Vegan Brief August 8, 2026
JBS launched a $5 billion joint venture with Indonesia's sovereign wealth fund to expand meat production across Asia-Pacific, Australia and New Zealand.
Just Food
vegconomist the vegan business magazine“We show plants can be engineered to produce the animal protein myoglobin in their chloroplasts, the energy factories for photosynthesis. This could provide a more sustainable way to produce an important ingredient for plant-based meat products.”
“We hope that edible lettuce, modified to express myoglobin, could also one day serve as a heme-iron-enriched biofortified food, depending on legislative approval.”
Early"plant-derived myoglobin could achieve protein yields per hectare that rival – or even potentially exceed – those of animal agriculture" (the study's authors) [97]. The same trial found tobacco- and lettuce-grown myoglobin at a fraction of animal-muscle concentration and only 35% functional, a lab proof-of-concept rather than a demonstrated yield advantage.
“The longer transfers to Spain and California are unnecessarily stressful for these animals, none of whom are fully well.”
Wild capuchin monkeys in Brazil don't grab just any rock to crack nuts. When choosing an anvil stone, researchers found they favor one already battered from past use over a harder, technically better stone sitting right next to it, even when it isn't the mechanically optimal choice [124]. The monkeys are reading the wear marks other monkeys left behind, a form of social learning that needs no direct teaching, just evidence. It's a small proof that the animals this newsletter fights for are already doing more thinking than most people assume.
Recipe of the day · Vegan Food & Living
Crispy, vibrant, and packed with flavourful beetroot, chickpea and parsley, these vegan filo pastry straws make a crowd-pleasing party food.
