Cutting through the (Alt) Meat
Juicy Marbles are on a mission to help humanity change course, and consider if the way that we live and consume food is good for the world we live in. In Episode 7 of the Cool Hominids podcast with Peet Denny and Co-Founder of Juicy Marbles, Luka Sincek, they discuss the journey that the startup has been through to get to this point and touch on the connections and associates that we all have to food.
Food is central to community — cooking together, passing recipes down through generations and sharing meals with family and friends. We hold these things dear, and stick to patterns of behaviour that have been tried and tested. Meat has been a constant in the human diet (our ancestors began eating meat 2.6 million years ago), and has played a part in our evolution. Our reliance on meat is continuing to grow; by 2018, the world was producing 340 million tonnes each year and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation has projected that meat consumption will continue to rise.
As we understand more about the impact of animal agriculture on our environment, can we continue as we always have? Examining our current food consumption patterns in the face of the ongoing climate emergency requires us to ask ourselves and each other important questions.
Looking at the data, the impact from animal agriculture is clear. Each stage of the process for farming, producing and transporting meat products contributes in its own way to the climate emergency.
Farming animals is responsible for 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, with red meat in particular more damaging, accounting for 41% of those emissions. Half of the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture and making space for livestock has caused deforestation, water shortages and a rise in ocean dead zones due to pollution from animal agriculture, which could have knock-on effects to extinction rates. Methane (CH4) emissions from cows and fertiliser use account for around 44% of livestock emissions, with the remainder made up of Nitrous Oxide (N2O) and Carbon Dioxide (CO2). Whilst a smaller percentage of total emissions and able to break down more quickly, Methane has the potential to trap more heat in the atmosphere than Carbon Dioxide, making it a potent greenhouse gas.
When we consider all of this alongside the target of limiting global warming to below 2°C (and getting closer to the 1.5°C level), a shift in the way we produce and consume food is crucial.
So, can we imagine a world where we don’t eat meat? The impact on emissions and land would be significant, but do we collectively know enough about the alternatives (and the impact on our nutrition levels) if we make the shift?
We are often encouraged to eat meat locally, however it’s important to remember that the majority of greenhouse gas emissions for meat products (and in particular beef, lamb and mutton) do not come from the transport and packaging part of the process. Eating locally however, does start to push us in the direction where we as a society can start to see some impact — by thinking about the food we eat in greater depth, trying to understand where it comes from and what ingredients go into it.
The scale at which this change happens is important — this is a global issue and needs large numbers of us to make the change. Knowing where and how to make the shift can seem daunting to life-long meat-eaters, but we’re seeing more and more alternatives to meat products become available and are excited about some of the amazing startups in this space. The work that Juicy Marbles are doing is exciting as it looks deeply at the emotional connection that we hold to the food we eat and consider how we can improve on the taste, feel and experience of what we eat.
Using plant-based alternatives to meat, companies such as Beyond Meat (partnering with McDonalds, KFC and Pizza Hut) and Impossible Foods (partnering with Burger King) are taking big steps towards making meat-free alternative products a much more accessible option.
Starting small is still a start, and an important step towards making a dietary shift is learning about your current impact and the nutrition you are feeding your body. Impossible Foods have an impact calculator to help youget started. We’d love to hear your results, and to explore the changes that communities are making in the drive to be good to the world we live in.
