But, in my opinion, the “solutions” conversation tends to split into two camps: either a return to traditional values and Indigenous ways of relating to the Earth, envisioning a kind of post-tech utopia, or full-steam innovation mode, powered by the conviction that we’ll engineer our way out of the mess we’re in (even though innovation arguably got us into it).

Returning to a reciprocal relationship with the land—rooted in respect, observation and investment in soil health—is an important way to farm. Beyond the climate-stabilizing effects of healthy soil and thriving biodiversity, scientific research shows this kind of production yields more nutrient-dense food and tends to preserve farmers’ own health in ways industrial agriculture doesn’t.

On the other hand, due to human population growth amid an ever-warming climate, it’s a real concern whether we’ll be able to produce enough food between now and 2050. In fact, some research suggests that a wholesale switch to regenerative, agroecological production may not feed everyone—a realization that is hard to reconcile with nature-rooted, tradition-based solutions.

On top of that, agroecological production at the scale that we need would use a lot of land. Award-winning agriculture journalist Michael Grunwald has argued that one of the most powerful climate interventions available to us is to use less land for food, not more, and rewild what we can. He suggests that we should be focusing on getting as much yield as possible in as little agricultural land as we can—a path that would require pretty serious innovation.

This tension is why, I believe, we need to strike a middle path between the two visions of how our food systems should evolve. In this middle path, tradition plays an important role, but so does innovation.

This past month, Startupticker—a news platform where I work as a journalist—covered a slew of new solutions pioneered by Swiss food startups and companies that I’d like to highlight. What I find interesting is how these new approaches create bridges between technological innovation and traditional thinking. While these solutions are in early-stages and still need to prove their added value in the long term, they nonetheless offer a glimpse into a functional future food system.

Robots to the rescue

Late-night shifts aren’t good for fast food workers’ health, especially given how underpaid they are—yet consumer demand for late-night meals isn’t going anywhere. Pazzi’s fully automated pizzeria in Madrid is one attempt to solve this issue, by having robots handle the kitchen end-to-end.

The same logic applies further up the supply chain. Farming is back-breaking work, and farmers tend to catch a lot of flak despite devoting their lives to feeding the rest of us. Companies like Ecorobotix—which manufactures an ultra-high precision pesticide spraying robot for use in large cultured fields—make it easier to imagine a future where farmers and the land are better respected, while still producing enough to feed everyone.

Waste nothing

Reducing food waste is one of those rare food system solutions that everyone can get behind. The startup accelerator StreamUp launched its second cohort with nine companies developing projects that either find ways to market byproducts from food production or rescue food from being wasted altogether. They will showcase their solutions in June at the Focus Food Save event in Bern. Meanwhile, the company ProSeed, which appeared in this month’s Swiss Food & Nutrition Valley investor showcase, takes a similar approach: transforming wet by-products from food processing into food-grade ingredients. They’re currently focused on spent grain, the leftover solids after beer is brewed, and okara, which is created during tofu production—two streams that are still largely wasted.

Foods of the future

The company Cosaic raised $6 million for its next-generation vegan ingredient Cosaic Neo, a creamy milk alternative produced via yeast fermentation. Meanwhile, the company Planetary closed CHF 22 million to build out its global fermentation infrastructure and licensing platform, which serve foodtech companies focusing on alternative proteins such as plant-based meats.

Two more startups from the investor showcase caught my eye: Aleph Farms, which recently opened a subsidiary just outside of Zurich, is developing lab-grown beef as a way to keep meat on the menu without the planetary and ethical costs, and Neocarbons, which is growing microalgae to turn into products such as animal feed—a category responsible for a meaningful chunk of agricultural CO₂ emissions. Neocarbons claims to have a net-negative carbon balance.

Plant-forward

Scientific research keeps reinforcing that resilient food systems need to be built on a plants-first foundation. From the same investor showcase, I was intrigued by a number of companies working to find sustainable, plant-based alternatives to animal products that have far less impact on the environment. For instance, Catchfree is developing plant-based fish substitutes, while Eggfield is making plant-based alternatives to eggs and Fabas is crafting dairy products from beans. Meanwhile, Food Brewer is making sustainable cocoa and coffee (yes, in Switzerland), Sentianova is working to ensure that plant-based proteins actually taste good, while Trilliome is exploring ways to make our guts healthier through upcycled plant-derived compounds.

These companies are all working to find solution so that we can keep enjoying the foods we love, with far less impact on the environment, by rebuilding them from plants.

Smarter agriculture

Agriculture is in a bit of bind. It’s simultaneously a huge source of emissions, while being profoundly necessary. On top of that, maintaing stable crop yields is getting harder on a warming planet, causing farmers to have to double down on harmful practices to ensure they produce enough food. Innovation in this vertical is direly needed.

Ecorobotix earns a second mention here; their high-precision pesticide spray technology dramatically reduces the amount of product applied per field, while also improving labor conditions for farmers exposed to the chemicals. Meanwhile, companies like Voltiris have created solar panel modules that allow the wavelengths of light that plants need to grow to pass through while harvesting the other wavelengths to generate electricity, helping to make greenhouses more energy independent.

Meier Gemüse project: the world’s first hectare-scale spectral filtering solar installation, a tomato greenhouse in Switzerland operating under nearly 2,000 Voltiris solar modules. Image courtesy of Voltiris.

Better packaging

Most of our food comes packaged in plastics, a harmful material that needs no introduction. From this investor showcase: The company Agrosustain has developed a safe packaging-type material, which they call a biobarrier, that keeps produce fresher for longer after harvest—addressing one of the larger sources of food loss, i.e., everything that happens between harvesting and buying produce at the supermarket.

Another company that caught my eye is B’ZEOS, which is making packaging from seaweed instead of plastic.There are a myriad of benefits, but perhaps one that stands out today is that the new packaging doesn’t leak microplastics, which scientists are increasingly finding is making its way into ecosystems as well as our own bodies. While the consequences aren’t yet fully clear to scientists, some studies suggest that microplastics decrease the effectiveness of photosynthesis in plants and, worryingly, show up at high concentrations in the brains of dementia patients.

