Animal Ethics Project

OK, Google, where’s the beef?

Slowly, steadily and stealthily, Google has been slipping more and more mushrooms into burgers it serves to workers, while cutting back on the meat. That’s according to a new report on worker-feeding habits at the Mountain View tech giant, whose famously free employee cafeterias offer a multitude of cuisines in upscale food court style.

“Google has slowly increased the percentage of mushrooms in the patty from 20 percent to 50 percent,” said a Fast Company report, referring to the “blended” burger, which falls into the menu group Google calls “flipped” – vegetable-heavy takes on traditional meat dishes.

The surreptitious substitution in the burgers is part of a broader effort to fill Googlers’ bellies with more plant-based foods and less meat, according to the report. “You can’t expect everyone to start loving lentils day one,” Scott Giambastiani, Google’s global food program chef, told Fast Company.

“It’s moving people along a continuum, whether people are eating red meat every day and you ask them to start eating a little more white meat, or they’re already on a white meat kick and it’s a little bit more seafood, or moving even further along to alternative proteins or produce.” When Fast Company visited 14 Google cafeteria food stations, it found that each one “subtly nudges diners to make one choice in particular: eat less meat.

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On Monday, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña joined Brooklyn’s borough president, Eric Adams, to announce the launch of a Meatless Monday pilot program in 15 Brooklyn schools. Beginning this spring, the schools will serve an exclusively vegetarian breakfast and lunch every Monday to 7,500 students. Menus will include tasty choices like crispy tofu, black bean quesadillas, and roasted chickpea tagine.

Over 300,000 more vegetarian meals will be served in public schools under the new program this year. This will not only spare countless animals from lives of extreme abuse and neglect at factory farms and slaughterhouses but also give children a foundation in healthy, humane, and sustainable eating.

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Our global focus on producing cheap meat, dairy, and other animal products has put the planet in an incredibly difficult spot. Around half of the world’s arable land and a majority of our freshwater stores are dedicated to grazing livestock and growing feed – and yet, nearly one billion people currently suffering from hunger. If our collective demand for animal products continues to grow as we approach a population of 9.8 billion by 2050, we simply won’t have the space or water needed to keep up.

The question of how we’re going to meet the protein needs of the planet is rapidly becoming the biggest challenge of our time. But for some of the world’s top food producers and business owners, they have found the answer: lab-grown, cultured “clean” meat.

That’s right, it was recently announced that Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Jack and Suzy Welch, Kyle Vogt, Kimbal Musk, New Crop Capital (Bruce Friedrich, the managing trustee, who was recently featured on #EatForThePlanet with Nil Zacharias) SOSV, Fifty Years, Inevitable Ventures, top venture capital fund DFJ, as well as Europe’s largest venture capital firm Atomico, and KBW Ventures (led by Prince Khaled, who was also recently interviewed)  have all invested in Memphis Meats, a San Franciso-based clean meat company.

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VANCOUVER — Lobby groups for the meat and dairy sectors are up in arms over indications that Canada’s next food guide could discourage the consumption of beef, butter and cheese.

The guide, expected to be released early next year after its first overhaul in a decade, has been instrumental in teaching generations the importance of nutrition and a balanced diet. And while it may not be Health Canada’s intention, it can also serve as a key marketing tool for certain food industries.

Earlier this year, Health Canada published guiding principles and recommendations, one of which promotes eating more protein-rich foods derived from plants.

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We’re often described as lazy, entitled, and unwilling to leave our parents’ homes. But this isn’t the truth, nor is it what I’m here to discuss. We need to talk about what we’re eating and how it affects the world, our health, and the countless animals at factory farms.

We’re not only the world’s largest generation; we’re the largest generation of self-identified vegetarians and vegans. Concerned about health, the environment, and animal welfare, nearly 12 percent of us avoid animal products.

While it’s great that so many of us care, it’s important that we all understand the negative impact that eating meat, dairy, and eggs has on the world.

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Geumdeung and Depo are two indo-pacific bottlenose dolphins who were illegally captured off the coast of Jeju Island in South Korea back in 1997 and 1998. Now, after 20 years, the two animals will finally be given their freedom! The wonderful news was shared by the Oceanic Preservation Society (OPS), who has been following the work of HotPinkDolphins, a marine mammals welfare organization based in South Korea, as they rehabilitated the dolphins.

In spite of how much time Geumdeung and Depo spent in captivity, in conditions very different from what they would be in their natural habitat, both animals are doing very well in the sea pen where they were transported on May 22, 2017. In the sea pen, they were able to readjust to life in the ocean, learning how to navigate currents and catch live fish all over again.

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