Month: July 2022

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Level Up Your Baking With These Vegan Egg Substitutes

by Grace Hussain, Sentient Media, June 29, 2022

With so many different vegan egg substitutes available, choosing which one to use and how to use it in each baking project can be daunting. Regardless of the recipe, egg substitutes are available that doesn’t cause suffering to chickens or other birds. In fact, it’s likely that you already have a few of these substitutes in your fridge or pantry.

Is There a Vegan Egg Substitute?

There is not just one vegan egg substitute but a whole range of different options. Many are kitchen staples, others are specialty items available at health food stores, and some are replacements specifically crafted to replace eggs—particularly in recipes that use them as a central ingredient, like quiche. In baking, applesauce and pumpkin puree are useful substitutes, while the eggs in egg casseroles can be swapped for JUST egg, Red Mill Egg Replacer, or another specially formulated egg alternative.

How to Substitute Eggs in Vegan Baking

Baking without the eggs from chickens or other birds may seem challenging, but the reality is that swapping out eggs for other food items gives just as delicious results without contributing to the suffering of laying hens on factory farms. Below is a list of some of the options bakers have for making the switch from eggs to vegan substitutes in everything from cakes and muffins to shakshouka.

[… Read the 15 Substitutions, from flax and chia to aquafaba, at Sentient Media]

 

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We’ve overexploited the planet, now we need to change if we’re to survive

Addressing the twin challenges of carbon emissions and biodiversity loss requires political will and leadership. Ambitious commitments must be made

Patrick Vallance, The Guardian, July 8, 2022

The relationship between humans and nature is under intense and increasing strain. The report released today by Ipbes, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (akin to the IPCC reports on climate change), provides compelling evidence that humans are overexploiting wild species and habitats. Harmful activities, including habitat destruction, poor farming practices and pollution, have altered ecosystems significantly, driving many species past the point of recovery. In Great Britain alone, of the 8,431 species assessed in the 2019 State of Nature report,1,188 are threatened with extinction. Globally, there are an estimated one million at risk, with biodiversity declining at a faster rate than at any time in human history….

[… Read more at The Guardian ]

 

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Gen Zs and Millennials Will Drive Growth of Plant-based Foods in the U.S. Over Next Few Years

Making Healthier Choices, Sustainability, and Animal Welfare Are Top Motivators for These Plant-based Consumers

Kim McLynn, NPD, Oct. 21, 2021

The consumer demand for plant-based beverages and foods for in-home meal prep has continued throughout the pandemic. Both dairy and meat plant-based alternatives are forecast to grow through 2024, driven almost entirely by Millennials and Gen Zs, who choose these products for better health and because of their interest in sustainability and animal welfare, reports The NPD Group.

The deep-rooted values of Gen Zs and Millennials behind their choice of plant-based foods enabled the category to continue to grow throughout the pandemic when many consumers turned to comfort or more familiar foods. The demand for plant-based foods didn’t waver during the pandemic. About one in five adults say they want more plant-based foods in their diets, and that number remained steady throughout 2020, according to NPD’s recently released The Future of Plant-based Snapshot: The Evolution of Plant-based Continues.

Interest in plant-based dairy and meat alternatives by Gen Zs and Millennials extends beyond burgers and almond milk. These plant-based consumers look for various meat, poultry, or seafood analogues, flavor profiles, formats. For this reason, plant-based opportunities exist across frozen, shelf-stable, indulgent, and snack categories.

“As consumers continue to prepare more meals in the home and younger generations cook more, plant-based foods and ingredients will be a part of their repertoire,” says Darren Seifer, NPD food industry analyst and co-author of the study. “In addition to providing a variety of plant-based foods and ingredients, food manufacturers should also focus efforts on Millennials and Gen Zs since they will be driving the category’s growth. Their concerns for sustainability and animal welfare should also be taken into account when messaging to them.”

[… Read at NPD ]

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Plant-based meat by far the best climate investment, report finds

Exclusive: Non-animal proteins can play critical role tackling climate crisis, says Boston Consulting Group

Damian Carrington, The Guardian, July 7, 2022

Investments in plant-based alternatives to meat lead to far greater cuts in climate-heating emissions than other green investments, according to one of the world’s biggest consultancy firms.

The report from the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) found that, for each dollar, investment in improving and scaling up the production of meat and dairy alternatives resulted in three times more greenhouse gas reductions compared with investment in green cement technology, seven times more than green buildings and 11 times more than zero-emission cars.

Investments in the plant-based alternatives to meat delivered this high impact on emissions because of the big difference between the greenhouse gases emitted when producing conventional meat and dairy products, and when growing plants. Beef, for example, results in six-to-30 times more emissions than tofu…

 

Meat and dairy production uses 83% of farmland and causes 60% of agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions, but provides only 18% of calories and 37% of protein. Moving human diets from meat to plants means less forest is destroyed for pasture and fodder growing and less emissions of the potent greenhouse gas methane produced by cattle and sheep…

Scientists have concluded that avoiding meat and dairy products is the single biggest way to reduce your environmental impact on the planet and that large cuts in meat consumption in rich nations are essential to ending the climate crisis. The Project Drawdown group, which assesses climate solutions, places plant-based diets in the top three of almost 100 options….

[… Read more at  The Guardian ]

 

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Will Net Zero Get Us to Net-Zero Emissions?

Despite its merits, net zero isn’t a perfect mechanism for addressing climate change. Here are 15 of its limitations—and our recommendations for fixing them.

By Martin Reeves, David Young, Julia Dhar, and Annelies O’Dea, Boston Consulting Group, April 6 2022.

The growing number of companies making net-zero carbon commitments offers a ray of hope for progress on climate change. Currently about 33% of world’s largest companies and more than 50% of countries have pledged to reach net zero, with target dates varying mostly between 2030 and 2050….

Moving Beyond Net Zero

In addition to enhancing net-zero mechanisms, we must pursue a more multidimensional view of sustainability and put in place the financial, operational, technological, behavioral, and cultural support to enable the transformative action necessary to achieve climate sustainability for the planet.

Multidimensional view of sustainability: Consider sustainability beyond the single dimension of carbon emissions to include all relevant factors, including other GHG emissions, species diversity, air and water quality, and nature preservation. This multidimensionality can help to overcome the risks of oversimplification.…

[… Read more at Boston Consulting Group ]

 

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