Should we eat meat to save the planet? Today, diners are feasting at a plant-based Burger King pop-up in Switzerland. But some argue you do not need to be a vegetarian to fight climate change.
The ex-veggies eating beef to save the Earth
Should we eat meat to save the planet? Today, diners are feasting at a plant-based Burger King pop-up in Switzerland. But some argue you do not need to be a vegetarian to fight climate change.
At a restaurant in Basel, a crowd is buzzing with excitement.
For ten days, the town is home to one of the world's first meat-free Burger Kings.
Fast food fans are slathering vegan mayonnaise on their plant-based wraps before polishing off the meal with vegan ice cream.
Tomorrow, the Burger King experiment in Basel and Geneva will draw to a close. But many believe the restaurant is a sign of bigger things to come. "Over time the amount of beef that we are selling as a proportion of our total sales is reducing," said Burger King UK CEO Alasdair Murdoch last year.
For years, experts have warned that eating too much red meat is bad for people and planet.
Researchers estimate the greenhouse gas emissions from beef production are equivalent to those of the whole of India.
And for the 50% of Britons who are estimated to be vegetarian or vegan by 2040, the good news keeps coming. Last June, a new study found that vegetarians were 73% less likely to be hit by severe coronavirus than meat-eaters.
Now, some former vegetarians and farmers are fighting back against what they see as a war on meat. They say the answer is changing how we farm livestock, not what we eat.
British food writer Clare Finney first became a vegetarian at 12. "I felt like a war hero: a veteran vegetarian bearing the scars of decades of stuffed peppers and nut roasts."
But eventually, Finney became sceptical of plant-based alternatives. In the Californian summer, a single avocado tree needs up to 46 gallons of water every day. After speaking to a group of sustainable farmers, she is a meat eater once more.
Finney believes the answer to the climate conundrum is regenerative agriculture - a farming technique that promotes biodiversity and returns organic matter to the soil.
When soil is healthy, it has a huge capacity to store carbon. But, the soil of most Western farmland is not healthy.
In Britain, farmland is divided. Half grows crops dependent on inorganic and polluting fertilisers. The other half is filled to the brim with grain-fed livestock animals, producing an excess of manure.
Many believe the solution is mixed farming. "Bringing livestock.. into rotation with crops... will reduce carbon," says Patrick Holden, the founder of the Sustainable Food Trust.
After all: "It's not the cow - it's how."
Should we eat meat to save the planet?
Yes: Industrial grain-focused livestock farming is not the only option. It may sound strange, but eating more sustainably produced meat could actually be the solution to the climate crisis.
No: Regenerative agriculture only accounts for a small percentage of meat production. It is also expensive. We should focus on producing more nutritious meat alternatives instead.
Or... There is a middle ground. We should all try to reduce the amount of meat we eat, especially red meats such as beef. But there is no need to give up on meat altogether.