Denmark recently published the world’s “first” national “action plan” intended to facilitate a shift toward a food system primarily based on plant-based options as part of the Scandinavian country’s climate initiative.
The new “action plan” is a continuation of the 2021 Agreement on the Green Transformation of Danish Agriculture.
The action plan defines plant-based foods to include not only plants but also “edible fungi, algae, and beneficial microorganisms.” It proposes several steps for boosting plant-based foods in Denmark, including offering funds and subsidy schemes for such initiatives and supporting start-up firms in the sector.
The government intends to boost the procurement of plant-based foods, with states and municipalities entering new purchase agreements for such foods. It will revise the diet guidelines, recommending plant-based diets. This recommendation is expected to be incorporated next year.
The Ministry of Food, Agriculture, and Fisheries intends to train chefs from both private and public kitchens to prepare vegan meals. There will be an increased focus on plant-based diets in schools and the education system. Embassies would be used to boost the exports of plant-based foods.
In an interview with Tucker Carlson last year, Dutch political commentator Eva Vlaardingerbroek compared the government policy to the World Economic Forum’s “Great Reset.”
“They want us to eat bugs. They want us to eat the fake meat that they produce. So it’s very clear that this is not something that just the Dutch people will be subjected to,” she said at the time.
Cows: ‘A Carbon Hazard’
In a July interview with EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders,” Texas Slim, founder of The Beef Initiative, said there is a global attempt to make cows “a carbon hazard.”“What is the No. 1 tool to regrow soil? It’s the cow. The cows are land tools. They are the best thing that we have to sequester CO2,” he said.
“They’re trying to say that cows are destroying the climate. They’re trying to take animal protein out of our consumption model. They’re going to insert some more fake commodities that are nothing more than industrial processed types of protein that don’t come from animal protein.”
Mr. Slim pointed out that “we’ve genetically modified everything” we eat. He provided an example using soy to highlight the contrast between the United States and Japan.
The Japanese have been consuming soy “for thousands of years,” he said. “I guarantee you that the soy in Japan is not even comparable to the soy in the United States of America. With the type of soy that we’ve introduced that is making hundreds of millions of dollars for the industrial food complex, where they genetically modify that seed into a fake commodity, you can’t compare them.”
The difference between the two soy items is nutrition, Mr. Slim said.
As an additional example, an individual must eat five apples to attain the same benefits previously found in a single apple because of “genetically modifying” the fruit.
“We started introducing a massive amount of chemicals into our consumption models. As we’ve done that and industrialized our food, homogenized our food, and commoditized our food, the nutritional value of that wholesome apple is decreasing,” he said.
The businesses “were able to subsidize and commoditize food in a way that made it very cheap for them to manufacture. As they made the food cheaper, they made the nutritional value cheaper for the individual person consuming it.”
Mr. Slim also highlighted the issue of centralization of food supply chains. In the food industry, there has been a consolidation of multinational industrial corporations, he noted. In 2017 and 2018, there was a “last major consolidation” of chemical and grain companies as well as the industrial food complex.
“They are trying to basically create a one-world food group. They are doing it, be it nefarious or be it in a way that they are trying to change what we consume as humans. It’s happening, and the marketing behind it is big. I spent two months overseas, and I just got back from Australia and Asia,” he said.
Vegan Alternative
The government of Denmark has identified plant-based foods as a “future growth area” where new jobs and earning opportunities will go “hand in hand with regard to the environment, climate, and health.” It noted that in 2021, the country sold approximately 32 billion Danish Krone (DKK) worth of plant-based foods, which is roughly $4.52 billion in today’s amount.The Danish government cited a projection by the University of Copenhagen, which expects the protein-rich plant-based food sector to grow between 4 percent and 11 percent annually until 2030.
“The production of plant-based foods is also a unique opportunity to increase Danish food exports and take the lead in the field. With this action plan, the government has thus set the direction for the continued development of the agricultural and food sector,” said Mr. Jensen.
The new action plan is part of the government’s 2021 climate agreement to push vegan food as a central focus in the green transition.
A few months before the 2021 agreement, the Danish government issued dietary guidelines that called for reducing meat and dairy intake while boosting the intake of plant-based proteins.
While meat-free, vegan diets are promoted as a pro-climate shift, such foods do not provide the body with the necessary nutrients.
Vegans can also end up having low levels of vitamin B12 and zinc, both of which can result in health complications. Since vegan diets tend to be heavy on carbohydrates and lower in protein, individuals can be susceptible to blood sugar swings.
The family only ate raw fruits and vegetables, with the 18-month-old boy additionally fed breast milk. The boy weighed 17 pounds and was the size of a 7-month-old baby when he died in September 2019. The woman’s other three children also suffered from malnutrition.
Plant-Based Food Sales
The Danish government’s promotion of plant-based foods comes as American consumers are reportedly turning away from such products.During a second-quarter earnings call, Ethan Brown, founder of Beyond Meat, pointed out that “there’s been a decline in the health perception” of plant-based meat foods. “There’s a food research institute or something … [that] noted 50 percent of consumers in 2020 thought that plant-based needs were healthy. And now, that number is down at 38 percent,” he said.
A January survey by Wakefield Research found that many Americans “struggle to commit” to eating more plant-based foods. “In fact, more than 2 in 5 (42 percent) Americans previously made a New Year’s resolution to add more plant-based foods to their meals but did not stick to it,” the group said.
The study found that 32 percent have never tried plant-based foods. The top reason for this was the assumption that such foods would taste bad, with 45 percent of survey respondents citing this. In addition, 23 percent were not convinced about the health benefits of plant-based diets.
While the Danish government is promoting reducing meat consumption and encouraging plant-based foods, research shows that meat consumption benefits the body.
The study found that meat intake was “positively correlated with life expectancies.” In contrast, “carbohydrate crops showed weak and negative correlation with life expectancy.”
