Life Cycle Environmental Impacts and Health Effects of Protein-Rich Food as Meat Alternatives: A Review

Maurizio Cellura, Maria Anna Cusenza, Sonia Longo, Le Quyen Luu and Thomas Skurk
Additional contact information
Maurizio Cellura: Department of Energy, University of Palermo, Viale delle Scienze Bld. 9, 90128 Palermo, Italy
Maria Anna Cusenza: Department of Energy, University of Palermo, Viale delle Scienze Bld. 9, 90128 Palermo, Italy
Sonia Longo: Department of Energy, University of Palermo, Viale delle Scienze Bld. 9, 90128 Palermo, Italy
Le Quyen Luu: Department of Energy, University of Palermo, Viale delle Scienze Bld. 9, 90128 Palermo, Italy
Thomas Skurk: ZIEL Institute for Food and Health, Technical University of Munich, Gregor-Mendel-Straße 2, 85354 Freising, Germany

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 2, 1-25

Abstract: The food sector is responsible for a considerable impact on the environment in most environmental contexts: the food supply chain causes greenhouse gas emissions, water consumption, reduction in cultivable land, and other environmental impacts. Thus, a change in food supply is required to reduce the environmental impacts caused by the food supply chain and to meet the increasing demand for sufficient and qualitative nutrition. Large herds of livestock are inappropriate to achieve these goals due to the relevant impact of meat supply chain on the environment, e.g., the land used to grow feed for animals is eight times more than that for human nutrition. The search for meat alternatives, especially for the intake of critical nutrients such as protein, is a consequent step. In the above context, this paper summarizes the health aspects of protein-rich food alternatives to meat and carries out a literature review on the life-cycle environmental impacts of this alternative food.

Keywords: life cycle assessment; proteins; food; environmental sustainability human health (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/2/979/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/2/979/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:2:p:979-:d:725779

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().