Beefed-up vegetables take the place of meat
Plant-based dishes offer options for people who are not vegetarians
From juicy chicken chunks and sausage rolls to bacon and tuna, Dutch butcher Jaap Korteweg offers it all. But there’s a twist: none of the goods on display at his shop in The Hague is made from meat. Korteweg, a ninth-generation farmer, became a vegetarian out of concerns about animal welfare after millions of pigs were slaughtered to contain swine fever in the Netherlands in 1997. But he missed the taste and texture of meat so much that he got together with scientists and chefs to create plant substitutes that capture both. The reason there are relatively few vegetarians in many parts of the world "is not that people want to eat less sustainably, less healthily and don’t care about animal welfare, but because they are hooked on meat", Korteweg says. Rearing animals is a major driver of climate change — making up nearly 15% of all greenhouse gas emissions — and raising meat makes less efficient use of land and water than growing crops, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organi...
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