Activist and author Jacy Reese thinks the world is on the precipice of a technological shift that could end animal farming forever, changing the way the world eats and dramatically improving the environment. “There are practical reasons that make me optimistic, but I do worry about the next decade or two,” Reese told me over the phone.

The Canadian government is showing its support for vegan protein once again by signing on to a nearly $153 million investment in the Prairie-based Protein Industries Canada Supercluster. Protein Industries Canada is a nonprofit value chain group of small-to-large institutions involved in food manufacturing, agriculture and food-related services, research and development, and technology; it seeks to make Canada a world leader in the booming plant-based protein market.

Jacy Reese thinks that someday, we’ll look back on factory farming as one of the greatest moral mistakes in history. In his new book, The End of Animal Farming, he lays out a road map to get us to that point. Reese is the co-founder of the Sentience Institute, an organization that researches effective animal advocacy. According to Reese, the first step toward a meatless future is developing better alternatives...

The vegan Beyond Burger has finally arrived in Tesco supermarkets across the UK. The much-anticipated plant-based burger made by California-based vegan protein brand Beyond Meat was spotted by Instagram user Vicki at an unnamed Tesco location. According to a comment on the post, some stores have already sold out.

Imagine if instead of raising a whole chicken for slaughter, it was possible to pop a feather in a machine, and grow a chicken nugget. That's basically what a San Francisco-based company says it has figured out how to do. It claims the process - from feather to nugget - takes about two days.

American fast-food sandwich chain Subway is trialing a vegan version of its veggie patty at select UK locations. Word of Subway’s vegan patty spread via the Facebook group Vegan Food UK, an online community where residents throughout the nation share their plant-based finds. The new sandwich option was spotted at the Wigan location in Greater Manchester.

On August 5, 2013, Dutch scientist Mark Post presented to the world the first lab-grown burger ever created. The event took place in London, the burger was cooked by chef Richard McGeown, and only Hanni Ruetzler and Josh Schonwald – two food critics – could taste it. Hanni Ruetzler said that it tasted like meat, “just not as juicy.”

Yes, Impossible Foods tested heme, their new ingredient found in the Impossible Burger, on animals. This was done in order to receive their no questions letter from the FDA, which they recently received. Find out why it's OK for vegans to support Impossible Foods and the Impossible Burger.

As the environmental, animal welfare, and human health concerns involved with eating meat, dairy, and eggs have come to light in recent years, many Americans have begun embracing a plant-based diet. However, some are still skeptical as to whether swapping out meat and dairy for plants actually does THAT much to help our Earth. They wonder, does following a plant-based diet significantly reduce environmental impact as compared to eating in the traditional, meat-centric American way?

A new lab-grown meat startup called Meatable is taking on the industry's key hurdle by coming up with a way to make truly slaughter-free meat without relying on cow fetus blood, or "serum." The Dutch startup partnered with Cambridge and uses proprietary stem cell technology for faster production.

Major supermarket Sainsbury's is launching new vegan meat products in stores across the UK this month. The products - mince and burgers - are made by plant-based startup The Meatless Farm Co and described by the company as 'competitively priced' at RRP £3.00 and £2.50 respectively. They are one of many recent plant-based launches for Sainsbury's, as it caters to growing consumer demand for vegetarian and vegan food.

Earlier this year in Canada, fast-food chain A&W added the vegan Beyond Burger to its menu. Within a month, the burger was no longer available due to a shortage of the plant protein used to make it. Now, a Canadian federal program has set aside $153 million in funding to enable the country to provide more plant-based protein. Once finalized, the allocation will expand Canada’s capacity to process peas and beans, allowing the country to meet the growing demand for vegan products like the Beyond Burger.

JUST Foods (formerly Hampton Creek) is an innovative plant-based food company most widely known for their mayos and spreads. Earlier this year, they debuted a new product, the Just Egg, an animal-free scrambled egg alternative made from mung beans, and its popularity has already soared, filling in the long-standing need for more vegan egg alternatives.

While many types of veggie burgers are made with thought and care, most come out like a weirdly textured, flavorless puck that tastes like anything but real meat. But one company has done what used to seem like the impossible: create an entirely plant-based burger that could probably fool most carnivores. Appropriately called the "Impossible Burger," the beefy, but beef-free creation is available at chef David Chang's New York City restaurant Nishi.

The United States' largest meat processor is investing money in a company that makes artificial meat products from vegetables. Tyson Foods has announced that it is spending an undisclosed amount to acquire a 5 percent stake in Beyond Meat, the company behind the Beyond Burger — a fully vegan product that supposedly "bleeds" like a real beef burger. The deal is one of the first major investments by a major player in the meat industry into plant-based proteins, and seems to mark an increase in quality of meat replacement and alternative products.

Vertical farms, food trucks, tropical forests and the supermarket of the future are on display at Expo 2015 in Milan. Exhibits from 145 countries focus on how to feed the planet sustainably.

Food 3D printing is exciting stuff! 3D Printing Industry gives a run down of 11 food 3D printing endeavors out in the world today.

