CrowdScience listener Lisa, who is from South Africa but now lives in the UK, has been a vegetarian for many years. Sometimes though, she still finds herself craving meats – like spaghetti bolognese or a burger. To satisfy these cravings, she eats ‘alt-meats’, products meant to look and taste like meat but made from vegetables.
This has her wondering though, are these alternative meats better for the planet than actual meat would be? And what about her health? Given that many of these foods are highly processed, would eating meat be better for her?
Presenter Chhavi Sachdev speaks to food systems researcher Charlotte Bunge from Uppsala University on Sweden, US health journalist Alice Callahan and researcher Christopher Gardner from Stanford University in the US to try and pick apart the positives and negatives of replacing ‘real’ meat with ‘pretend’ meat, before visiting an Indian company producing meat that was grown in a lab.
Presenter: Chhavi Sachdev
Producer: Margaret Sessa-Hawkins
Editor: Ben Motley
(Photo:Raw frankfurter sausage on a fork isolated - stock photo Credit:Andrey Sayfutdinov via Getty Images)