Building Bridges

What I find particularly interesting about many of these solutions is that they’re working towards a “middle path” approach, where deep-tech engineering meets respect for the health of the land and the people it serves. For example, Ecorobotix claims it’s able to reduce the amount of pesticide used by 95% with their ultra-high precision spray technology, an innovation that directly supports soil health, which is suffering globally from the overuse of these chemicals. And by creating products that keeps organic harvests fresher for longer, companies like Agrosustain are reducing food waste that results from spoilage. Limiting food waste is a powerful lever of change, as we already produce enough calories to feed the world but waste up to 30% of it, putting more pressure on the land to produce excess food that we don’t actually need.

It also gives me hope to see start-ups like Fabas finding bean-based alternatives to products from the highly-polluting dairy sector; while at the same time, saying they’re committed to working directly with local farmers and helping them transition towards bean production. By creating demand for locally grown pulses, farmers can diversify their income sources, making their livelihoods more sustainable. Beans are a great way to do this, as this crop also fixes nutrients like nitrogen back into the soil. And by crafting a tasty product—I had a chance to try it and can confirm it really tastes like dairy—it encourages consumers to vote with their dollar for sustainable alternatives.

Approaches like these suggest that we can find sustainable ways of confronting the challenges that face our global food systems. When tradition and innovation support each other, they become more than the sum of their parts—the foundation of a food system that serves both people and planet.

Cured pork meats were usually served as apéritif, her grandmother explains, and the only fiber on the menu is the starter salad. The main course was beef, followed by a cheese course, all rounded off with a dairy-packed crème brûlée for dessert. Quinn, who now lives in a world with endless droughts, heatwaves and destructive weather events, where the effects of runaway climate change continue to threaten the world’s food supply, is alarmed to see that there was no question about eating meat in 2025. And that her own grandmother, who would have been 31 at the time and fully capable of making her own food choices, still chose to cook these meals. She looks at her grandmother’s proud face and briefly thinks about saying something, but decides against it. Quinn nods politely and takes the material she needs for her report. On the way back home, angry tears burst out of her. Quinn will never even be able to taste the delicious wine her grandmother raved about because it’s now too hot for those grape varieties to be cultivated. Quinn feels cheated — of her culture, of her ancestry and, in many ways, of her life. The sheer cruelty — to people, planet and non-human beings — that was unfolding every single day, is too much to bear. They knew, and did nothing?

By now, if you’ve been following my Protein series, you should know full well the problems with our obsession with protein. We’ve learned that protein is not lacking in our diets, especially in more developed countries. On top of that, eating too much protein, particularly from animal sources, is generally harmful to our own health as well as the planet’s. We’ve learned that lab-grown meat may solve some of the ethical and environmental concerns of conventionally grown meat, but that it’s still much more resource-intensive than plant-based proteins. To boot, such high-tech solutions may further alienate us from our food production systems and place our continued survival in the hands of for-profit companies. And in many cases they might not even be necessary, as many low-tech solutions already exist today that can help us realign human health with planetary health. Rather than looking to the future for a silver-bullet technology, we already have the tools we need to put humanity on the path to greater health and long-term sustainability, while allowing us to still enjoy delicious foods and maintain culinary relationships with our respective cultures. To that end, I’m sharing my top five solutions we can enact today to improve Quinn’s future prospects, and ultimately be remembered as responsible and ethical stewards of human and planetary health.

Fiber, fiber, fiber

One wild thing about the current protein craze — beyond the fact that it’s simply unnecessary for anyone in the developed world to worry about getting enough protein — is that it neglects a key macronutrient we actually are deficient in: fiber. What’s more, eating more fiber can help us reduce agriculture’s environmental impact by reducing the demand for meat, alongside many other environmental benefits.

Fibre is a kind of plant-based carbohydrate that the body can’t fully digest, but it is a feast for our gut bacteria that play critical roles in our digestion, general gut function, and overall health. Gut microbes have been trending in science lately — and for good reason; the health of almost every bodily system has been linked to it, and fiber deficiencies have been linked to skyrocketing cancer rates. That’s why fiber is increasingly being recognized as a macronutrient — a type of food required in large amounts in the diet — in its own right

I’m not here to peddle scammy fibre supplements, which are in most cases unnecessary. All we need to keep our gut bacteria healthy, experts say, is to make sure to get 10 portions of fruit and vegetables a day, and aim for 30 different plant species in our diet per week. This ensures we get diverse enough “prebiotics” — food for our gut bacteria — to maintain a healthy body; with gut bacteria, it’s always the diversity of prebiotics that matters.

A diverse diet, in turn, has a positive effect on our planet. Today’s food systems suffer from what experts have called a “triple monotony”, where we’re relying on very few species of plants and animals to feed ourselves. That not only leads to poorer nutrition and health, but also less diversity among the crops we cultivate as well as an increased risk of plant diseases wiping out entire harvests. That’s because pests tend to attack one type of plant that is particularly good at hosting them, so widespread monocultures make our food supply incredibly vulnerable to plant pathogens wiping out entire fields (this has already happened with the gros michel banana in 1965, which you’ve probably never tasted.)

Today, globally. over 60% of our calories come from just three crops, and most people don’t really eat more than 12 different plants — a far cry from the 30 plant minimum. By shifting our dietary behaviors to align with scientific recommendations and correct our fiber deficiency, we’re not only making a huge step for our health; we’re also signalling to food producers that we want more diversity from our food systems. Each of us has the power to drive that change by simply choosing a diverse array of plant products from our local supermarket.

Reconnecting to our food systems

Today, in many developed countries, consumers likely don’t spend a lot of time worrying about where their next meal is coming from. Most will shop in supermarkets, order take-out or go to their local restaurant. As we’re so disconnected from our food systems, most of us are unaware of the problems they contain: the fact that intensive agriculture models are not compatible with planetary health and that they produce food that’s often less nutritious than smaller scale agriculture. In developed countries, over 50% of our calories come from ultra-processed foods, which are sold pre-packaged and ready to eat by for-profit companies, who only worry about their bottom line. Being so alienated from our food systems means that we continue to perpetuate the ills of the status quo while simultaneously endangering our continued access to food and giving away the control of what is available, and where it is from.

“Food Sovereignty is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems.” - Via Campesina, an international not-for-profit movement based in Belgium defending food sovereignty.

