Beans and peas rank best as meat and milk replacement from nutritional, health, environmental, and cost perspectives, a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) has found. They outperformed processed products like veggie burgers and plant milks, but also lab-grown meat which ranked worst.
The study, led by Dr Marco Springmann from the Environmental Change institute at the University of Oxford and the Institute for Global Health at University College London, combined nutrition, health, environmental, and cost assessments to compare the impacts of meat and milk with replacement products. The study assessed traditional products such as tofu and tempeh, processed alternatives such as veggie burgers and plant milks, prospective products such as lab-grown beef, as well as unprocessed foods such as soybeans and peas.
The findings show that unprocessed plant-based foods such as soybeans, peas, and beans are best suited for replacing meat and dairy. Choosing legumes over meat and milk would reduce nutritional imbalances in high-income countries like the UK, US, and Europe by half, mortality in particular from diet-related diseases by a tenth, the environmental impacts of diets such as greenhouse gas emissions, land use, and water use by more than half, and costs by more than a third.
Dr Springmann said:
Reducing meat and dairy in high-income countries is essential for limiting climate change, biodiversity loss, and improving health. Our study shows that a range of foods and food products exist that would have multiple benefits when replacing meat and dairy in current diets.”
Despite not being the front runner, processed plant-based foods such as veggie burgers and plant milks still resulted in substantial benefits when replacing meat and dairy, but the emissions reductions and health improvements were a fifth to a third less than when choosing unprocessed legumes, and costs to the consumer were a tenth higher than those of current diets. Dr Springmann added:
Unprocessed legumes such as peas and beans were the clear winner in our assessment. They performed well from all perspectives, including nutritional, health, environmental, and cost. But a surprising runner-up was tempeh, a traditional Indonesian food made from fermented soybeans, which retains much of the nutritional properties of soybeans without much processing or additives. This and the relatively low cost gave it an edge over more processed alternatives such as veggie burgers.”
Another surprising finding was for lab-grown meat. Despite high uncertainties, the existing data suggest it is not a competitive product, not even for normal meat. At current technologies, its emissions can be as high as those of beef burgers at up to 40,000 times its costs, whilst its health impacts when replicating beef would be similarly bad. Although costs and emissions could come down with more efficient production processes, this would require both substantial investments and technological advances.
Dr Springmann said: “Public investments in both lab-grown meat and ultra-processed burger patties look like tough sells when considering their relative impacts and available alternatives. Our findings suggest that suitable alternatives to meat and milk exist and are available and affordable without necessarily requiring new technologies or product development. What is required, however, are prudent public policies that support all citizens in eating healthy and sustainable meals.”
Read the report in full: A multicriteria analysis of meat and milk alternatives from nutritional, health, environmental, and cost perspectives
This research supports the separate work of the multi-university BeanMeals project, also led by the ECI, which is researching how to increase beans consumption. Recognising the need to work across the whole supply system from fork to farm, BeanMeals is taking a systemic innovation approach to assess the potential for increasing bean consumption in case study schools in Leicestershire, and the health, environmental and economic consequences if increased bean consumption was taken to scale across the UK.