An interesting publication for you published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition earlier this month talks about the lack of animal protein for feeding the world’s growing population.
We are facing a crisis, as the world’s population grows and becomes more affluent they want more meat and milk. The problem is, this will become unsustainable. The authors of the paper talk about the cost of producing plant protein compared to animal protein, citing some concerning facts such as the amount of water and fertilizer needed to produce beef (chicken requires a lot less) . In the end they recommend switching to a vegetable protein based diet.
It does make a good read but they did miss the up and coming field of insect protein. We have blogged about it ourselves a few times. If the thought of eating ground up mealworm turns your stomach what about eating beef reared on insect protein?
The authors of the paper are right, we are facing a problem that is growing bigger by the day, but it would seem more realistic that people would cut back on meat consumption or stop feeding cattle food we could consume ourselves rather than giving up the red stuff completely.
Click here to read the paper on the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition website.