EU deal threatens UK cultivated meat, but vegan cancer evidence builds
Cultivated meat startup BeneMeat says UK investment is on hold as a looming EU trade deal threatens to void Britain's fast-track approvals for lab-grown meat.
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Cultivated meat startup BeneMeat says UK investment is on hold as a looming EU trade deal threatens to void Britain's fast-track approvals for lab-grown meat [72].
02
A 12-week RCT found a self-selected vegan diet shrank thigh muscle in adults over 65, though resistance training cut the loss roughly in half [20].
03
A meta-analysis of seven prospective studies found vegans have 23% lower total cancer risk than non-vegetarians [32].
04
The EU's rewritten procurement rules let public buyers favor animal welfare and nutrition in €50 billion of annual food contracts, but don't require it [74].
05
Just 20% of US men know dairy raises prostate cancer risk, though 66% said they'd cut it out once told, a new PCRM survey found [9].
06
Voyage Foods dropped its retail line to focus on supplying cocoa-free chocolate and beanless coffee to Cargill and other food giants [73].
BeneMeat stalls UK plans as EU deal threatens cultivated meat rules
Photo: green queen
BeneMeat and other cultivated meat startups are freezing UK investment as Britain negotiates a new food-trade agreement with the EU, according to an open letter to Prime Minister Andy Burnham [72]. The UK's Food Standards Agency has warned roughly 600 approval holders that the deal could void their UK clearances and force them back through the EU's novel food process, which can take up to six years [72]. Only one company, Meatly, has cleared cultivated meat for sale in Britain so far, and only for pet food [72].
“Companies need to know whether Britain intends to remain a place where emerging food biotechnologies can be developed and commercialised. Without that clarity, investment, partnerships and expertise will move elsewhere.”
Vegan diet shrinks thigh muscle in over-65s, RCT finds
Anna Shvets (via Pexels)
A 12-week randomized trial found that healthy adults over 65 who switched to a self-selected vegan diet cut their protein intake and lost measurable thigh muscle compared with adults who kept eating their usual omnivorous diet [20]. Muscle protein synthesis also ran slower on the vegan diet [20]. Vegan dieters who added resistance exercise lost about half as much muscle as those who didn't train, the same trial found [20].
By the numbers
-27.7 g/daydrop in protein intake in the vegan group within the first week, compared with baseline [20]
-0.61 Ldecline in thigh muscle volume over 12 weeks on the vegan diet, versus no significant change on the omnivorous diet [20]
-0.35 Ldecline in thigh muscle volume for vegans who added resistance exercise, roughly half the loss of diet alone [20]
FromPubMed
03▲Research & NutritionStory
Meta-analysis finds vegan diets cut cancer risk by up to 23%
Wikimedia Commons / Kale
A systematic review and meta-analysis of seventeen publications from seven prospective studies found vegetarians and vegans develop less cancer than people who eat meat [32]. Using World Cancer Research Fund criteria, the reviewers rated the evidence "probable" that vegetarian diets lower the risk of total, colorectal, colon and breast cancer, and "limited-suggestive" for vegan diets and total and breast cancer [32]. Body mass index explained only a moderate part of the effect [32].
By the numbers
23% lowerrisk of total cancer in vegans compared with non-vegetarians (RR 0.77) [32]
13% lowerrisk of total cancer in vegetarians compared with non-vegetarians (RR 0.87) [32]
20% lowerrisk of breast cancer in vegans compared with non-vegetarians (RR 0.80) [32]
FromPubMed
04▬Law & PolicyStory
EU proposal lets food buyers weigh animal welfare, stops short of mandate
Photo: vegconomist
The European Commission's proposed Public Procurement Act, presented September 9, gives food its own article for the first time, letting public buyers weigh nutrition, animal welfare and supply-chain transparency when awarding roughly €50 billion a year in school, hospital and care-home food contracts [74]. ProVeg International, which campaigned for the provision, says the text grants permission rather than an obligation, since sustainability criteria stay optional and "comply or explain" clauses remain [74]. The proposal now moves to the European Parliament and Council for negotiation [74].
“Food is not a commodity like any other. What public institutions buy and serve directly impacts people's health, farmers, communities, and the environment.”
Lucia Hortelano, Senior EU Policy Manager, ProVeg International · [74]
By the numbers
€50 billiona year in EU public food procurement that could now weigh animal welfare and nutrition [74]
€11.61 billionin estimated annual savings if 85% of EU public food budgets shifted to plant-source foods, per ProVeg-commissioned modeling [74]
WatchThe proposal enters co-legislative negotiation with the European Parliament and Council [74].
Fromvegconomist the vegan business magazine
Worth Knowing
Food & Recipes
Bake a batch of one-bowl Vegan Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins, finished with a sweet-tart lemon glaze [61].
Canada's trade tribunal recommended tariff quotas on canned vegetable imports after finding they hurt domestic producers, keeping the US in scope [62].
Spain's largest vegetable grower, Primaflor, acquired supplier Zanobeet to add beetroot, red onion and sweet potato to its range [63].
Research & Nutrition
A whole-food plant-based diet cut LDL cholesterol 17.9% versus a standard American diet in a fully controlled crossover trial for people with familial hypercholesterolemia [27].
Swapping red meat for processed plant-based meat lowered TMAO, a marker tied to heart disease risk, in the randomized crossover FOOD-1 trial [34].
A pulse-based diet produced a bigger ferritin increase and a greater drop in visceral-to-total fat ratio than an equivalent meat-based diet in adults over 60 (PRODMED1) [26].
Plant-based diets were tied to 26% lower risk of cognitive impairment and dementia across a dose-response meta-analysis of seven cohort studies [37].
A meta-analysis of 456,783 adults found plant-based diets tied to 18% lower odds of hypertension [31].
Recreational runners and lifters at four universities saw no significant performance drop after switching to a plant-based diet in a randomized crossover study [38].
Researchers say fertilized egg white could replace up to 80% of the fetal bovine serum currently used to grow cultured muscle cells [51].
Innovation
BeneMeat researchers published a peer-reviewed safety review arguing cultivated meat's "immortalized" cell lines are not comparable to cancer cells [76].
Law & Policy
Belgian police and Europol broke up a horse meat fraud network accused of using falsified microchips to sell horses unfit for human consumption [97].
One Good Thing
Twenty-two women with fibromyalgia in Spain's FIBROVEG trial switched to a vegan Mediterranean diet for six weeks, and their pain scores dropped enough to notice: the trial's pain measure fell by 1.88 points, more than the traditional Mediterranean diet managed [24]. Fibromyalgia has no cure and few treatments that reliably touch the pain, so six weeks of legumes and vegetables beating a well-regarded heart-healthy diet is worth sitting with. Small trial, real relief, no lecture required.
vegconomist the vegan business magazine