As more alternative protein companies make their way onto supermarket shelves and restaurant menus, their business models and promises of impact are coming under increasing criticism. Skeptics wonder how healthy plant-based burgers, sausages and milks are, what the actual environmental footprint of startups is, and how they contribute to a more just and regenerative economy.

Let’s unpack these arguments, debunk some of the myths behind them, and examine where food innovators have room to grow.

Critique 1: Alternative protein startups don’t disclose their emissions – so we can’t know if their products are, in fact, more sustainable.

This argument began to gain traction after the New York Times published a article in November with reviews that question the environmental footprint of plant-based meat companies. They argue that we shouldn’t take their sustainability claims at face value, because even high-profile players like Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat haven’t publicly disclosed their emissions.

“It’s really a black box,” Ricardo San Martin, research director of the alternative meats program at the University of California, Berkeley, Told the New York Times. “A lot of what’s in these products is undisclosed. Everyone has a supply chain, and there’s a carbon footprint behind that chain.” San Martin’s point on supply chain emissions is correct, but it draws the wrong conclusions.

According to Julie Nash, Food and Forests Program Director at Ceres, 80-90% of food companies’ emissions occur in their supply chains. They come from farms and the conversion of natural ecosystems such as forests and grasslands to cropland. There is ample scientific proof in the form of life cycle analyzes and other assessments verifying that plant-based ingredients produce a fraction of the emissions of their animal-based counterparts. For instance, peas are an essential ingredient in many plant foods and emit 0.8 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilogram of food. The carbon intensity of beef is 75 times higher.

The combination of these two facts – the dominance of supply chain emissions in food and the much lower carbon intensity of the plant-based ingredients that make up alternative protein supply chains – makes the claims of fair industry sustainability. (Even though they haven’t reported their emissions, which they should.)

This comparative advantage in terms of sustainability also holds in the face of the criticism that plant-based companies “source ingredients from chemical-intensive (and therefore fossil fuel-intensive) monocultures and rely on heavy processing”. Meat companies use the same farming practices to grow soybeans and corn for animal feed. But by raising animals with them instead of directly feeding people, their emissions are 75 times higher, as explained above.

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Critique 2: Alternative proteins are highly processed, unhealthy junk food – we should be eating “real food” instead.

My instinct is to blame Michael Pollan for the sentiment behind this argument. He was instruct people to avoid eating foods that their grandmother would not recognize as such and foods with more than five ingredients or ingredients that are difficult to pronounce. Instead, he wants people to eat “real food” – mostly vegetables, fruits, nuts, whole grains, and small amounts of fish and meat.

I generally agree with Pollan’s recommendations and understand that eating too many highly processed foods loaded with sugar, salt, and trans fats is the leading cause of disease and premature death in the United States. But this is not a pragmatic way to quickly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. There are simply too many barriers preventing radical dietary change and not enough political momentum to correct consumer preferences, knowledge and culinary abilities while making whole foods more accessible and affordable.

It’s also unfair to let out widespread frustration with the American food system on alternative protein companies. Their goal was never to replace healthy homemade lentil soups or tackle the cases of eggs at San Francisco’s $10 farmer’s market. The industry is trying to provide a more sustainable and humane alternative to factory-farmed meat and dairy while still providing some nutritional benefits.

When a Burger King customer opts for an Impossible Whopper over a beef-based burger, they’re not replacing real healthy food with fake unhealthy food. The change hardly influences the client’s well-being. But it can have a profound planetary impact on a large scale. In fact, switching to plant-based proteins is a prerequisite for success in limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Plus, it’s not the processing technologies that make many ultra-processed foods unhealthy. The ingredients are in question. Highly processed foods can be relatively healthy if designed properly. The most recent wave of “clean-label” plant-based brands, including Akua, Nowadays and No bad foodsgoes in this direction.

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Critique 3: Alternative protein companies perpetuate existing power structures in the food system instead of supporting a transition to a just and regenerative economy.

This argument is the latest popular addition to the alternative protein squabble, sparked by a report by the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (iPES-Food) examining the “Protein Policypublished in April. The authors claim that plant-based startups are not sourcing ingredients from sustainable farms (see explanation above) and that the industry is fail to “‘disrupt’ the status quo and challenge the power of the corporate food industry.”

iPES-Food bases this last argument on the observation of more and more large food companies such as Nestlé, Unilever and JBS acquiring startups and developing their own lines of plant-based products. Corporate interest in alternative proteins is undoubtedly growing. Overall, however, the meat and dairy industry is always putting more eggs in the basket charged with lobbying against the growth of plant-based alternatives. So there is even less corporate buy-in than many think.

Ultimately, it’s a false pair to ask people to choose a side – either in favor of alternative proteins or in favor of a more radical transformation of food systems.

Others take issue with the expensive proprietary technologies needed to produce sophisticated meat substitutes that pose high barriers to entry into this increasingly lucrative market.

While I wish alternative proteins were a silver bullet to today’s complex social and environmental challenges, I agree that they are not. Plant-based startups do not dismantle the financial and political power structures of the food system. They are not here to start a revolution. Quite the contrary: plant-based foods are designed to integrate seamlessly with manufacturing and retail systems as well as consumer behavior and preferences.

There is a good reason behind this strategy. By working within the existing food system instead of tearing it apart, they can scale faster and more cost-effectively. To attack the industry for this strategy would be tantamount to accusing Tesla of building electric cars instead of public transportation infrastructure. Yes, I would like to see better public transport. But I will also gladly take electric cars.

Ultimately, it’s a false pair to ask people to choose a side – either in favor of alternative proteins or in favor of a more radical transformation of food systems. The existence and growth of the two are not in contradiction, as food scientists Jan Dutkiewicz and Garret Broad explained in a recent editorial. We desperately need all the solutions that can improve the social, health and environmental outcomes of our food systems in one way or another.

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