Green and Ethical Food

NigeWick

Martyn1981 said:

UN backed report on food choices:

Who backs the information offered? Follow the money.
Protein and fat don't make us obese, sugar (carbohydrates) is the culprit. Intensive monocrop agriculture destroys soil, regenerative ruminant pasture management sequesters more carbon than trees. The problem is intensive animal husbandry using monocrop agriculture to feed meat animals.

Martyn1981

Startup’s bug idea – to put cricket tortillas and chips on the menu

The farm is one of a growing number of companies in Europe and elsewhere seizing on the protein possibilities of insects. But while others focus on growing insects for pet food or animal feed, the Spanish startup has its antennae trained on the human market.

Over the course of each 35-day cycle, the farm produces three tonnes of crickets – 80% of which are ground into protein-rich flour for culinary use, including pasta, snackbars and crackers.

Martyn1981

Here's an idea for producing protein more efficiently in terms of land use.



Microbes and solar power ‘could produce 10 times more food than plants’

Combining solar power and microbes could produce 10 times more protein than crops such as soya beans, according to a new study.

The system would also have very little impact on the environment, the researchers said, in stark contrast to livestock farming which results in huge amounts of climate-heating gases as well as water pollution.

The concept uses electricity from solar panels and carbon dioxide from the air to create fuel for microbes, which are grown in bioreactor vats and then processed into dry protein powders. The process makes highly efficient use of land, water and fertiliser and could be deployed anywhere, not just in countries with strong sunshine or fertile soils, the scientists said.

The analysis estimated that the solar-microbial process could produce 15 tonnes of protein from each hectare (or per 2.5 acres) a year, enough to feed 520 people, which the scientists said was a conservative estimate. In comparison, a hectare of soya beans could produce 1.1 tonnes of protein, feeding 40 people. Even in countries with relatively low sunlight levels like the UK, microbial protein production was at least five times greater from each hectare than plants.

The microbial protein would cost about the same as current proteins eaten by people, such as whey or pea, the researchers suggested. But it was several times more expensive than current animal feeds, although future technological improvements are expected to lower costs.

All the components of the system exist, but Leger said they now need to be tested together and at scale, in particular the capturing of CO2 from the air and ensuring that used solar panels can be recycled. “For human food, there’s also a lot of regulation that needs to be overcome,” he said.

NigeWick

Martyn1981 said:

Here's an idea for producing protein more efficiently in terms of land use.

I read that scientists are starting to produce actual meat artificially. Allegedly all the protein, vitamins & minerals along with texture and taste of whatever cut one wants. I expect they're at the mince for a £1million burger stage at present. Tony Seba reckons it'll be here within ten years and cheaper than grass fed beef as a for instance.

QrizB

This thread has been quiet for a while (5 years!) but it's the best place I can find to share today's Guardian article reporting on a scientific study into the environmental impacts of poultry farming.

Possibly counterintuitively, although in keeping with some of the prior posts on this thread, it found that high-welfare poultry (organic free-range) had a higher environmental impact than intensive farming did.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jul/29/organic-eggs-climate-caged-chickens-carbon-emissions-environment

This prompted a BlueSky thread by George Monbiot covering the various ways in which high-welfare meat is worse for the world than intensively-farmed meat, and how the only responsible approach is to eat far less of it, favouring plant-based foods instead.

https://skywriter.blue/@georgemonbiot.bsky.social/3mrrfgsthjs2z

He links out to an article from four years ago that goes into this I more depth (he's also written a book on it).

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/16/most-damaging-farm-products-organic-pasture-fed-beef-lamb

He also refers back to a blog post of his from 2013, where he dissects claims from some ethical farming lobbies that meat is OK if only fed on food waste (eg. farming by-products that aren't suitable for humans) and grazed on low-quality land that can't be cultivated in other ways.

https://www.monbiot.com/2013/11/27/wrong-about-being-wrong/

Bottom line: there's practically no ethical and environmentally-friendly meat, and the world would be best served by everyone switching to plant-based food.

Alternatively, there are the various factory-grown meat trials (this thread has been quiet for five years too) and the "energy to microbes" proposal that @Martyn1981 mentioned previously in this thread. I wonder how those are getting on?