Replace meat with plant protein
As slaughterhouses shutter, meat cases may start looking quite different, with empty shelves and fewer options (May 5, “Region’s Grocery Stores Set Limits on Meat Sales”).
Yet this impending “meat shortage” isn’t a crisis. It’s an open door for an important shift, one that’s been underway for the past decade.
Long before COVID-19, a deep crisis was brewing within industrialized animal agriculture. As Americans, we’ve been fed a harmful story: that animal products are the default protein.
To fuel our animal protein obsession, the industry has crammed animals into tighter cages and sheds, creating a perfect breeding ground for pathogens; raced them down slaughter lines at an increasingly reckless pace; and trampled on underpaid employees in one of the most dangerous workplaces in America, according to the National Employment Law Project.
Meanwhile, a growing group of consumers is waking up to the meat industry’s deception and changing course, seeking a kinder, sustainable source of protein: plants. Between 2012 and 2018, products labeled as plant-based shot up by 287%. And earlier this year, a survey revealed that over 90% of people were open to eating more veggies.
Now, as the meat industry cracks under pressure and quarantined shoppers seek innovative at-home alternatives, we’re finding that plant proteins are plentiful — and delicious. One bean company recently reported a 400% jump in sales, propelled by the stockpiling of nourishing staples that can be integrated easily into any recipe.
This pandemic has revealed that our broken food system is ripe for transformation. And, collectively, Americans are responding by embracing a new default, one that’s been here all along: plant protein.
LAURA LEE CASCADA
Portsmouth, Va.
The writer is the director of campaigns at the Better Food Foundation.
Kind staff
With much trepidation, I recently went for my appointment for a COVID-19 test at UPMC’s testing facility on the South Side. The entire staff, from the security guards in the parking lot to the greeters to the nurse conducting the test, could not have been more helpful or kinder to me. The entire process was extremely efficient. I just wanted to say thanks to these wonderful Pittsburghers for their service!
JENNIFER KANIECKI MacNEIL Shadyside
Protecting Earth
In these horrific times of the coronavirus, when most of the news has been dire, I had found some news that was very uplifting and gave me a bit of hope. As it turns out, while much of the world has been staying home, the air quality has been drastically improving worldwide. It was reported that in places in India, people have reported being able to see the Himalayas for the first time in decades. People who have asthma have gotten relief from the air being so much cleaner as car and truck emissions have been reduced. The sky is bluer. This has been some “proof” that we (humankind) are responsible for much of climate change.
My bit of hope was dashed recently when I read that the Trump administration has gutted an Obama-era rule that required the country’s coal plants to cut back emissions of mercury and other health hazards from coal- and oil-fired power plants. Environmental Protection Agency chief Andrew Wheeler — who just happens to be a former coal lobbyist — was largely responsible for getting the rule reversed. Since most of the news is (rightly so) focused on the coronavirus, I wonder what else the Trump administration might be doing under the radar to dismantle everything the past president put into place to protect us.
NANCY L. HAMMOND
Hampton
Virus containment
Universities and colleges should not receive any federal stimulus or rescue package money. During this pandemic, they passed up an opportunity to restore credibility to the higher education system of our country. They could have utilized their administrative control over their students to prevent them from going on spring break and to instead remain on the campuses to continue their coursework. This would have aided immensely in the containment of the COVID-19 virus.
These students, supposedly our nation’s brightest, along with the direction of their professors and administrators, could have practiced the recommendations by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for slowing the spread of the virus. While remaining on their campuses, they could have developed, and put into practice, more innovative procedures for stopping the spread of the virus. They could have exhibited academic and professional leadership in showing the nation how to confront the pandemic.
Permitting students to go on spring break and then sending them home created a perception by society that an unholy alliance exists between liberal college professors, who detest the Trump administration, and bean-counting college administrators who sought to avoid the expenses associated with confronting the pandemic. The close living quarters of college students is not a credible argument for sending them home. People in the military, nursing homes, assisted-living facilities and hospitals live in comparable spaces or even closer than the students on college campuses.
EDWARD J. SMITRESKI
Northampton, Pa.