KRISTA KIHLANDER: 'The Raven Corps is a youth-powered nonprofit organization based in Portland, Oregon. High school and college-aged advocates empower other “Ravens” to promote a plant-based diet in the spaces they know best: their own communities. Advocating for a plant-based diet is a large part of what The Raven Corps does. The organization recognizes that factory farming is a leading contributor to the current climate crisis, and is able to see how a plant-based diet can counter this crisis... In the beginning the Raven Corps was just two lunch-time animal rights clubs in Portland high…

LUCY MANGAN: 'You can mentally delete the question mark from Meat: A Threat to Our Planet? (BBC One) pretty early on. You may have felt confident enough to do so after the news that we eat 65bn animals a year, figuring that not much good can come from consumption that vast. Or you may have waited for the scenes in Texas, where beef is considered such a basic commodity that eateries abound that offer free 5lb steaks (just over two kilos) if you can down all of yours in one sitting. Or perhaps your growing feeling of disquiet did not resolve into certainty until you heard a few figures – such…

OPEN PHILANTHROPY PROJECT: 'Investment banks and consultancies are making bold predictions for meat alternatives’ success... Think tank RethinkX even predicts that, by 2030, meat alternatives’ success will have rendered the beef industry “all but bankrupt"... There is reason for optimism. The Beyond Burger is now sold in over 53,000 outlets, including a trial at 28 McDonald’s restaurants in Canada. The Impossible Burger just launched in retail, and outsold all ground beef in its first two weeks on the shelf... These new alternatives come closer than any before to mimicking meat’s taste and…

STEVEN KRICHBAUM: 'Catastrophic fires have been burning all over the world, not just in Amazonia, but also in Siberia, Indonesia, and the Congo basin. These fires are ecological weapons of mass destruction and displacement resulting in habitat destruction and extermination of other species, violent land grabs from Indigenous peoples, murder of forest protectors, and climate refugees. Most of the disastrous fires in the Amazon are the result of clearing forests for cattle pasture or for crops to feed the cattle. In response to the intentional conflagrations in the Amazon, the actor Leonardo…

MANEKA GANDHI: 'A few months ago a Veganfest was held in Delhi. It was attended by hundreds of young, affluent, well read and enthusiastic people. The speakers were from all over the world. But each one represented a company that was making vegan products: mock meat, cosmetic, etc. There were no philosophers, no one to define what veganism could and should be. It was a consumer event. That is what worries me about the rapidly spreading vegan movement. It is simply about buying "something else". It was meant to be transformative, something that would make the world a gentler, happier place,…

KAREN DAWN: 'Last year in Berkeley, The Good Food Conference buzzed about the incredibly meat-like Beyond and Impossible Burgers that were just hitting the market. That Berkeley buzz became a Wall Street cacophony a few months later in May 2019, when Beyond Meat went public and became the “biggest popping U.S. IPO” in almost two decades. This year, the buzz at the conference was about cell-grown meat. Or cultured meat. Or clean meat. Or even micro-brewed meat... This brave new industry is still figuring out what the new meat should be called. Last year, the favored term was “clean meat,” a…

CLAUDIA HARMATA: 'Consumers looking for environmentally friendly and cruelty-free food are being misled by some meat and poultry producers, according to a new report. In September, the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) published a new study about the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and their food labelling process — which the non-profit says allows producers to claim their products are “humane” and “sustainable” on their packaging without sufficient supporting evidence. The AWI analyzed a collection of files sent to the USDA for label approval that were made for 23 distinct…

NADRA NITTLE: 'With vegan restaurants on the rise, sales of vegan foods outpacing other cuisine, and young adults flocking to plant-based diets, 2019 has been deemed the “year of the vegan,” at least by the media. Forbes, The Economist, and The Guardian all agree that veganism has gone mainstream—and as with most things this year, the political realm is following suit. Plant-based diets have come up multiple times during the 2020 US presidential race... For the first time in U.S. history, being a meat-free politician isn’t necessarily a liability. “That a vegan diet has become a respectable…

ASHLEY CAPPS: 'In a report released Nov. 5, 11,000 scientists from around the globe signed a Climate Emergency Declaration imploring governments, policymakers and consumers to take serious and urgent action to reduce emissions... The scientists outline “six critical and interrelated steps that governments, businesses, and the rest of humanity can take to lessen the worst effects of climate change,” including: “Eating mostly plant-based foods while reducing the global consumption of animal products, especially ruminant livestock, can improve human health and significantly lower GHG…

ROSHINI NAIR: 'Abstaining from meat has a long, rich history, with roots in world religions like Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. Today, in light of the growing climate crisis, vegetarian and vegan diets have gained new currency as the ethical choice by animal rights activists and environmentalists as a way to protest factory farming conditions and the industry's carbon footprint. "People choose to make ethical consumption decisions most closely related to a desire to reduce their impact on the environment," said Emily Kennedy, a professor of sociology at the University of British Columbia,…