Many vegetarians say they don’t eat meat because of responsibility to the environment. Mock meat is a great way to reduce your footprint, but I wanted to see how the numbers stack up when comparing our different options. Just how beneficial are plant-based foods for the environment compared to their meat-based equivalents? Are there negative impacts of these “responsible” food choices that we’re not considering?
About 5% of Americans are vegetarian, and many of us don’t even miss the taste of meat. Nevertheless, plant-based burgers designed to resemble beef are appearing in upscale restaurants, grocery stores, and now fast food chains. Eating a plant-based diet is one of the easiest things you can do to reduce your carbon footprint. Is meatless meat good enough to get meat eaters to cut back?
In just the past week, I had the opportunity to try both the Beyond Burger at a cookout and the Impossible Whopper at Burger King. With all of my raving on social media about these new and different options, I’ve gotten a lot of questions from both meat eaters and vegetarians, some of which I could answer, and some of which I couldn’t – until now.