Swap beef for fungi to protect forests

REPLACING a fifth of the beef people eat with fungi-based meat alternatives by 2050 could halve deforestation, a study suggests.

Meat from “ruminants” such as cattle contributes to climate change because carbon-storing forests are cut down for grazing land or crops that make up animal feed, while the livestock also produce methane emissions.

As well as dropping meat in favour of more vegetables to cut the climate impact of food, alternatives include plantbased ones such as soybean burgers, cultured meat or animal cells grown in a petri dish, and protein from microbes such as fungi produced in a fermentation process using sugar.

Scientists say this microbial meat alternative – which people can already buy in the shops – is a protein-rich food that can taste and feel like red meat and be as nutritious.

Research by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) modelled the future environmental effects of substituting ruminant meat with microbial protein.

With a growing population and increased meat consumption, more and more forests and other natural vegetation could be cleared for grazing and crop land.

But the projections show that substituting 20 per cent of ruminant meat consumption per person with microbial protein by 2050 stops the increase in pasture areas needed for livestock grazing.