Today’s meat consumption is a good example. Meat and dairy are increasingly under the world’s microscope as livestock—which rely on huge quantities of feed crops and occupy nearly 80 percent of global farmland—accounts for between 14 percent and 30 percent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It’s also the source of more frequent antimicrobial-resistant pathogens, and much of the global livestock and seafood industries have been exposed for unsafe and abusive working conditions.

This complex web of problems requires more than one answer. And yet “alternative proteins”—from plant-based to lab-grown “fake” meat and dairy—are being promoted as a simple solution. Products like the Impossible Burger, with its 15-plus ingredients, are now in supermarkets and fast food establishments worldwide. Lab-grown chicken has been on the market in Singapore since late 2020 and will likely soon be approved in the U.S. and elsewhere. These products are being sold as a “win-win-win” for animals, people, and the planet. According to Patrick Brown, the outspoken CEO of Impossible Foods, livestock is “the most destructive technology on earth,” and meat substitutes are “the last chance to save the planet.”

Dramatic claims about plant-based meat, lab-grown meat, and “cellular agriculture” have already succeeded in drawing billions of dollars to the sector, including from big-name investors like Bill Gates and Richard Branson. Governments are now paying attention as well. China is readying major investment in lab-grown meat as part of its latest Five-Year Agricultural Plan, and the U.S. government is ploughing $10 million into a National Institute for Cellular Agriculture. Denmark is also backing alternative proteins through a $98 million plant-based food fund.

But these products and their sustainability credentials rest on shaky ground, as I show in a new report out today, “The Politics of Protein,” from the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food).

Firstly, the idea that these alternative proteins can save the planet is highly speculative. These claims are based on a narrow assessment of which products can deliver the most protein for the least CO2. But that doesn’t tell the whole story. Products like the Impossible Burger and Beyond Burger source their ingredients from chemical-intensive (and therefore fossil fuel-intensive) monocultures and rely on heavy processing—all of which has major impacts on human health, biodiversity, and climate change.

Factory farming clearly has huge impacts of its own, but the environmental and social impacts of livestock vary massively. In some parts of the world, raising animals helps to use limited land and resources efficiently, buffer against food shocks, and provide livelihoods where few options are available. Livestock contributes to the livelihoods of 1.7 billion smallholder farmers in the Global South, and plays a crucial economic role for approximately 60 percent of rural households in developing countries.

Highly processed alternative proteins may therefore be more harmful than animal source foods in some contexts, depending on how they are produced.

Secondly, the idea that these products can “disrupt” the status quo and challenge the power of the corporate food industry is highly misleading. Start-ups may have initiated the boom, but nearly all of the world’s meat and dairy giants have now rolled out their own “fake meats” or bought up existing players. Nestlé, for example, has acquired Sweet Earth, while Unilever has bought up The Vegetarian Butcher. JBS, the world’s largest meat processor, has snapped up another market-leading meat-free brand, Vivera, adding to its portfolio of more than 100 brands—including organic meat lines.

Many of these corporations are also investing heavily in lab-grown meat and seafood manufacturers in the hope that these products will soon be market-ready. These are the exact same firms that dominate sales of conventional (factory-farmed) meat and dairy, i.e., the products that alternative proteins are supposed to replace. As a result, it is becoming increasingly difficult for consumers to know who is behind the brands, and increasingly hard to avoid the world’s agribusiness giants—even when opting for a so-called alternative product.

Thirdly, plant-based and lab-grown meats are being promoted on the basis that they are the only alternatives that people are willing to eat. In reality, eating habits can and do change dramatically, as evidenced by the fact that meat and fish consumption has doubled over the last half century. Another major dietary shift—toward more diverse diets and less processed foods—is now possible, and urgently needed.

But rather than accelerate this change, alternative proteins are likely to reinforce “center of the plate” diets that are insufficiently varied and heavy on processed foods (whether that central item is conventional meat or an imitation). So far, rising consumption of alternative protein purchases has not led to a reduction in meat and dairy sales.

The food industry in fact has a long history of reshaping eating habits not for the good of society but for their own bottom line–e.g., it invented fish sticks to dispose of large blocks of frozen fish, and high-fructose corn syrup in response to a rapid increase in U.S. corn production.

Finally, these products promise to get people more protein with less damage, but do we really need more protein or new sources of it? Although we’ve been told for decades that more protein is needed to feed a growing population, most people in the Western world eat much more protein than their bodies can use there is no global protein shortage. Even most children in low-income countries are getting enough high-qualty protein.

Protein deficiencies are rare, but are most prevalent in parts of the world that have insufficient access to food more generally. In other words, what we see is not a protein gap, but a food gap. But by framing the debate so narrowly, companies have helped focus attention on simplistic silver bullet solutions—which are not simple at all.

The hype around alternative proteins also diverts our attention away from solutions that are already working on the ground: shifting to diversified agroecological production systems, strengthening territorial food chains and markets, and building “food environments” which increase access to healthy and sustainable diets. These pathways respond holistically to challenges whose breadth and depth have been well-evidenced. They entail transformative behavioral and structural shifts. They require sustainable food system transitions, not merely a protein transition. Yet without a consolidated set of claims and claim-makers behind them, these pathways are systematically sidelined.

How do we move toward systemic change instead? We can reclaim public resources from Big Protein and address concentration of power across the food system, including through new approaches to antitrust and competition law. We can also strengthen alternative supply chain infrastructures as a means to build up and support existing independent producers—not just those who start companies with the intention to sell them to the existing industry giants. And we can build regional food strategies that reconnect crops and livestock, use land and resources efficiently—and deliver on the multiple aspects of sustainability.

The rise of highly processed alternative proteins is symptomatic of broader problems in the way we approach food systems: looking through a narrow lens, focusing on breakthrough technologies, and listening to those who shout the loudest. It is time for governments to stop subsidizing the largest food processors in the world and further reinforcing their power, based on claims that are dubious at best and highly misleading at worst. Ultimately, we don’t just need to change the products we’re eating—we need to change the entire system.

This article has been updated to better reflect the number of ingredients in an Impossible Burger.