ORANGEBURG, SC - APRIL 04: Promotional Atmosphhere at KFC on April 4, 2018 in Orangeburg, South Carolina. (Photo by Moses Robinson/Getty Images for KFC)
…Would you do it for the environment? For children who will inherit it?
While everyone else is fighting over chicken sandwiches, KFC is turning attention to plant-based “chicken.”
KFC will test a Beyond Meat version of their fried chicken in one restaurant in Atlanta.
Customers will be asked their opinion of the taste; and KFC will decide what they will do next.
The “not-chicken” test starts on Tuesday.
Did you know that “vegan soy” bratwurst has become really popular, in Germany? And Burger King already offers the “Impossible Whopper.” I’ve had it – it’s really good. I thought it was just like the regular Whopper. Dee-lish.
CNN reports that a new study reveals some scary statistics: “the production of animal products generates the majority of food-related greenhouse-gas emissions — specifically, up to 78% of total agricultural emissions – due to manure-related emissions. Cows and other animals do not efficiently convert what they eat into body weight. When they digest food, it leads to methane (gas) emissions.
“The feed-related impacts of animal products also contribute to freshwater use and pressures on cropland, as well as nitrogen and phosphorus application, which over time could lead to dead zones in oceans, low-oxygen areas where few organisms can survive,” according to study author Marco Springmann of the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food at the University of Oxford.
CNN adds: For an example of how animal foods compare with plant-based foods in terms of environmental effects, consider that “beef is more than 100 times as emissions-intensive as legumes,” Springmann said. “This is because a cow needs, on average, 10 kilograms of feed, often from grains, to grow 1 kilogram of body weight, and that feed will have required water, land and fertilizer inputs to grow.”
If you are not ready to give up meat entirely, a flexitarian diet, which is predominantly plant-based, can help. This diet includes plenty of fruits, vegetables and plant-based protein sources including legumes, soybeans and nuts, along with modest amounts of poultry, fish, milk and eggs, and small amounts of red meat.