If people were to eat more vegetable proteins instead of animal proteins, this would result in multiple - and much-needed - benefits.
Such a 'protein transition' will positively affect sustainable energy production, sustainable water use, biodiversity, human health and animal welfare. Collective vegetarianism is not required, but good-tasting, high quality meat substitutes ought to be used more often in place of meat.
This is the most important finding of a comprehensive study of more sustainable protein production by nineteen economists, consumer researchers, food technologists, sociologists, political scientists, ecologists and chemists from three universities.
The research findings are published in the book Sustainable Protein Production and Consumption: Pigs or Peas?.
The study is called PROFETAS (Protein Foods, Environment, Technology And Society) and was financed by the Dutch National Science Foundation NWO and the Technology Foundation STW, the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality and private companies. The researchers are from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Wageningen University & Research Centre and the University of Twente.
Facts about meat
- to produce 1 kg of animal protein, 3 to 10 kg of plant protein is required, depending on the particular animal species and circumstances;
- 1 kg of beef requires 15 m3 water, one kg of lamb requires 10 m3 , while for one kg of grain 0.4 to 3 m3 is sufficient;
- 75 percent of available fresh water, 35 percent of available land and 20 percent of all energy resources are currently used for food production;
- between 1950 and 2000, the world's population doubled from 2.7 to 6.7 billion people while meat production increased fivefold from 45 to 233 billion kg per year. The FAO predicts a global population of 9 billion people in 2050, and meat production of 450 billion kg per year.
Novel Protein Foods