Editor’s note: This article has been reprinted. Originally published March 12, 2023.
At face value, fake meat sounds like the perfect solution to ending world hunger, protecting animal welfare, and saving the planet from environmental destruction. But even a brief look beneath the surface reveals a much more sinister reality.
To raise awareness of this latest assault on human health, I spoke with host Polly Tommey on Children’s Health Defense’s program “Tea Time” about the dangers of fake meat products.1
Fake meat is all about controlling our food supply
Fake foods, including lab-grown meat, non-animal dairy products, and plant-based meat, are the latest attempts by globalists to control the food supply. Former U.S. Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger once said, “Control oil and you control the country. Control food and you control the people.”2 Controlling people is their entire agenda.
Globalists have long monopolized the grain industry through patented genetically modified organisms (GMOs). In the early 2010s, not many people knew about GMOs. In 2011, we began educating the public about hazardous substances that pose a major threat to public health and the environment.
In 2012, a ballot initiative was launched in California calling for mandatory labeling of genetically engineered (GE) foods and food ingredients. This plan was narrowly defeated thanks to massive donations from multinational corporations, but in the long run we were able to win because it greatly increased awareness of GMOs in our food supply. Most people who care about their health now avoid GE/GMO.
A similar trend is currently occurring with fake food. Globalists are trying to replace animal agriculture with lab-grown meat. This allows private companies to effectively control the entire food supply.
Fake meat is worse than CAFOs.
Many people are aware of the pitfalls of CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations): unnatural diets of GMO grains, crowded environments, inhumane treatment, excessive pollution, and rampant disease spread. CAFOs are bad. But the new era of fake food will only get worse.
Patented fake meat products will give globalists unprecedented control over people’s health.3 Trying to support the world’s population using animal-free methods may sound noble, but this is deception.
Will Harris is a regenerative agriculture pioneer who operates White Oak Pastures in Bluffton, Georgia. He produces high-quality grass-fed products, including beef and other animal products, in a way that is beneficial to consumers, the environment and the financial health of his business. Globalists are peddling the idea that animal-based foods are destroying the planet, but if you’re raised regeneratively like Harris, this couldn’t be further from the truth.
Ultimately, it is fake food that threatens the environment. “We sequester the equivalent of 3.5 pounds of carbon dioxide for every pound of grass-fed beef we sell. Ironically, the same environmental engineer performed the analysis for Impossible Burgers,” Harris said on “The Joe Rogan Experience.” “They are emitting the equivalent of 3.5 pounds of carbon dioxide.”4
Regenerative Agriculture Beats Fake Food
Impossible Foods, along with Beyond Meat, is a leader in the fake meat market. It claims to have a better carbon footprint than live animal farms and has hired Quantis, a group of scientists and strategists, to prove its claim. According to the summary, the products reduced environmental impacts by between 87% and 96% in the categories studied, including land occupancy and water consumption.5
However, this compares fake meat to meat produced in CAFOs, which are extremely destructive to the environment and are nothing like Harris’ farms. Harris commissioned Quantis to do the same analysis for White Oaks and published a 33-page study comparing White Oaks Pastures’ emissions to conventional beef production.6
Manufactured fake meat reduced carbon emissions by up to 96% in some categories, while White Oak had a negative net total emissions compared to meat produced in CAFOs.
Additionally, White Oak Pastures’ grass-fed beef has a carbon footprint that is 111% lower than that of a typical U.S. CAFO, and its regenerative system effectively captures soil carbon, offsetting most of the emissions associated with beef production.7
“The White Oak Pastures (WOP) system effectively captures soil carbon, offsetting most of the emissions associated with beef production,” the report said. “In the best case, WOP beef production can have a positive climate impact. The results show great potential.”8
So the idea that we need to remove animals from agriculture to save the planet is completely flawed. In fact, animals are an essential and essential part of the recovery process.
What is fake meat?
Fake meat is sold as a health food, but it is nothing more than a highly ultra-processed mixture of chemicals. For example, Impossible Foods uses genetic engineering to insert DNA from soybean plants into yeast to create GE yeast with the soybean leghemoglobin gene.9
Impossible Foods calls this compound “heme,” but technically plants produce non-heme iron, which is GE yeast-derived soy leghemoglobin.10 Heme iron occurs only in meat and seafood. Impossible Foods’ GE heme is used as a color additive in fake meat burgers to make the product appear to “ooze” like real meat.