There are many ways to reconnect to our food systems. If time allows, gardening and farmers’ markets are a wonderful way. But, while great, these are limited and elitist solutions, as they often require a wealth of both time and money. The US has seen a burst of people turning to urban gardening movements as a way of getting fresh produce in food deserts devoid of healthy groceries. In Europe, some groups are beginning to plant produce in vacant lots in urban areas. And more people are subscribing to programs where they pay a certain amount of money to farmers at the start of the season in exchange for produce or boxes full of “wonky veg” that do not pass arbitrary aesthetic standards by supermarkets.

There are other solutions afoot. The emerging agrihood movement blends agriculture, real-estate and community building and is a promising re-think of how we live. In the US, for instance, communities are building new kinds of living spaces that integrate farming areas, green spaces, and community kitchens. Residents are involved in each and every step of food making, while agricultural areas, food forests, and orchards double as places for community gathering. While certainly complex and expensive to put into place, solutions like these solve multiple problems at once — loss of food sovereignty, biodiversity collapse, and the social disconnection we’re all increasingly suffering from.

Making better use of food waste

The concept of a “circular economy” — where all resources are recycled and re-used — is a big contrast to our current economic model, where most things end up in the landfill. Several innovative start-ups have begun to explore ways of avoiding that outcome for unwanted food. Some, for instance, are making use of so-called “side-streams” from food production that are usually thrown away by upcycling them into valuable products. For example, the Zurich-based company Kuori creates a bioplastic from walnut shells and olive pits.

Meanwhile, the Bern-based start-up Luya is combining okara, a side-stream of tofu production, with chickpeas to make high protein nuggets. One portion even contains up to 30% of your daily fiber requirements — now we’re talking! Luya’s products, which I actually personally love and have integrated into my weekly protein rotation, hits all the right spots when it comes to FoodTech: meeting a real nutritional and climate need, combining protein needs with fiber, and being delicious and versatile to use. I like to bake them for 15 minutes at 180°C, lightly drizzled with olive oil to get them a little puffy, and then add a soya-cream and mushroom sauce.

A shift in staple crops

Rising temperatures, droughts and floods, and a widespread increase in pests do not bode well for the future of food production under current conditions. While predictions vary, one 2020 EU report predicts that, by 2050, wheat yields in southern Europe will decrease by up to 49% and maize production may decrease by up to 20%. One way to counteract this is to tweak our agricultural practices, both in how and when we sow and harvest but also through practices like agroecology.

Another solution is to diversify the plants we eat, relying on a wider variety of crops that are resilient to different challenges that climate change brings. This solves our current triple-monotomy issue: increasing the biodiversity in our fields makes our crops more resilient to pests and climate swings, while boosting the biodiversity on our plate makes for a healthier human.

The common financial advice to “diversify your assets” certainly applies here too. Research efforts like WWF’s and Knorr’s joint “Future 50 Foods” project highlight which crops may come into question from an agricultural, gastronomical and nutritional lens. Some delicious future foods include traditional species of grain like fonio (high in magnesium — another common deficiency) as well as algae (high in iodine). Mushrooms like enoki and maitake are also on the list, which could be cultivated locally in Europe; both are delicious and with medicinal properties.

The humble legume to the rescue

As a technophilic culture, we tend to believe we can simply innovate our way out of our issues with silver-bullet solutions. Such solutions give us the comforting illusion that we can simply continue to live as we do; perhaps some hyper-intelligent AI will save us from ourselves. But technological innovations — like cultivated meat, which we’ve discussed — always carry trade-offs.

While I’m not advocating going back to a pre-modern lifestyle, we must recognize the promise of low-tech solutions, which are usually cheaper and easier to implement. They’re often also sustainable and resilient, as they don’t rely on fancy equipment, complex supply chains or ultra-specialized talent. Unfortunately, this means we can and should change our behaviors and lifestyles now, which is uncomfortable. The reality is that we already have an exquisitely engineered solution to the protein predicament — one that has been field- and tast-tested for thousands of years: the humble legume, along with the cultural knowledge of how to cultivate and consume it.

Beans and lentils boost soil health — and therefore the success of other crops — as they host nitrogen-fixing bacteria in their roots, a nutrient that other plants need. This makes them an excellent plant to include in the crop rotation of agricultural fields, as part of a grouping of crops to simultaneously support other plants directly, or as a way to rehabilitate and restore impoverished soil. From a human health perspective, they are packed with fiber and protein, and there are endless ways to dress them up gastronomically: from making plant-based ricotta, tofu, veggie balls, stuffing, or stews and salads. Legumes are foundational to Mediterranean cuisine, one of the healthiest on the planet — and for good reason: they are cheap, abundant and healthy, allowing poor farming communities in particular to enjoy excellent nutrition.

That's something that people in 2080 — like Quinn — will hopefully understand well.

After the disastrous visit with her grandmother, Quinn takes her mind off things at her weekly university potluck. She picks up some fruit and vegetables— and importantly, beans — from her local agrihood for free, and waltzes into the Foodie Club’s meeting place: a beautiful structure made of trees and natural heat-dispersing materials. She begins to make a French inspired dish: a canellini bean, mushroom and seitan bourguignon, plant-based of course — Quinn is an athlete and takes care of her body. Lab-grown meats are anyway too expensive and most people have lost interest in them, having long forgotten the taste and desire for meat.

As Quinn approaches the table, the colorful dishes make her stomach grumble: a three grain dish with triticale, millet and buckwheat which makes a delicious base for the pot-luck’s signature three-bean stew of chickpeas, broad beans and yellow peas. A root veggie and walnut salad drenched in a sweet fig vinaigrette is the perfect side dish, along with some stir-fried catalogna and pok-choi. Quinn spots her friend's signature marinated tofu and okara nuggets, one stewed and another air-fried to a crisp. She piles the latter on top of her food mountain before sitting down next to her friend. She eyes the piles of fruit for dessert — both fresh and in various cakes. Quinn waits for everyone to finish getting their food — starting to eat together is a ritual they share every Sunday and it would be unthinkable to start eating before everyone had sat down.

“You’ll never guess what I found out today at my grandma’s” she throws out to the table. “We were looking through old photos and recipes, and — I couldn’t believe it — they were eating meat from slaughtered animals at every meal, flying tropical fruit around the world without a care in the world!” After pausing briefly, she speaks in a hushed tone: “I love my grandma, but I can’t possibly look at her the same ever again. She’s the reason things are so messed up now.”

Quinn lets her comment go unanswered, believing no one has heard her. At the end of the dinner, an elder takes her aside.

