PRIYANKA CHAKRABORTY, AMITY UNIVERSITY, KOLKATA
Animal-based meat production has grown over the years to meet the demand for cost-effective and appetizing food. However, this treat is accompanied by unnoticed consequences for human health, the environment, and the animals involved. Focusing on the rise in global meat demand, researchers, and entrepreneurs are focusing on plant-based approaches to meat production. In response, groups within industries are working to improve the functional characteristics of plant-based meat and taking ideas through a cellular agricultural methodology. With regards to human health, it is seen that the animal agriculture industry is wired with various illnesses, diet-related diseases, and infectious diseases.
Plant-based meat and cell-based meat approaches generate food from non-animal sources. While old and traditional PBMs (e.g., tofu) have existed for decades, novel PBM alternatives with added sensory characteristics have been brought to the market more recently. Plant-based meat (PBM) products have perfected the flavor, texture, and nutritional value of meat but are sometimes different in composition. Based on the time of development and complexity, PBM substances are categorized into two types: traditional and novel.
Traditional meats were invented thousands of years ago in Asia and include simple derivatives of soybeans (i.e., tofu) and wheat (i.e., seitan). PBM products are free of animal products and do not have any direct or negative impact on animal welfare. However, sometimes products contain dairy or egg-based samples and thus are vegetarian, not vegan. Similar to meat production, egg and dairy production methods are issues of animal welfare. In the egg industry, millions of male chicks are killed each year and the beaks or mouths of female chicks are trimmed to avoid pecking. While all agribusiness has at least some impact on animal welfare that deserves concern, the substitution of animal-based meat with plant-based meat is still an improvement for animal welfare, as it avoids all the unethical treatment seen in animals during rearing, transportation, and slaughter.
Consumer acceptance is of particular interest to PBM stakeholders and the records state that acceptance for PBM products was seen in China with 95.6% and India with 94.5%, compared to the USA that had a record of 74.7%. . Plant-based meat technologies has made advances since their discovery. PBM has evolved from being a drawback of alternative meat, which provides nutrition but not a logical replacement of meat, to being a novel product nearly as delicious as the animal-based products.
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Citation:
Rubio, N.R., Xiang, N. & Kaplan, D.L. Plant-based and cell-based approaches to meat production. Nat Commun 11, 6276 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-20061-y
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