The Slinger has a dual purpose: to reduce both calories and its carbon footprint. It is targeted at those who wouldn’t switch to a non-meat alternative, such as soya.
The Culinary Institute of America in New York, with predictable support from mushroom producers, the initiative seeks to promote both public health and environmental sustainability, by replacing 100% ground beef in some foods with a blend that contains up to half mushrooms. It’s the biggest new foodie trend that you haven’t heard of.
Nature.com describes how beef has a very large environmental footprint. Per gram of protein, beef requires on average 50 times more land and produces 100 times more greenhouse gases than do beans and other plant-based proteins. Replacing 30% of the beef with mushrooms in the roughly 10 billion burgers that Americans eat each year would reduce emissions equivalent to taking 2 million cars off the road, according to the World Resources Institute, an environmental think tank in Washington DC.