It tastes like chicken. So how is this chicken made? Memphis Meats’ in-house senior scientist Eric Schulze explained the process to Eater in broad strokes. “We start by harvesting sells from high-quality, living chickens that might otherwise go into conventional meat,” he says. “The chickens are not killed in the process. We look for cells that have potential to renew, put them in environment where they can grow and feed them water and nutrients — vitamins, minerals, proteins, sugars — and let them grow.”

Pregnancy, meat eating, and fossil fuels will all one day be unthinkable. I often wonder what people in the future will find barbaric about my life. We tend to look back on our ancestors with a mix of amusement and disgust: amusement that those poor fools managed to survive without things like toilets, electricity, and selfies; disgust that their lives were filled with things we find vile. But are we any better?

San Francisco-based startup Memphis Meats says it has made the world's first lab-grown chicken strips from animal cells. On March 14, Memphis Meats invited a handful of taste-testers to their kitchen to try it. And according to the company, they said it tastes just like chicken. "It is thrilling to introduce the first chicken and duck that didn’t require raising animals. This is a historic moment for the clean meat movement," Memphis Meats' cofounder and CEO, Uma Valeti, said in a press release.

They're also more willing to eat dog, cat, and horse meat if it's grown in a lab.

A multibillion-dollar court battle is raging in a small South Dakota town between a former heavyweight meat producer and one of TV’s Big Three networks.

The maker of vegan mayonnaise has been working on getting lab-made meat onto dinner tables everywhere. It’s just that nobody knew about it. Hampton Creek—a company that built its name on plant-based condiments and vegan-friendly cookie doughs—today revealed that, for the last year, it has been secretly developing the technology necessary for producing lab-made meat and seafood, or as the industry likes to call it, “clean meat.”

We can produce the food that people crave without using livestock, pledges Pat Brown founder of the ‘veggie burger that bleeds’.

Burgers made from plants instead of animals are capturing more space on U.S. barbecue grills this summer, fueling sales in the niche products that could reach $5 billion globally by 2020. Plant-based meat foods are now available that include beet juice for color and canola oil to simulate fat. These changes are not only pulling in consumers but also one of the powerhouses in traditional meat production, Tyson Foods Inc.

Impossible Foods CEO Pat Brown argues the merits of plant-based burgers on Too Embarrassed to Ask.

It was announced this week that all slaughterhouses in England will have to install CCTV cameras, in a Government move to try to improve animal welfare on UK farms. As a lover of animals, you’d think I would be thrilled at this news. Instead I can’t help but continue to wonder why on earth we are killing animals in the first place. It shouldn’t be a question of whether or not it’s caught on camera.

The vast majority of coastal countries on Earth are missing out on a valuable resource to ensure future food security, according to newly published research. Published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, the research has found that the world’s oceans contain numerous “hot spots” for marine aquaculture, or ocean-based fish farms, which could produce 15 billion tonnes of fish every year: over 100 times current seafood consumption globally.

You can now tuck in to a meat-free burger that looks and tastes just like a McDonald’s Quarter Pounder — even its texture is the same. The global fast food industry, worth $539.63bn in 2016, is undergoing a period of change as newcomers challenge the dominance of household names like Burger King, KFC, Wendy’s and Five Guys.

Cargill Inc., one of the largest global agricultural companies, has joined Bill Gates and other business giants to invest in a nascent technology to make meat from self-producing animal cells amid rising consumer demand for protein that’s less reliant on feed, land and water.

Join WIRED for the deepest dive yet into the science of the Impossible Burger, the genetically engineered fake meat on a mission to upend the beef industry.

On the outside, Impossible Foods' new manufacturing plant in Oakland, California, looks like all of the other nondescript warehouses bordering the massive building. But inside, company founder Pat Brown believes a revolution is happening. Brown, a former Stanford biochemist, used his scientific background to create fake "meat" using the active ingredient soy leghemoglobin, which he says makes the burger appealing to meat lovers.

Plant-based diets, often cited as a craze driven by millennials, are gaining increasing popularity. According to research by HealthFocus, 60% of consumers are reducing their meat intake - and a massive 17% of 15-70 year olds now follow a ‘predominantly’ plant-based diet. What’s more, 55% of people who start eating a more plant-based diet say they plan to stick with it permanently. What was once called a ‘food fad’ looks like it’s here to stay.

Today we welcomed Leonardo DiCaprio to the Beyond Meat family as an official investor and advocate. Our relationship with Leo began a few years back when he first visited our research center and subsequently provided feedback on early iterations of The Beyond Burger. Leo shares our vision that we can positively impact climate change by bringing satiating, appealing, plant-based meats to the center of the plate, and we are thrilled to have his partnership.

Uma Valeti remembers the first time he really thought about where meat comes from. A cardiologist turned founder, Valeti grew up in Vijayawada, India, where his father was a veterinarian and his mother taught physics. When he was 12, he attended a neighbor's birthday party. In the front yard, people danced and feasted on chicken tandoori and curried goat. Valeti wandered around to the back of the house, where cooks were hard at work decapitating and gutting animal after animal to keep the loaded platters coming.