vegetarian

Sales of plant-based alternatives to red meat, poultry, and seafood are down 20 percent from their peak in 2020 and the industry "faces something of a tipping point," said a report by agricultural lender CoBank on Monday. "Consumers remain interested in the concept of plant-based meats, but concerns about highly processed products and higher prices have put off many prospective regular consumers," wrote CoBank senior economist Billy Roberts.

Americans are twice as likely as Britons to say they would eat so-called cultured meat grown in a laboratory, according to an online survey of 1,000 consumers in both countries. Overall, 29 percent said they were willing to try the meat, with 60 percent of vegans saying they would try it, says Ingredient Communications.

Beginning next spring, 15 schools in Brooklyn — a sliver of the 1,800 public schools in New York City — will participate in the Meatless Monday campaign by serving vegetarian breakfasts and lunches, city officials announced. Mayor Bill de Blasio said the mayor's residence, Gracie Mansion, also would go meatless for its Monday meals.

If the world raised organic production and moved toward a vegetarian diet, farmers could feed the global population without converting large amounts of virgin land like forests to crops, says a new study in the journal Nature Communications.

With the opening of a new factory, the plant-based company Impossible Burger says it plans to have its much-anticipated burgers on 1,000 menus by the end of 2017. “In mid-August, a factory in Oakland quietly began accepting shipments of wheat protein, potato protein, and heme, a “plant blood” produced via genetically modified yeast, says New Food Economy.

The market for plant-based foods grew an average of 8.1 percent last year, compared to a decline of 0.2 percent for all other foods, according to data compiled by the retail sales research group, Nielsen. According to the report, which was funded by the The Good Food Institute and Plant Based Foods Association, the market for plant-based meats specifically rose 6 percent from a year ago, while plant-based dairy alternatives saw 20 percent growth. Nielsen found a 5-percent decrease in cow-milk sales, but a 3.1-percent increase in sales of plant-based milk.

It's still a small part of the market, yet "burgers made from plants instead of animals are capturing more space on U.S barbecue grills this summer," says Reuters, pointing to estimates of global sales of $5 billion by 2020. Consumer research firm Technomic says alternative meat products are targeted at millennials and Generation X, people aged 18-50 years.

Hampton Creek, producer of the eggless “Just Mayo,” is losing $4 million a month and could run out of money in six months absent additional funding, said Bloomberg. The company has experienced months of infighting over control of the start-up and the role of co-founder Joshua Tetrick.

When researcher Linda Bacon showed 750 adults in Britain menus that included two plant-based entrees, they were half as likely to chose them if they were listed in a section called "Vegetarian Dishes." In a World Resources Institute blog, Bacon says the grouping "highlights the lack of meat or fish" and reduces interest for a variety of reasons.

Cornell University scientists found "tantalizing evidence" that generations of a vegetarian diet led to a mutation in the human genome that may make people "more susceptible to inflammation, and by association, increase risk of heart disease and colon cancer," says the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.

Eating a vegetarian diet could contribute to climate change, says research by Carnegie Mellon University. It says "following the USDA recommendations to consume more fruits, vegetables, dairy and seafood is more harmful to the environment because those foods have relatively high resource uses and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per calorie."