Spotlight - 01.2020

38 Spotlight 1/2020

Fotos: PR; Kadir Barcin/iStock.com

LIFESTYLE

A study by the Food and Agriculture

Organization of the United Nations

found that beef production accounts for

41 percent of greenhouse gas emissions

from livestock, so there’s little doubt that

burgers of the Beyond and Impossible

companies have a smaller environmen-

tal impact than hamburgers. How much

smaller is still in question, says Dr. Ricar-

do San Martin. Dr. San Martin is the re-

search director of the Alternative Meats

program at the Sutardja Center for En-

trepreneurship and Technology at the

University of California, Berkeley. This

center investigates the next generation

of foods, such as plant-based meats, dairy

substitutes, and alternative sources of fat

and protein. He tells me that, since both

environmental studies were privately

commissioned and never submitted to a

peer journal for independent validation

— which he describes as “the scientific

standard” — he can’t be sure they are ac-

curate. But even if they are, the meatless

burger industry is much too small com-

pared to the beef industry to have any

really positive impact on climate change.

What about the health benefits of

choosing a meatless burger over a beef

burger, then? The World Health Organi-

zation says that eating too much red meat

can increase the risk of heart disease, dia-

betes, and certain forms of cancer; and as

Weiss tells me, some studies have found

that meat can also cause inflammation.

But again, Dr. San Martin says that these

meatless burgers might not be as benefi-

cial as they seem. He says that both the

Beyond Burger, which is made primari-

ly from pea protein, and the Impossible

Burger, which is made primarily from soy,

are not health foods, but processed foods.

Online comparisons say they contain

about the same number of calories and

amount of fat and protein as hamburgers,

although they do have more fiber: three

grams versus zero. The problem, says Dr.

San Martin, is that plants are perceived as

healthier, but when you eat these burgers,

you’re not eating plants, you’re eating iso-

lated proteins. “You’re not eating the pea,

you’re eating a fraction of the pea,” he

says, referring to the Beyond Burger. “So

it’s all about perception. It’s marketing.”

The beef industry responds

The ultimate goal of Beyond Meat and

Impossible Foods is to replace meat in the

next few decades and make it obsolete.

Certainly, their alternatives to hamburg-

ers have proven popular. Beyond Meat

said it had sold 25 million burgers globally

by the end of 2018. But in that year alone,

Americans ate about 13 billion real ham-

burgers, according to the market research

company NPD Group.

The US beef industry doesn’t seem

worried. Last April, the National Cattle-

men’s Beef Association (NCBA) pub-

lished a document titled “There Is No

Alternative to Beef.” It said that beef alter-

natives represent only 0.5 percent of the

market, and that beef consumption in the

US has been increasing since 2015, and is

expected to reach 58 pounds (about 26

kilos) per person in 2019. It also said that

the association would continue to work

with the US Department of Agriculture

and the Food and Drug Administration

to make sure that meat alternatives “are

properly marketed and regulated.”

In a sense, the meat industry is fight-

ing the same battle that the dairy indus-

try has been fighting for decades, except

that meat seems to be winning. A few

US states have already introduced laws

that stop meatless alternatives from be-

ing labeled with words such as “meat,”

“burger,” “sausage,” or “hot dog,” and the

NCBA is trying to introduce these laws

nationwide. The dairy industry, however,

has tried and failed to stop plant-based

alternatives made from things like soy,

almonds, or oats from using the words

“milk,” “cheese,” or “yogurt.” It is impos-

sible to say whether this has impacted

the sale of cows’ milk, which has fallen by

about 40 percent since the 1970s, while

the plant-based alternative dairy indus-

try has grown exponentially, says Dr. San

Martin. No independent studies have as

yet investigated any such correlation.

Whatever the case, Dr. San Martin

doesn’t think Beyond Meat or Impossi-

ble Foods, or even the lab-grown meat

that some companies are trying to bring

to the market, will replace meat any time

soon, because it is part of our culture.

I’m surprised when he tells me that even

if there were an alternative that tastes like

meat, but doesn’t necessitate the slaugh-

ter of animals and is better for our health

and the environment, most people still

wouldn’t want it. “People I know would

want it,” I tell him. “Who do you know?”

he asks. “Erm, LA people, I guess,” is

my reply. He laughs and says: “LA peo-

ple, sure, but what about the rest of the

world?”

Weiss has a similar opinion, though

that won’t stop him from growing his

business to bring his burgers and his mis-

sion to more people. Inside my LA bubble,

as I take another bite at Honeybee Burg-

er, I can’t help wishing that he’s success-

ful and that more cultures will change to

embrace the taste of the future.

almond [(A:lmEnd]

, Mandel

commission [kE(mIS&n]

, in Auftrag geben

dairy substitute

[(deri )sVbstItu:t]

, Milchersatzprodukt

embrace [Im(breIs]

,^ hier: annehmen

entrepreneurship

[)A:ntrEprE(n§:SIp]

, Unternehmertum

fiber [(faIb&r]

, Ballaststoff

fraction [(frÄkS&n]

, Bruchteil, Teil

inflammation

[)InflE(meIS&n]

, Entzündung

lab-grown meat

[)lÄb groUn (mi:t]

, In-vitro-Fleisch

livestock [(laIvstA:k]

, Vieh, Nutztiere

necessitate [nE(sesIteIt]

, erfordern

oats [oUts]

, Hafer

obsolete [)A:bsE(li:t]

, veraltet, überholt

pea [pi:]

, Erbsen-

peer [pI&r]

,^ gleichrangig

perceive as [p&r(si:v]

, ansehen als

processed food

[)prA:sest (fu:d]

, industriell verarbeite-

tes Lebensmittel

slaughter [(slO:t&r]

, Schlachtung

soy [sOI]

, Soja

submit [sEb(mIt]

, einreichen, vorlegen

ultimate goal

[)VltImEt (goUl]

, Endziel

validation [)vÄlI(deIS&n]

, Prüfung, Bewertung