“You know, it touched me what you said earlier,” he paused, “I get how hurt you feel, but you should forgive your grandma. I mean, she doesn’t eat meat anymore right?”

“I guess she did teach me the bourguignon recipe I made, and many others,” Quinn replied. “She did say that when the second big pandemic came around, Covid-29, things started to change and they raised the price of meat and subsidized plant products. She spent that entire lockdown veganising all her family recipes, to make sure that her grandchildren could still taste our family history.”

“But,” Quinn says after a pause, “if they had acted sooner, faster, we wouldn’t be here today.”

“That’s true,” the elder replies. “But hindsight is always 20/20.” He pauses again slightly, “you know, I sometimes think about our own blindspots. What will your granddaughter be mad at you for in 50 years? And if we could figure that out, wouldn’t we have a chance at being better ancestors than the ones before us? Shouldn’t that guide how we behave today?”

For the most part, the event focused on how to solve the ever-persisting problem of hunger and food insecurity in the world. While global hunger is improving, with Brazil being recently removed from the UN Hunger Map, the food systems we all depend on are still unable to adequately feed the human population. To boot, food is still being used as a weapon of war in many parts of the world, and food systems continue to damage natural habitats and accelerate climate change. The event concluded with a general call to action to transform the world’s food systems for the better.

As anticipated, most speakers raised the same points that food policy experts have been making for decades: cooperation is needed to transform food systems; smallholder farmers—as well as youth and women—need to be empowered to work in food production, and above all: more investment is necessary.

While it’s hard to disagree on these points, we’ve heard it all before, and often. And yet, we still haven’t solved the vast food inequality between the Global North and South. The recently revealed 2025 edition of the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report concludes that worldwide undernourishment has still not recovered from the pandemic, and hunger continues to climb in Africa and Western Asia. With geopolitical tensions as they are, honest cooperation does not exactly seem to be on the agenda. As for empowering farmers, a great piece by journalist Stefano Liberti outlines how local farmers are being exploited by for-profit supermarkets in Italy, which doesn’t feel like a step in the right direction. Nor am I convinced that much progress has been made on including and promoting women and youth in the food sector. As for investment, the official report itself notes that “access to finance remains a persistent challenge”.

Having said that, there were some refreshing perspectives that, to me at least, herald real progress towards a more just world. Here are my six main take-aways from UNFSS+4:

The time for climate adaptation is now

Some of the most powerful perspectives came from non-governmental experts, namely Elizabeth Nsimadala, a Ugandan agripreneur and smallholder farmer. During the plenary session “From Vision to Action,” she shared a bold statement: While climate financing is still focused on providing funds to mitigate climate change, that time has now passed. “We need to seek increased financing for adaptation,” she says. While many policymakers think of climate change as something that can still be mitigated, Nsimadala’s words were a strong reminder that for those in the field producing our food, climate change is already here and threatening our food supply.

The missing voice in policy: Smallholder farmers

Empowering farmers, especially smallholder ones, is a common talking point at such gatherings. But Nsimadala raised a key issue: we need to go beyond mentioning their importance and actually ensure they have a meaningful voice at conferences like these.

While most delegates are paid as part of their day job to be at UNFSS+4 and other such conferences, farmers would have to forgo work and profit to attend conferences. If the talking line is that farmer inputs are so valuable—which I would argue they clearly are as they literally produce the food we eat—then we must not only make a place at the table for them, but also compensate them for it. Furthermore, Nsimadala highlights that smallholder farmers receive less than 1% of climate finance.

Regenerative agriculture is the way forward

I come from a country that is—inexplicably—still pushing for the expansion of conventional agriculture despite abundant proof that it is destroying our soils and harming our health. That’s why I rejoiced in listening to several reports from African governments, like Tanzania, declaring that regenerative agriculture and agroecology are not just the only path forward for resilient food systems, but also that they’re also to produce enough food to feed their people. There’s little data on the amount of food regenerative farming can actually provide—in great part due to the lack of funding available for such research—so hearing these on-the-ground reports that this works gave me great hope.

Food quality over quantity

Finally, as a nutritionist, I was happy to see the link between agriculture and human health highlighted throughout the summit. For the first time, it was acknowledged that we need not just adequate food to feed the world, but also food that meets our nutritional needs. Until now, many policymakers have been focused on the sheer amount of food that can be produced (and to be honest, this is still a major focus, with several countries still focusing on scaling up their yield and harvests, often for export and financial gain rather than for food security among their own citizens). Shifting towards the quality of food is a step in the right direction—especially as we’re increasingly getting reports of pollutants like microplastics being abundant in food, which can harm not only the plants but also us as well.

Not just any food

Food systems leaders in all sectors also highlighted the need to ensure that everyone has the dignity to decide what food they eat, that food must be culturally appropriate and that the processes of production, distribution and access must be equitable and inclusive. This is known as the “right to adequate food,” and it’s commonly understood as a basic human right:

“The right to adequate food is realized when every man, woman and child, alone or in community with others, have physical and economic access at all times to adequate food or means for its procurement.” as defined by the United Nations.

Unfortunately, the current intentional starvation happening in Gaza was not mentioned during the summit, despite it being a clear violation of human rights, which is deeply disappointing for a global food summit happening at this time.

Coming soon

Looking forward, Bhutan - famously the world’s happiest country which is already focusing on key transformations like agroforestry —announced that it will be hosting the first International Conscious Food Systems Summit in 2026. The event is a collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme and the Conscious Food Systems Alliance, which helps build qualities like self-awareness, deep listening, empathy, creativity, and resilience among future food systems leaders. As a long-term meditator of over 15 years and a mindfulness teacher, I’m excited to see how this shapes up, as I know both intellectually and experientially that we cannot pour from an empty cup. Bringing consciousness practices to food systems transformation is still niche, but in my opinion this holds tremendous promise to shake us out of the extractive, destructive and domineering drive that is so common in food production. If anyone wants to fund me to go there and report on the ground, I eagerly await your offers!

On a last note, I want to highlight that this summit paid tribute to Sir David Nabarro, who tragically passed away days before the event. Nabarro was a powerhouse of public health advancements who dedicated himself in later life to global sustainable food systems transitions. Specifically, he spearheaded many of the efforts of the UN Food Systems Hub. As we carry his legacy forward, let’s remember his vision: to create “holistic frameworks that treat food systems as interconnected, living systems rather than segmented domains [where] food security is inseparable from nutrition, climate resilience, and long-term human wellbeing.”

