Reading
1 Choose four items that are not normally part of a plant-based diet. beef • cereals • lamb • meat substitutes • nuts • o il • peaches • peas • p rawns • rice • spinach • turkey 2 Read the article and choose the best summary. 1 We need to change our shopping habits to save the world.
4 Match the underlined words in the article with the definitions. 1 in or to another place 2 to make something better 3 fruit, vegetables or other natural products 4 make something suitable for a new purpose 5 however or despite what has just been said 6 The boxes, bottles, plastic, etc. used to wrap products so they can be sold Critical thinkers 5 According to the text, what explains people’s behaviour in relation to food, a, b or both? 1 People who buy plant-based meat … a buy it because it is next to other products they want. b are attracted by the packaging. 2 People aren’t eating more products made from microalgae … a because they are too expensive. b because they are difficult to produce.
2 Global warming is affecting plant production. 3 There are many differences between plant-based meat and red meat. 14 Read the text again and match the halves to make sentences. 1 To increase food production we’ll need to … 2 Buying misshapen fruit is a good way to … 3 Plant-based meat is better for the environment … 4 The golden banana was created … 5 Plants from the sea are … 6 Microalgae won’t be a big part of our diet … a prevent waste. b until we can grow a lot of them cheaply. c because people needed more nutritious food. d because animals use a lot of resources. e have a more plant-based diet. f already part of the diet in some countries. According to theWorld Resources Institute, we will need to increase food production by 70% by 2050 to feed the world’s population. This means we need to make a dramatic change to our diets. But how? Experts say it won’t be easy, but we can feed the world with a plant-based diet. We just have to rethink our traditional ideas about what we consume. First, we need to stop waste. Around 1.3 billion tons of food is thrown away every year. Much of that is fruit and vegetables that aren’t the right shape or size. We need to learn to love these ‘ugly’ fruit and vegetables! Many supermarkets now sell produce that is imperfect, but just as nutritious, at a huge discount. It’s time to start buying. We also need to eat less meat. free meat is already big business. For example, the Impossible Burger™ is now sold in over 10,000 restaurants in the US. The recipe includes apple, pea, potato and rice, and it’s become famous because, when you cut it, plant-based ‘blood’ comes out. Not all plant-based meat is healthy, however. It is often processed and high in salt, sugar and saturated fat. Nevertheless, plant-based meats do cut down on gas emissions from animals and excessive land and water use. For some of us, this isn’t an appealing idea, but animal-
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P L A N T I N G I D E A S F O R THE FUTURE
Scientists can also improve what nutrients we get from the plants we already love to eat. The golden banana is an example of their ability to adapt plants to increase nutritional content. They put genes from a Papua New Guinean banana with high levels of provitamin A into the common variety of banana to make the diet in other countries more healthy. This kind of technique could be used to make many different kinds of plants more nutritious – and also to make foods like peanuts less dangerous to those with allergies. Plant-based meat is also on sale in supermarkets. It now has similar packaging to meat products with images of animals, and it’s located next to meat instead of vegetarian products. This appeals to more consumers and it’s an important step in planting the idea that less meat can help save the planet. And it may be time to look elsewhere. Perhaps future
food will come from the plants in the sea rather than on land. Seaweed is already very popular in Asia. Microalgae – tiny photosynthetic sea plants which contain 50–70% protein – could be the next big thing. They can be mixed into bars or used to make plant-based meat healthier and tastier.
They don’t require much water and can even be grown in deserts. So why aren’t we buying them now?While algae grow easily on a small scale, producing large quantities is still a complex and expensive process. It’s a technical problem that won’t be solved very soon, but research continues. Will we be eating a more plant-based diet by 2050? What do you think?
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