ENVIRONMENT

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LILY MEYER: Alicia Kennedy’s first book, 'No Meat Required: The Cultural History and Culinary Future of Plant-Based Eating'... is a tour through meatless eating in the United States, starting with Frances Moore Lappé’s 1971 hit, Diet for the Small Planet, which made the case for vegetarianism as a solution to global hunger, and ending with contemporary debates over lab-grown meat and other food technologies as a major new culinary frontier. It’s also a work of climate activism. Industrial meat is a major source of the emissions causing global warming. Eating it regularly, Kennedy argues, is…

KENNY TORRELLA: If you were to guess America’s biggest source of water pollution, chemical factories or oil refineries might come to mind. But it’s actually farms — especially those raising cows, pigs, and chickens. The billions of animals farmed each year in the US for food generate nearly 2.5 billion pounds of waste every day — around twice as much as people do — yet none of it is treated like human waste. It’s either stored in giant pits, piled high as enormous mounds on farms, or spread onto crop fields as fertilizer. And a lot of it washes away into rivers and streams, as does…

JENNIFER YULE: Despite sustained growth for several years, sales of plant-based meat products are now stagnating. Even market leaders like Beyond Meat are hitting significant lows... The environmental benefits of adopting a diet that is less reliant on meat have been well-established. As UK nature presenter David Attenborough has pointed out: “We must change our diet. The planet can’t support billions of meat-eaters.” So, working out why consumers are cooling towards this once-hot product is crucial, not only from a business point of view but to support the environmental benefits of low-…

ANAY MRIDUL: Only 1% of Americans say they are vegan – down from 3% in 2018 and 2% in 2012 – according to a new Gallup poll. The number of vegetarians, meanwhile, has also dropped from 5% in 2018 to 4% in 2023. The Gallup survey, conducted with 1,015 Americans in July, found that political liberals adults were among the demographics most likely to be vegetarian. 9% of liberals identify as vegetarian, three times as high as political moderates or conservatives. Lower-income Americans were around twice as likely as middle- (4%) and upper-income (3%) consumers to be vegetarian. The same goes…

FR. TERRY MARTIN: I have read much of the Revd. Professor Andrew Linzey  breakthrough work concerning animals and theology/ethics, and trawling through the internet looking for some online studies around these issues brought me to the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics’ website. Linzey (the Centre's Director) is an avuncular, immediately-friendly networker and greeter of people. He tirelessly talked to participants, introduced them to one another, and worked the room with the grace of a seasoned vicar who’s attended many parish parties. He is also a formidable theologian, and his work around…

ANAY MRIDUL: In the EU and the US, livestock farming receives about 1,000 times more funding than plant-based and cultivated meat, with the “gigantic” power of the animal agriculture industry blocking the development of sustainable proteins, finds a new study... The Stanford University study, published in the One Earth journal, revealed that livestock farmers get 1,200 times more public funding in the EU than meat alternative companies, and 800 times more in the US. Public money spent on plant-based meat was at $42M between 2014-20 – just 0.1% of the $35B spent on meat and dairy. During…

ROBERT WALKER: For animal advocates, it is important to understand how and why people transition towards a vegan diet. Such information can help inform dietary campaigns and allow advocates to better support new and early vegans throughout their journey. Some academics have developed theories about how and why dietary change occurs. However, these theories are only useful if they accurately describe reality. For this reason, the authors of this paper tried to find out whether two theories of dietary change accurately describe the process of switching to veganism. The first theory is the…

HANS MONATH: Professor Amrita Narlikar (President of the German Institute for Global and Area Studies) advocates cross-species rights – not just to protect against pandemics... Hans Monath  (Tagesspiegel Magazine) in conversation with Amrita Narlikar... HM: Ms Narlikar, why do you advocate for animal rights and interspecies justice as President of the German Institute for Global and Area Studies? AN: As a researcher, I care about questions of power and justice, and I know that these concerns cannot be limited only to human-beings. And by the way, these are not just philosophical questions,…

NOELIA GOMEZ: The global pandemic not only brought with it health and social challenges, but also triggered a wave of reflection on our food choices and habits. In this context, plant-based eating emerged as a rapidly growing paradigm, generating deep discussions and redefining the relationship between personal health and the well-being of the planet. The lockdown and health crisis highlighted the vulnerabilities of food systems focused on animal production and intensive agribusiness. Outbreaks of animal-borne diseases and the depletion of natural resources underscored the need for a radical…