In the first article of this protein series, I discussed the cultural hype around protein, and why—unfortunately—eating too much of it is not great for our own bodies or the health of our home planet. That said, everyone completely giving up meat is unlikely to happen because of our strong cultural ties to it. Human ingenuity to the rescue, alternative protein companies are popping up around the world, proposing a solution to this dilemma: real meat and meat-like products made in an ethical way that don’t harm the planet. These include plant-based mock meats but also cultivated meat, where meat is produced in the lab from a biopsy taken from a live animal. But it’s worth asking if these new products really are a panacea for our protein problems. In this article, I explore the promise of alternative proteins as well as the challenges in ensuring they’re truly sustainable and what they could mean for our relationship with food. I think they will ultimately find a place in our future diets—but only alongside other, broader improvements to our food system.

Proteinaholics—why we are not giving up meat

The case for developing alternative proteins is clear. The switch to more plant-based lifestyles is not only held back by deep-seated cultural ties to meat, but also the gender we identify with. Men in general tend to be more attached to meat than women;a whopping 76% of vegans are women. This may be because of differences in gender socialisation: studies show that we associate eating meat with manliness, while eating vegetables is considered a more feminine diet choice². These deep-seated cultural and emotional reasons for meat consumption should not be underestimated. If we try to get people to shift to plant-based diets without addressing these ties, we are doomed to fail.

“Sustainability also has to be sustainable for us,” says Laura Sommer, an expert in food systems who works for the Swiss government. If going on a plant-based diet means forgoing comfort recipes or family classics, it makes sense that you might eventually switch back to meat. In fact, various studies report that between 30% and 80% of vegans and vegetarians eventually reintroduce meat into their diets^3–5.

This is where new sources of protein come in. Aleksandra Treichel, an analyst in her 30’s living in the greater Zürich area who has been vegan for several years, says she enjoys cooking with plant-based meat (meat substitutes made entirely from plant-sourced proteins and fats): “Plant-based meats can be an inspiration, and sometimes a lazy food choice after a long day. It also makes it easier to convince people that I am serving a full meal when I am cooking for non-vegan friends,” she says. Alternative protein sources like these could allow us to have the best of all worlds: cultural classics made in ways that avoid harm to animals or our bodies.

However, plant-based meats alone may not be enough to persuade regular meat eaters. One of the limitations is taste; current technology cannot quite replicate the rich, indulgent taste of animal fat. Some innovators are tackling this problem by combining plant-based protein with animal fat⁶, while others, like the San Francisco-based company Lypid are attempting to create plant-based fats that replicate the properties of animal fat⁷.

Perhaps a more important consideration is the target demographic of plant-based meats. Ultimately, “I think these products still belong to the vegan world, to the people who already do not eat meat,” Treichel says. Alexander Morel, head of bioprocessing at MIRAI International, a company leading the Swiss market in developing cultivated meat, agrees. “The people who switch to plant based meats are the people who already know there is a problem, and who are willing to change,” he says. Meanwhile, his company promises to produce real meat, without the ethical or sustainability issues that traditional meat has - and in doing so, targeting a different demographic. “The goal for us is to change the people who love meat, the ones who are not willing to make the switch to plant based alternative proteins,” Morel says. “At MIRAI, we want to target meat lovers”.

Cultivated-meat—a how-to guide.

To learn more about how cultivated meat is made—and its potential place on our dinner plates—I visited MIRAI international, which is based just outside of Zürich.

To build meat, you need to make the right building blocks, which are essentially muscle and fat. The process starts by taking a small biopsy from a cow, which contains both, and using them to grow steaks in the lab. At MIRAI International, “we use the most natural methods possible,” Morel says. That means no genetic modification of the cells used, and conditions are precisely monitored to keep the cells alive. MIRAI bioengineers have optimised the system so the cells undergo 50 rounds of cell divisions, “so from 1 biopsy with 50 doublings, we can make 2000 tons of meat,” Morel says. The end product, nutritionally speaking, is very similar to regular meat. The cultivated muscle cells contain similar types of protein and micronutrients as real meat. And, the cultivated fat can be optimized to have more of the healthy kinds of fats - so-called “unsaturated” ones which could make the resulting cut of meat healthier for us to eat.

While MIRAI is working on replicating the taste and texture of popular modern meats, others are striving to bring back tastes from the distant past. For example, Vow Food, an Australian food company, makes meatballs made from woolly mammoth meat, an animal that has been extinct for 5000 years.

Cultivated Meat for a Better Tomorrow

But some experts aren’t sure how quickly we’ll actually see these newer kinds of meats on grocery store shelves. That includes Björn Witte, the CEO of BlueHorizon, an investment firm with the mission of accelerating the transition to sustainable food systems. He told Foodaktuell that he does not think fully cultivated meat will hit the market in the next eight years. But we can at least expect to see some so-called hybrid meat products⁸, which are a blend of plant-based and lab-grown animal ingredients, he added. If you’re in a hurry to try, head to Singapore, where you can already taste hybrid chicken nuggets from the local company Good Meat. These consist of up to 75% cultivated meat, and the remainder are plant-based ingredients^,10.

Other experts are even more skeptical, and doubt that it will ever be possible to produce cultured meat at scale¹¹. Despite this, the appetite for cultured meat technology is ravenous, with a plethora of new cultured meat start-ups opening every year. Mosa Meat, based in the Netherlands and one of the pioneering companies in this field, successfully closed a crowdfunding campaign that raised almost 4 million euros, after raising more than 160 million euros from more traditional funding sources. In a recent article, the company’s CEO Marteen Bosch expressed excitement about the investments. The crowdfunding campaign is, at time of writing, at over 230% of its initial goal, demonstrating how supportive people are of such technologies.

Do we really need alternative protein technology?

With the exponential rise of these technologies, we might collectively ask ourselves if these alternative protein products truly live up to their claims of being better for the planet and our health. To craft more sustainable diets, we need to reduce the amount of resources that are required to generate each calorie. With alternative protein products, some experts argue that we are still using too many resources per gram of protein than we need to¹², as such products require significant energy and resources to be processed, as well as often-plastic packaging to be sold in stores. They’re also not necessarily good for our health. Cultivated meat, even with promises of a healthier fat profile, often contain several components of red meat that are thought to be bad for us, such as the amino acid L-carnitine, which poses a risk to our cardiovascular health¹⁵.

