughter in Norway

Journal articles

This paper explores the changing relationship between people and animal slaughter in Norway since the early 20th century. It argues that a broad shift has occurred away from rituals that make animal slaughter meaningful and socially acceptable, and towards a “judicialisation” of animal slaughter - meaning that laws, rather than rituals, now regulate animal deaths. The authors argue that while the increased importance of regulation has contributed to stricter animal welfare practices, it also alienates consumers from the animals they eat.

Do European think tanks link meat with climate change?

Journal articles

This paper analyses how over 100 European think tanks talk about the links between animal-sourced foods and climate change, seeking to understand how they have influenced policymakers’ attitudes to the issue. It argues that the failure of many think tank documents to link the two issues contributes to a wider lack of attention to the environmental impacts of diets.

Feeding Britain from the ground up

This report from the UK’s Sustainable Food Trust models the impacts on food production, land use, diets and self-sufficiency of a country-wide switch to sustainable farming methods, based on mixed farming rotations and grazing livestock.