ANAY MRIDUL: It’s been an eventful few months for Italy and its adventures with alternative protein. In November, it became the first country to ban cultivated meat, citing health reasons, a risk to the country’s tradition, and a need to safeguard the livestock industry. However, this wasn’t the only ban introduced by Italy, with another legislation going slightly under the radar. As part of the cultivated meat legislation, the country also prohibited the use of meat-related terms like ‘steak’ and ‘salami’ on the product packaging of plant-based meat, which alternative protein think tank…

POLLY FOREMAN: Christspiracy will be screened in over 600 movie theaters around the world on March 20th and March 24th in all of the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, and parts of Germany, Switzerland, and Austria... Tickets available now at Christspiracy.com ... Christspiracy caused a huge stir when it was first announced last year, and people around the world have been waiting in anticipation for news of its release date... The film comes from Kip Andersen, the maker of Cowspiracy, What the Health, and Seaspiracy. He teamed up with Kameron Waters, a US-based Christian who posed…

OSCAR RUEDA: To limit global warming at 1.5°C, climate mitigation pathways project the need to remove 100–1,000 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) has been the most prominent carbon removal method considered. However, massive BECCS deployment would likely require cropland expansion to produce the biomass feedstock needed. Such an expansion may worsen biodiversity due to the loss of natural land and food and water security due to competition for land and water resources. A transition from consuming animal-source proteins to…

VEGETARISK FORENING: On February 8th 2024, a lower court in Denmark, the court in the city of Hjorring granted the vegan movement in Denmark a milestone win. A Danish court has now ruled that vegans are protected under Article 9 of the European Court of Human Rights. The ruling is the first of its kind in Denmark, and the Vegetarian Society of Denmark is proud to have taken this case to the courts and won. The case was about the right of vegan children in public daycare institutions to be able to eat vegan food. A Danish kindergarten (and the municipality running it) had refused to prepare…

BRIELLE BENYON: Patients with prostate cancer may experience fewer sexual and urinary side effects if they take on a plant-based diet, according to recent research published in the journal, Cancer... The study included 3,505 individuals with non-metastatic prostate cancer who filled out food-frequency questionnaires and had their quality of life calculated by the Expanded Prostate Cancer Index Composite, which, according to the National Institutes of Health, is a 15-item questionnaire that measures urinary incontinence, urinary irritation, as well as bowel, sexual and hormonal health-related…

SILVIA PANIZZA: In their daily practices, many ethical vegans choose what to eat, wear, and buy among a range that is limited to the exclusion of animal products. Rather than considering and then rejecting the idea of using such products, doing so often does not occur to them as a possibility at all. In other cases, when confronted with the possibility of consuming animal products, vegans have claimed to reject it by saying that it would be impossible for them to do so. I refer to this phenomenon as ‘moral impossibility’. An analysis of moral impossibility in animal ethics shows that it…

SYSTEM UPDATE: Glenn Greenwald interviews Wayne Hsiung (Direct Action Everywhere) and John Oberg (animal advocate) on the multi-level atrocities of industrialized factory farms, and how Washington abuses its power to protect them. VIDEO PODCAST

JOSH MILBURN: Should vegan parents raise their children as vegans? In a recent paper, Marcus William Hunt contends that there are good reasons not to raise children as vegans grounded in concerns about the impact of veganism on children’s wellbeing. Carlo Alvaro, in response, contends that parents should raise their children as vegans. This debate is interesting, important, and worth attending to.1 In this paper, I want to focus on a specific and novel contribution Hunt makes concerning vegan parenting. In a separate piece, Hunt argues that when parents disagree about whether to raise…

VICKY BOND: Take a moment to picture a farm animal enjoying dinner. Are you imagining a cow grazing on grass or perhaps a chicken pecking at the ground, foraging for seeds and insects? In today’s factory farming system, the “feed” these animals eat is far removed from their natural diets. Rather than munching on grass or insects, most animals on factory farms eat some type of animal feed—a cost-effective mixture of grains, proteins, and often the addition of antibiotics designed to make them grow as quickly as possible. The ingredients in animal feed don’t just matter to the animals’…

NEIL SHAW: Animal rights activists have carried out a shocking protest in London - displaying a dead dog, cat and pig. Farm investigations group Viva! hung the dead animals from butchers' hooks with a sign reading ‘Are You an Animal Lover?’. It held the stunt across various landmarks - including the London Eye, Trafalgar Square and Parliament Square. Viva! said the stunt was designed to challenge people’s perceptions of how they view animals. The stunt marks the start of a new wave of campaigning by the organisation as it promises to use more provocative tactics to encourage people to go…