Plant-based meats, meanwhile, qualify as ultra-processed foods, and they tend to contain less fiber and more salt than minimally processed forms of plant-based proteins (made from beans and legumes, for example)^13,14. That said, the newest plant-based meats to hit the market are making a significant effort to improve upon this. The Swiss-based company Planted, says its “Planted Chicken” product has only 5 ingredients.

In terms of dietary requirements, it’s hard to argue that there’s a true need for alternative proteins, given that natural, unprocessed plant-based solutions can easily fill all protein requirements for humans. Though the alternative protein industry is good for business, I suspect that it may not be filling a real need as much as an imagined one.

Having said that, I can see some use cases in which alternative protein products—specifically cultured meat—might meet a real need. Firstly, it could satisfy the occasional cravings of meat lovers and offer a cruelty-free and more sustainable alternative to traditionally reared meat (although some experts have expressed concerns around the environmental impacts of cultured meats). Plant-based mock meats have long been advertised as providing a “transition food” for people wishing to transition to a more sustainable diet - although recent papers suggest that meat consumption is increasing nevertheless, and plant-based mock meats still don’t occupy a huge share of the marketplace¹⁶.

Secondly, there are some medical conditions that justify eating a high-meat, carnivorous diet. The ketogenic diet, though it is not recommended long-term or for everyone, was actually invented to help severe epileptics control their seizures¹⁷. Carnivorous diets might help people afflicted with severe auto-immune diseases by essentially eliminating all potential trigger foods, although more and better research is needed to fully understand this phenomenon¹⁸. For these specific medical challenges, an ethical and more sustainable source of real meat would make absolute sense, allowing people to meet a real health need while being able to make ethical diet choices.

Although many of the criticisms around cultured meats center on the concern that they can’t be produced at the scales required to satisfy humanity’s meat cravings, I believe that that shouldn’t be the goal. As I’ve laid out in this article and the previous one, we urgently need to decrease our overall meat consumption anyway.

Do we want alternative protein technology?

Don’t get me wrong: the science nerd in me loves to understand how alternative protein products are made, especially cultured meat, which is an impressive feat of biology in its own right. But, on a more philosophical note, I worry that we’re collectively deciding to stick our heads in the sand. Perhaps we’re heralding protein tech as saviours so that we’re not forced to reckon with a wider issue: that our diets are becoming increasingly industrialized, and that we’re becoming exclusively reliant on for-profit organizations to eat. Meanwhile, most of us remain entirely divorced from how, where, and by whom our food is made. And that is making us and our planet sick. In my view, we should put alternative protein technologies in their rightful place: not as all mighty saviors, but as a tool to be used only when truly needed.

So, what’s next?

The bottom line is that truly sustainable protein production means a reduction in the resources used to get protein on our plate, and cultivated meat still requires resources at every step that could be avoided with plant-based diets. And, such technologies may further alienate consumers from the processes that produce our food, making us increasingly dependent on obscure technologies and for-profit food companies. In the final article of the Future of Protein series, we’ll discover another solution to the health and sustainability crisis around protein: how to reconnect with our food systems. In an ideal world, how should the protein on our plate look like in 2050?

References

1. Nicklaus, S. The role of food experiences during early childhood in food pleasure learning. Appetite 104, 3–9 (2016).

2. Rosenfeld, D. L. Gender differences in vegetarian identity: How men and women construe meatless dieting. Food Quality and Preference 81, 103859 (2020).

3. 84% of Vegetarians and Vegans Return to Meat. Why? | Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/animals-and-us/201412/84-vegetarians-and-vegans-return-meat-why.

4. Lockwood, D. A. Do 84% Of Vegans And Vegetarians Really Go Back To Eating Meat? Plant Based News https://plantbasednews.org/opinion/do-84-vegans-and-vegetarians-give-up-diets/ (2019).

5. Most Vegetarians Lapse After Only a Year | Smart News| Smithsonian Magazine. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/most-vegetarians-lapse-after-only-year-180953565/.

6. Buxton, A. Peace of Meat & Enough Partner To Create Hybrid Mycoprotein Chicken Flavored With Cultivated Fat - Green Queen. https://www.greenqueen.com.hk/meatech-enough-partnershiop-for-hybrid-protein/ (2022).

7. Ettinger, J. Lypid Debuts Pork Belly Made With Patented PhytoFat - Green Queen. https://www.greenqueen.com.hk/lypid-pork-belly-phytofat/ (2023).

8. Die Zukunft sind hybride Produkte. foodaktuell https://www.foodaktuell.ch/2023/03/21/die-zukunft-sind-hybride-produkte-2/ (2023).

9. Shu, C. Good Meat approved to sell serum-free cultivated meat in Singapore. TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2023/01/18/good-meat-regulatory-approval/ (2023).

10. Good Meat. DOSSIER IN SUPPORT OF THE SAFETY OF GOOD MEAT CULTURED CHICKEN AS A HUMAN FOOD INGREDIENT. (2022).

11. Humbird, D. Scale-Up Economics for Cultured Meat: Techno-Economic Analysis and Due Diligence. Preprint at https://doi.org/10.31224/osf.io/795su (2020).

12. Meat substitutes: Resource demands and environmental footprints - PMC. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9936781/.

13. Andreani, G. et al. Plant-Based Meat Alternatives: Technological, Nutritional, Environmental, Market, and Social Challenges and Opportunities. Nutrients 15, 452 (2023).

14. Romão, B. et al. Nutritional Profile of Commercialized Plant-Based Meat: An Integrative Review with a Systematic Approach. Foods 12, 448 (2023).

15. Zhao, J. V., Burgess, S., Fan, B. & Schooling, C. M. l-carnitine, a friend or foe for cardiovascular disease? A Mendelian randomization study. BMC Medicine 20, 272 (2022).

16. Siegrist, M. & Hartmann, C. Why alternative proteins will not disrupt the meat industry. Meat Science 203, 109223 (2023).

17. Wheless, J. W. History of the ketogenic diet. Epilepsia 49 Suppl 8, 3–5 (2008).

18. Norwitz, N. G. & Soto-Mota, A. Case report: Carnivore-ketogenic diet for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease: a case series of 10 patients. Front Nutr 11, 1467475 (2024).

