Animal Alternatives
Table of Contents
Introduction
Plants based food can be amazing in all it's unique variety. Some of us love eating whole foods including vegetables, fruits, mushrooms, herbs, seaweeds, and so on. However it can be hard when you first start exploring plant-based eating, but are used to meat, dairy, eggs, and fish. It's perfectly normal to crave comfort foods, traditional dishes, and we can often end up feeling left out during festive seasons when everyone else eats casseroles or yummy deserts and we're left with some vegetable side dishes in the early days before we and our loved ones work out all the amazing substitutes that are available to recreate these same foods, but in an eco-friendly form.
What's On This Page
This page is mostly a directory to more specific animal alternative pages since some (especially our seafood alternatives page) ended up quite large, but also offers some smaller sections such as the Bees section which offers a few honey and wax alternatives. There will also be some info about non-food alternatives such as links directing you to leather alternatives, and some other products people may not realize come from animals (for example pregnant horse urine used for hormone regulating drugs) which also rely on cruel and unsustainable practices.
How this Page is Organized
Currently the contents of this page are alphabetical, but if you want to understand how to have the most impact when substituting animal products we strongly recommend checking out this page and graph which help demystify which products have the most or least impact CO2-wise. Our World in Data has a whole range of useful pages and graphs helping to demonstrate the impacts of different human activities on the planet including water use, deforestation, illegal vs sustainable fishing maps, and more.
Bees
Bees are extremely important pollinators, but did you know honey bees are only one type and can be invasive in countries where they have been introduced, such as North America? Not only does this mean honey bees are using up food sources of native bees, but they can carry diseases and are routinely transported across country following different harvests. This not only helps disease and dangerous parasites spread further, but the emissions hurt the bees as well as our environment.
Honey Alternatives
Vegan Easy: Food Substitutes: Honey lists both honey alternatives and some plant-based bees wax alternatives.
The Vegan Review: Vegan Honey Substitutes lists some honey alternatives even we'd never heard of before including dandylion syrup and coconut syrup.
Brands
Brawny Bear but it also comes in a few flavors including Saffron and Lavender.
Vegan Honea can be found "original" or Lavender flavored.
Recipes
Date Honey (recipe) "This fruit puree has the thick consistency of apple butter. Spread it on toast, dot it on oatmeal or whole grain pancakes, and by all means, dip apples in it at Rosh Hashana for a new spin on an old tradition. Orange flower water is available at Middle Eastern markets."
Birds
Bird's Nest Soup
Bird's nest soup has nearly driven the species of swallows to extinction who make these unique nests with their spit. Recently people have started living in the downstairs of their homes while allowing the swallows to live in the upstairs portion of their homes. This makes harvesting the nests easier and safer then when the birds were nesting on extremely tall cliffs, but has change the behavior of the birds, so they are apparently diverging from the wild (almost extinct) birds.
Another issue with this situation, is that the birds' "guano" (shit) piled up on the floors of these homes, seeps through the floors and can drip onto the people living below, along with their food and drinks. As we have (hopefully!) learned from our most recent animal-to-human-transmitted pandemics (Covid and Bird Flu), this could brew disasters results for these people and others.
Alternative: Snow Fungus
Poor-Man's Bird Nest Soup can be made from "white fungus" or "snow fungus" aka. Tremella fuciformis.
According to this source "some researchers found that the collagen content in the white fungus is comparable to the bird's nest. Instead of spending thousands of dollars in bird nest, we can buy the fungus at about HKD10 per tael (~38g). Therefore, white fungus is dubbed as ‘poor man’s bird nest’.
White fungus has been prized for its medicinal benefits, namely anti-inflammatory and anti-tumour. In Chinese families, it is commonly used in soups cooked for soothing purposes like nourishing the bodies, healing dry coughs and clearing heat in the lungs. It is also said that eating white fungus could help keep our skin young due to the collagen content in it."
Rock Sugar & White Fungus Soup (Dessert)
Soak 1 or 2 white fungus in water for 2 to 3 hours.
Chop them into small pieces and remove the hard part in the middle.
Place into a saucepan with a thumb-sized piece of rock sugar and 3 cups of water.
Bring to the boil and simmer for 15 minutes.
If you cannot eat sugar please don’t use this recipe, or cook the white fungus without sugar.
Effects of this recipe: This is a very popular recipe in Chinese culture. It can help lung function, beautify and moisten skin. You can have it two times a week, especially in very dry or very hot weather.
White Fungus & Pear Soup (Savory)
Soak 1 or 2 white fungus in water for 2 to 3 hours.
Chop them into small pieces and remove the hard part in the middle.
Boil the white fungus together with a chopped whole pear, including the pear seeds in 3 cups of water.
Boil together and simmer for 15 minutes.
Remove the seeds before you drink the soup and eat the pear.
Effects of this recipe: Help to stop a dry cough, bowel movement and balance lung function. You can have this two times a week.
White Fungus Porridge
Soak 1 or 2 white fungus in water for 2 to 3 hours.
