Nestlé's Sweet Earth brand appears to have been shut down, with its website now redirecting to Nestlé's homepage, VegNews reports [27].
02
A Bryant Research survey of 1,007 UK adults found 94 to 96 percent correctly said Quorn and THIS products contain no meat, a data point against label-confusion claims [40].
03
Muscle cells taken from cattle for cultured meat are mixed lineages, not one uniform cell type, so sourcing will need sorting [9].
04
Olive oil given before glucose blunted blood-sugar spikes in mice, a result nobody has yet tested in people [5].
05
Humbug damselfish trained in a T-maze switched between turn-based and landmark-based strategies, and turn direction predicted performance better than habitat complexity [35].
The Stories: the day’s biggest developments, in the sources’ own words
01▼Food & RecipesStory
Nestlé's Sweet Earth appears shuttered as the company trims its plant-based range
Photo: vegnews
Nestlé bought Sweet Earth in 2017, and VegNews reports the brand now appears inactive: its Instagram account is empty and its website redirects to Nestlé's homepage [27]. VegNews says Nestlé did not answer repeated requests about what happened [27]. The company also pulled its dairy-free KitKat in 2025, with a spokesperson citing falling global demand and complicated manufacturing, and has discontinued the Cowabunga and Wunda brands [27].
“We purchased Sweet Earth with the vision of trying to create a mainstream plant-based company”
Brian Swette, who with Kelly Swette acquired the Sweet Earth trademark in 2011, to Just Food in 2016 · [27]
“I legit want to cry every time I think about it”
r/vegan user on learning Benevolent Bacon was discontinued in 2023, community sentiment · [27]
By the numbers
More than 10,000US stores carried Sweet Earth products by the time Nestlé acquired the brand [27]
15European countries got dairy-free KitKat in 2022, before it was pulled in 2025 [27]
More than 120vegan products remain under Garden of Life, the plant-based line Nestlé still runs [27]
Bryant Research survey finds nearly all UK shoppers know Quorn and THIS products are meat-free
Photo: plant based news
Bryant Research showed 1,007 UK adults packaging for Quorn and THIS plant-based products and asked whether each contained meat from an animal; nearly all answered correctly [40]. Quorn's pack puts meat-free directly above sausages, and THIS's says 100 percent plant-based, so the test covered two products with plain disclaimers [40]. It lands as the EU's label rules keep the word sausage for alternative proteins and bar chicken [40].
“This is strong evidence against the claim that consumers are confused”
Chris Bryant, executive director, Bryant Research · [40]
By the numbers
Ninety-six percentcorrectly said Quorn Meat-Free Sausages do not contain animal meat [40]
94 percentcorrectly said THIS Isn't Chicken does not contain animal meat [40]
Five percentweren't sure about the THIS chicken pieces, against two percent who didn't know about the Quorn sausages [40]
Study of Thai-French crossbred cattle finds cultured-meat muscle cells are mixed lineages
Wikimedia Commons / Cultured meat
A Veterinary World study isolated CD29-positive muscle-derived cells from adult Thai-French crossbred cattle and sorted them into satellite cells and fibro-adipogenic progenitors [9]. It found the cells are spatial mixtures of lineage-committed types rather than a uniformly bipotent population, so what a batch becomes depends on the mix it started with [9]. The detailed characterization rests on three samples from a single donor [9].
“the marked spatial heterogeneity highlights the need for subpopulation-aware cell sourcing and quality control to improve reproducibility in cultured meat production”
Saisomboon et al., study authors, Veterinary World · [9]
By the numbers
4.3:95.1 to 96.0:3.8satellite-cell to fibro-adipogenic-progenitor ratio across three chuck roll locations from one animal [9]
5.13 ± 1.23 × 10⁵viable cells per gram of tissue from the simplified isolation protocol [9]
6-8-foldproliferative capacity in early passages for both cell types [9]
FromPubMed
04▬Research & NutritionStory
Kyoto team finds olive oil before glucose blunted blood-sugar spikes in mice
Photo: sciencedaily
Researchers at Kyoto University gave mice olive oil before a glucose dose and recorded a smaller early blood-sugar rise and slower gastric emptying than when the oil came after [1][5]. The effect appeared in diabetic mice too, and blocking both glucagon and GLP-1 signaling, or ligating the vagus nerves, weakened it [5]. All of this is in mice; the authors point to testing meal sequencing in humans as the next step [5].
“Meal-sequencing is appealing because it merely changes how a meal is eaten rather than requiring people to avoid entire food groups.”
Daisuke Yabe, corresponding author, Kyoto University · [1]
“supporting evaluation of meal sequencing in humans”
15 minutesbetween the olive oil and the glucose dose in the oil-first group [1]
FromDiet and Weight Loss News -- ScienceDailyPrimary Sources
Worth Knowing
Food & Recipes
Cashew cream pumpkin pasta: cauliflower, raw cashews and pumpkin purée blended with nutritional yeast and tossed through penne, with sage on top [30].
Law & Policy
The Food Standards Agency told UK businesses to withdraw and recall eggs from one Ukrainian supplier after UKHSA linked the Salmonella Enteritidis strain found in them to 36 cases in England in 2026, and said UK-produced eggs are not affected [39].
Research & Nutrition
Polyethylene microplastics raised markers of fatty liver disease in mice, and more so alongside a diet rich in fat, fructose and cholesterol, Texas A&M researchers reported in Science Advances [2][4].
A commentary in Nutrition and Health says industrial-scale cultivated meat could offer tighter hygiene control and batch-level traceability, while listing energy demand, culture media, scale-up, ownership concentration, price and consumer trust as open constraints [8].
A Food and Chemical Toxicology review argues novel proteins from precision fermentation, insects and cell-cultured systems are arriving faster than toxicology workflows can assess their allergenicity, and proposes an AI-assisted weight-of-evidence framework [21].
Wins & Culture
Michael Greger says in a Plant Based Science London video that about a teaspoon a day of dried barberries is enough to significantly lower cholesterol; the wider benefits the video lists come from a narrative review and animal research [42].
One Good Thing
The Six Vegan Sisters Everyday Cookbook has a Texas sheet cake that asks very little: a 13 x 18-inch pan, 18 to 22 minutes in the oven, vegan butter, and soy milk curdled with lemon juice. Warm cocoa icing goes on a few minutes after it comes out, and the whole tray cuts into 24 squares. The book's pitch is a dessert that is easy to share at birthdays, parties and potlucks, and a tray that size does exactly that [41].
