Eating fungus burgers could save the planet.
Eating fungus burgers could save the environment
Experts say that swapping beef for fungi would have the amount of forest cut down by 2050 as food production is now the cause of a third of global greenhouse emissions.
Dr. Florian Humpenoder, who carried out the study for the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, said: "People can continue eating burgers and the like, it's just that those burger patties will be produced in a different way.
"The substitution of ruminant meat with microbial protein could considerably reduce the greenhouse gas footprint of the food system.
"We found that if we substituted 20 per cent of ruminant meat by 2050, annual deforestation and C02 emissions from land-use change would be halved."