Meat Substitutes Would Spare Farmland but Leave Diets Short on Nutrients

A land-use modeling study published Oct. 21, 2026, in Nature Food reports that replacing meat with plant-based substitutes would cut farmland expansion and greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture and forestry, while also raising the risk of shortfalls in micronutrients, meaning vitamins and minerals.

Junqi Xiong and colleagues, including Drew Shindell, integrated the substitutes into a global land-use model to weigh the effects on nutrition, greenhouse gas emissions and the sustainability of the food system together rather than one at a time. The authors describe the products as designed to mimic the sensory properties of meat and as a possible way to move diets away from animal protein.

The authors report that the size of both effects depended on how far the substitution went. Replacing ruminant meat alone, meaning beef, lamb and other meat from grazing herds, achieved nearly half of the potential emission reductions at a relatively small nutritional cost. Substituting a broader range of livestock products delivered additional environmental benefits but markedly increased micronutrient deficiencies. Across regions the modeled diets showed diminishing returns, with each further substitution adding less than the one before.

These are model projections, not measurements of a diet anyone has eaten. The runs used version 4.6.11 of MAgPIE, an open-source land-use model, according to the paper's code-availability statement, which adds that the modified code is deposited on Zenodo. The regional results extend to 2100.

The authors recommend targeted policy support, sustainable land management and improved formulations of the products, which they say will be needed for fair dietary transitions and progress toward global climate and sustainability goals.