The health effects of GE heme are unknown, but that didn’t stop the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from approving soy leghemoglobin in 2019. The Center for Food Safety (CFS) filed a lawsuit challenging the approval, which it called “unusually fast.”11 It is dangerous to public health.
In the lawsuit, CFS points out that soy leghemoglobin is produced using synthetic biology, or “genetic engineering on steroids,” which does not mix DNA fragments between species but instead constructs new biological parts, devices and systems that do not exist in nature.12
The reason Impossible Foods turned to synthetic biology to produce GE soy leghemoglobin was because it could not extract enough material directly from the soy root to produce fake meat products on an industrial, mass production scale. The FDA GRAS for soy leghemoglobin is 526 pages long. This gives you an idea of the industrialized complexity of these so-called GRAS “health” foods.13
Beyond Meat is likewise industrially processed. The Beyond Burger Patty contains 22 ingredients. Among them are expeller-pressed canola oil, pea protein isolate, bamboo cellulose, modified food starch, and methylcellulose.14 — There are very few “healthy” foods. Additional processing is required to transform these ingredients into meat-like patties.
It was also revealed that while truly natural foods cannot be patented, Impossible Foods holds at least 14 patents and has approximately 100 patents pending.15
Impossible Foods’ Fake Meat Contains Glyphosate, LA
Considering that many of the ingredients in fake meat products are made from GE soybeans,16 No wonder it is contaminated with the herbicide glyphosate. Consumer advocacy group Moms Across America (MAA) commissioned Health Research Institute Labs (HRI Labs), an independent laboratory that tests for both micronutrients and toxins found in foods, to determine how much glyphosate was in the Impossible Burger and its competitor, the Beyond Burger.
The total content of glyphosate and AMPA, the main metabolite of glyphosate, in the burgers was 11.3 ppb in the Impossible Burger and 1 ppb in the Beyond Burger.17
Once the concerning results were made public, Impossible Foods engaged in a smear campaign to discredit MAA. Moms Group is “an anti-GMO, anti-vaccine, anti-science, fundamentalist group that cynically spreads medical misinformation and completely unregulated, untested, and potentially toxic quack ‘supplements.’”18
Glyphosate in fake meat is one of the problems. Excessive amounts of omega-6 fats in the form of linoleic acid (LA) are another problem. In my opinion, these metabolic toxins are the main cause of increased rates of chronic disease. It is important to realize that fake meat substitutes do not contain healthy animal fats. All fats come from industrial seed oils such as soybean oil and canola oil, which are LA’s top sources.
To keep your LA intake low, it is essential to eliminate ultra-processed foods from your diet, and this includes fake meats.
‘Precision fermentation’ is also not natural
Fake food companies want you to believe that their products are natural because they are made from plant ingredients, even though plant ingredients do not exist in nature. Precision fermentation is another term used by the biotechnology industry to boost the popularity of truly health-promoting natural fermentations.
However, precision fermentation is completely different from natural fermentation. Perhaps the most confusing thing about the use of precision fermentation is that companies can claim it is natural.
Metabolic engineering is a major subset of precision fermentation and includes methods such as next-generation sequencing, high-throughput library screening, molecular cloning, and multi-omics “to optimize microbial strains, metabolic pathways, product yields, and bioprocess scale-up.”19 Doesn’t it feel like you’re on a farm?
Precision fermentation, gene editing, GMOs, whatever you call it, don’t fall for the hype that it’s good for you or the planet.
Where should I get meat?
If fake meat isn’t healthy and CAFO meat isn’t a good choice, a reasonable question is where can you find meat that’s good for your health and the planet? The answer is to get to know the farmers in your area. Visit the farm and see how the animals are raised.
Find out about resources available within your community. The community will naturally validate merchants who grow their food the right way. If you can’t find a farm locally for ruminant animals like cattle, buffalo, or sheep, look for certified organic options at your local grocery store. However, it’s best to stay local and find a place to get real whole food near you.
Plant a vegetable garden if you can, grow fruit trees, and even raise chickens if your area allows it. For food you cannot procure yourself, look to your community to fill the gap.
As with GMOs, it is also important to raise awareness of the dangers of fake meat. This is especially true during the early, aggressive stages of spread. Let your social circle know that if they want to save the planet and stay healthy, they should skip all the fake meat alternatives and choose real food instead.
When you buy food, learn about the farmers and find out about the regenerative, biodynamic and/or grass-fed farming methods needed to support a healthy, self-governing population.