To help answer this question, I put the following article together to cut through the hype: what protein actually is and why we need it, how it’s become so overhyped in recent years, why that’s a problem, and what we can do about it.

This is Part 1 of my upcoming protein series; Part 2 will be a deep dive into alternative protein products coming out of the Food Technology space and Part 3 will try to answer the leading question of this series: what does the future taste like?

What is protein and why do we need it?

Of all the macronutrients we need to fuel our bodies—carbs, fats, and protein—protein is somewhat unusual. Fats and carbs are quite convenient forms of energy because the body can either use them straight away, or store to use them at a later time. But protein is different. During digestion, protein is broken down into small molecules called amino-acids. These amino-acids can be used right away or they are transformed into a storage medium called glycogen. But here’s the rub: glycogen cannot be turned back into amino-acids. What this means is that we need to be eating protein regularly to provide a steady stream of amino acids.

Amino acids from food are the building blocks of our body’s own human proteins. Protein is found in all kinds of food—meat, dairy, seafood, grains, legumes, fruits & vegetables—but in different amounts. Animal-based foods, like meat, are the most concentrated in protein, there are also plenty of plant-based sources of protein.

Although the body can produce some amino acids itself, we can only get other, so-called “essential” amino acids,from our diet. If we don’t, we’ll be in pretty bad shape. In order to make sure we stay healthy, our brain has ways of ensuring that we get the bare minimum of protein - which is around 5 to 14 percent of daily food and drink intake. If our protein intake makes up less than that, our brain triggers processes that make us ravenously hungry so that we increase our food intake—even if we have met our energy needs for the day. This is called protein leverage¹ and it serves to protect us: if we don’t eat enough protein for a while, our body will get its amino acids from breaking down our muscles, and after some more time, protein deficiency sets in, which brings a whole host of nasty symptoms—ranging from joint swelling, brittle hair and nails, and less elastic skin to slower wound healing, mood swings and extreme fatigue, brittle hair and nails, skin losing its elasticity, wounds heal much more slowly, changes in mood and extreme fatigue.

While too little protein is bad, so is getting too much. It’s been documented that eating too much protein can strain our liver, kidneys and vascular systems. While the cut-off point isn’t exactly clear, experts today seem to agree that there is a sweet spot for protein consumption to keep us healthy, and that seems to be from around 0.8g of protein per kg of bodyweight, up to 2g of protein per kg of bodyweight^2–5.*

Why is there a hype around protein?

In the developed world today, inadequate protein intake is almost non-existent (yes, even in strict vegans). But even so, we’re quite obsessed with protein. Some might say for good reason. Indeed, making sure we get optimal amounts of protein can help to build muscle and make us feel more full after a meal, points out Sandra Mikhail, Accredited Practising Dietitian and founder of Nutrition A-Z.

For already several decades, various diet gurus have been promoting protein as a magic nutrient that would keep you fuller for longer, and therefore allow you to lose weight and keep it off. The 20th century saw a boom in high-protein diets, with the food industry catering to people’s desire to lose weight, while keeping their muscle mass. This started with the Atkins diet, which uses the fullness-inducing effects of protein to help with eating less and losing weight⁶. There is some truth to that; ingesting protein causes specific hormones to be released in your gut that signal to the brain it’s time to stop eating⁶. That said, there are several other things beyond protein consumption that also help us feel full ^7,8, although some evidence suggests that protein’s signal is stronger⁹. In general, this led to some diet “experts” recommending eating an abundance of protein-rich animal products. However, there are potential risks in eating too much protein, as we already discussed.

A renaissance of the high-protein craze came in the 21st century with the explosion of “ancestral” type diets, from paleo to carnivore, which are advertised as being high in animal protein (and in some cases, almost only consisting of meat)¹⁰. The pseudo-scientific argument goes that “eating meat made us human” and a high-meat diet is what we are “evolutionarily primed” to thrive on. While several studies have debunked this claim, it remains a popular excuse to indulge in a high-meat diet^10–12.

Generally speaking, getting enough high-quality protein (i.e., all essential amino acids in a well-balanced diet) is not a problem in developed countries. As Sandra Mikhail puts it, “if you’re eating enough calories, you’re eating enough protein. We only see cases of too low protein intake in some clinical cases of eating disorders, where total calorie intake is inadequate.”

So what’s the problem?

Unfortunately, protein, and animal protein specifically, is a pretty expensive nutrient.

First, eating meat is quite costly for our health. Some popular protein sources, like red meat and processed meats, can increase the risk of cancer (and are considered to be Class 2A and Class 1 carcinogens, respectively¹³). The jury is still out about other forms of animal protein¹⁴, but some studies have shown that they may harm human health as well^{15, 16}. Beyond the known carcinogenic effect of red and processed meat, we also know that high meat consumption is linked to poorer heart health. Studies have shown that meat-rich diets may lead to more atherosclerosis, heart attack and stroke.

On top of that, meat-heavy diets also often neglect some other nutrients that are important to our health; the Atkins diet, for instance, is pretty poor in fiber-rich foods like grains and starchy vegetables. Fiber is a type of carbohydrate, but humans can’t digest it. However, the trillions of gut microbes living in our guts thrive on it. In exchange for feeding them with fiber, our gut bacteria produces a wide variety of chemicals that are beneficial for our health¹⁸. Scientists have observed that those eating meat have less diverse and different microbes in their gut than people eating a plant-centric diet^21,22. While we don’t exactly know what a healthy gut microbiome looks like, we do know that the more diverse the species of microbes we host, the better.

Secondly, making animal protein is expensive for our planet. Animal farming specifically is a major contributor to global warming and loss of biodiversity. Livestock farming and fish farming together make up 15% of global greenhouse-gas emissions^19,20, although they only account for ⅓ of the global protein supply²³. It’s also a very inefficient use of our crops, as it takes 9 kilocalories of plant-feed to create 1 kilocalorie of meat²⁴. As Laura Sommer, an expert in food systems, puts it, “it takes a lot longer for meat to get into your stomach, so it needs more resources along the way.” Plants, on the other hand, “can grow and we can eat them directly from the field”.

On top of that, to plant crops for animal feed, massive areas of land are being cleared in the Amazon rainforest and other ecosystems that suck planet-warming carbon out of the air, jeopardizing our ability to mitigate global warming. ^25–27. Tofu, a very popular plant-based protein in all sorts of dishes, on the other hand, doesn’t have this problem²⁸. When thinking about sustainable sources of protein, Sommer points to two key factors to consider:

• Firstly, how it was produced? Go for plant-based foods over animal-based products, and small local farms over factory farms.

• Secondly, how much of it do you eat? Ideally, we shouldn’t be eating more than 300 grams per week of meat, according to the EAT-Lancet Commission on Food, Planet, and Health, an international scientific body tasked with establishing what composes a healthy diet within planetary boundaries²⁹.

What are the solutions?

Considering the clear issues with overconsumption of meat, you might be wondering why we continue to eat so much when we know that plants can give us the protein we need. In the next article in the Future of Protein series, we will delve into the deep emotional and cultural ties we have with meat consumption, which might be one of the reasons we keep eating it despite the known downsides. Because we humans like to solve our problems using technology, we’ll also look at how emerging protein tech and food innovation may allow us to have it all: meat, health, and a thriving planet.

*Footnote:

• Perhaps you are wondering why there is such a large range in what experts consider how much protein we can and should eat. In fact, there are many different variables that might affect how much daily protein is right for you. These include: your activity level, your biological sex, your muscle mass, whether or not you’re pregnant, your age, how well your gut can absorb protein, to name a few.

References:

1. Martens, E. A., Lemmens, S. G. & Westerterp-Plantenga, M. S. Protein leverage affects energy intake of high-protein diets in humans. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 97, 86–93 (2013).

2. When it comes to protein, how much is too much? Harvard Health https://www.health.harvard.edu/nutrition/when-it-comes-to-protein-how-much-is-too-much (2018).

3. Phillips, S. M., Chevalier, S. & Leidy, H. J. Protein ‘requirements’ beyond the RDA: implications for optimizing health. Appl Physiol Nutr Metab 41, 565–572 (2016).

4. Hector, A. J. & Phillips, S. M. Protein Recommendations for Weight Loss in Elite Athletes: A Focus on Body Composition and Performance. Int J Sport Nutr Exerc Metab 28, 170–177 (2018).

5. Wallace, T. C. & Frankenfeld, C. L. Dietary Protein Intake above the Current RDA and Bone Health: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. J Am Coll Nutr 36, 481–496 (2017).

6. Westerterp-Plantenga, M. S., Lemmens, S. G. & Westerterp, K. R. Dietary protein – its role in satiety, energetics, weight loss and health. British Journal of Nutrition 108, S105–S112 (2012).

7. Tack, J. et al. The gastrointestinal tract in hunger and satiety signalling. United European Gastroenterology Journal 9, 727–734 (2021).

8. Rebello, C. J., O’Neil, C. E. & Greenway, F. L. Dietary fiber and satiety: the effects of oats on satiety. Nutr Rev 74, 131–147 (2016).

9. Cuenca-Sánchez, M., Navas-Carrillo, D. & Orenes-Piñero, E. Controversies Surrounding High-Protein Diet Intake: Satiating Effect and Kidney and Bone Health12. Adv Nutr 6, 260–266 (2015).

10. D’Agostino, A. et al. Neolithic dental calculi provide evidence for environmental proxies and consumption of wild edible fruits and herbs in central Apennines. Commun Biol 5, 1–13 (2022).

11. Davis, N. Neanderthal dental tartar reveals plant-based diet – and drugs. The Guardian (2017).

12. Fire and the Brain: How Cooking Shaped Humans | AMNH. American Museum of Natural History https://www.amnh.org/explore/science-topics/microbiome-health/fire-cooking-human-evolution.

13. Cancer: Carcinogenicity of the consumption of red meat and processed meat. https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/cancer-carcinogenicity-of-the-consumption-of-red-meat-and-processed-meat.

14. Geiker, N. R. W. et al. Meat and Human Health—Current Knowledge and Research Gaps. Foods 10, 1556 (2021).

15. Campbell, D. & editor, D. C. H. policy. Eating meat ‘raises risk of heart disease, diabetes and pneumonia’. The Guardian (2021).

16. Papier, K. et al. Meat consumption and risk of 25 common conditions: outcome-wide analyses in 475,000 men and women in the UK Biobank study. BMC Medicine 19, 53 (2021).

17. Evans, J. M., Morris, L. S. & Marchesi, J. R. The gut microbiome: the role of a virtual organ in the endocrinology of the host. Journal of Endocrinology 218, R37–R47 (2013).

18. Feng, W. et al. Dietary compounds in modulation of gut microbiota-derived metabolites. Front Nutr 9, 939571 (2022).

19. Crippa, M. et al. Food systems are responsible for a third of global anthropogenic GHG emissions. Nat Food 2, 198–209 (2021).

20. MacLeod, M. J., Hasan, M. R., Robb, D. H. F. & Mamun-Ur-Rashid, M. Quantifying greenhouse gas emissions from global aquaculture. Sci Rep 10, 11679 (2020).

21. Tomova, A. et al. The Effects of Vegetarian and Vegan Diets on Gut Microbiota. Front Nutr 6, 47 (2019).

22. Miao, Z. et al. Gut microbiota signatures of long-term and short-term plant-based dietary pattern and cardiometabolic health: a prospective cohort study. BMC Medicine 20, 204 (2022).

23. Plant-based and cultivated meat science | Online course | GFI. https://gfi.org/resource/plant-based-and-cultivated-meat-online-course/.

24. Disrupting Meat. Yale Center for Business and the Environment https://cbey.yale.edu/our-stories/disrupting-meat (2016).

25. Phillips, D., Wasley, A., Heal, A. & Camargos, D. Revealed: rampant deforestation of Amazon driven by global greed for meat. The Guardian (2019).

26. Cutting down forests: what are the drivers of deforestation? Our World in Data https://ourworldindata.org/what-are-drivers-deforestation.

27. Ritchie, H. & Roser, M. Forests and Deforestation. Our World in Data (2021).

28. Mejia, A. et al. Greenhouse Gas Emissions Generated by Tofu Production: A Case Study. Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition 13, 131–142 (2018).

29. Food in the Anthropocene: the EAT-Lancet Commission Summary Report on healthy diets from sustainable food systems. https://www.c40knowledgehub.org/s/article/Food-in-the-Anthropocene-the-EAT-Lancet-Commission-Summary-Report-on-healthy-diets-from-sustainable-food-systems?language=en_US.