Chop them into small pieces and remove the hard part in the middle.
Boil with three tablespoons of oats and three cups of water and simmer for 5 minutes.
This can be part of your breakfast.
Effects of this recipe: strengthen lung function and help bowel movement. - Blue Melon Recipes (these have been slightly edited/reformatted for use on this site)
Chicken
There are only 8.1 billion humans on Earth at the time this has been written (November, 2023), yet "Worldwide, estimates suggest more than 70 billion chickens are killed each year, not including chickens killed by the egg industry." Chickens can naturally live for 8-15 years, but meat birds are killed at around 40-70 days old (depending on the country, farm type and when the animals start to die from heart attacks, infections, and go lame from broken legs). Laying hens generally live for 20 months, or around 2 years before their bodies can no longer keep up with the demand for eggs, and male chicks in the egg industry are routinely killed the same day they hatch. Usually fully conscious in a meat grinder, via crushing, suffocation in a trash bag, or via gassing.
Chicken became very popular as a meat because of myths that they are healthier as well as their generally lower ecological footprint compared to beef. However this led to their population exploding, making them the second biggest driver of deforestation behind cattle, since the soy that officially takes second place, is primarily turned into chicken feed.
Chicken Eggs
Chickens can naturally live for 8-15 years, but meat birds are killed at around 40-70 days old (depending on the country, farm type and when the animals start to die from heart attacks, infections, and go lame from broken legs). Laying hens generally live for 20 months, or around 2 years before their bodies can no longer keep up with the demand for eggs, and male chicks in the egg industry are routinely killed the same day they hatch. Usually fully conscious in a meat grinder, via crushing, suffocation in a trash bag, or via gassing.
Some people opt to raise back-yard chickens instead of factory farmed, but don't realize that the majority of chicks come from the same factory farms that sell to egg and meat farms. Meaning the majority of males are still slaughtered since they can't lay eggs, meaning there is little market for them. The remaining males usually end up being killed as adults or overwhelming animal sanctuaries.
Goose
"Not only does farming geese cause animal suffering, but its environmental impact is cause for alarm, as faeces and antibiotics end up polluting the surrounding land. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, foie gras operations have breached countless environmental laws. According to Animal Equality, Hudson Valley Foie Gras, the largest foie gras farm in the US, has violated multiple Clean Water Act obligations over the last decade and has faced numerous inspections with thousands of dollars in fines. And by relying on feeding animals that would breathe out CO2, the carbon footprint of geese farming is high, contributing to our current climate crisis.
Farming geese also help to spread pandemics. The most recent avian flu outbreak in the US took place in 2022, and in 2021, France’s avian flu outbreak largely occurred on foie gras farms." - The Cruel Reality of Farming Geese
Recipes
Pheasant
Many people assume that hunting game birds means they are relying on what nature provides, however nature can't keep up with the demand and countries like to claim that "hunting supports conservation" to encourage people to keep up the "tradition", as a result millions of birds are raised in factory farms to help supply countrysides around the world with "wild" game birds, or worse import exotic game bird species who can have unfortunate impacts, pushing our own natives closer to starvation.
According to a new report of the UK's hunting industry:
Each year some 47 million pheasants and 10 million red-legged partridges (both non-native species in the UK) are released into the environment for participants to pay to shoot.
Some 40% of these birds are predated by foxes. This ‘supplementary food’ is sufficient to provide for 80,000 to 120,000 foxes each year. There would be significantly fewer foxes in Britain if these releases of non-native pheasants and partridges was to end.
Such predictable supplies of carrion resulting from the releases leads to high densities of predators and scavengers which leads to increased predation pressure on ground nesting native bird species as the availability of the ‘supplementary food dries up in spring and early summer.
Each year the gamebird shooting industry uses 376,000 tons of feed including 282,000 tons of wheat i.e. nearly 2% of the UK’s annual wheat production
The gamebird industry administers a disproportionate amount of antibiotics (compared to all other animal production systems in Britain) in attempts to keep the birds healthy. Over the past 20 years many tonnes of antibiotics will have entered the eco-system in this way.
A minimum estimate is that 2500 tonnes of lead shot is fired into the environment by gamebird shooters representing billions of individual pellets, generating high levels of risk in local areas.
Potentially dangerous levels of lead are to be found in gamebird products on sale to consumers, including by supermarket chains.
Releasing pheasants near to roads causes unnecessary road traffic accidents including some motorists who suffer serious injuries.
There are significant animal welfare and environmental issues associated with the widespread killing of, potentially, millions of native bird and mammal species each year to protect the commercial shooting interests.
Poisons, snares and traps as well as guns, are used to kill these animals.
Britain is the only European country that offers the opportunity to kill such large numbers of released non-native gamebirds in a day.
The UK's hunting industry is the worst in Europe, but countries like the USA also import exotic birds just to be shot, and experience the same types of ecological consequences.
Alternatives
Pheasant Substitutes suggests using tofu, seitan and/or portabella mushrooms, but you have to scroll past the bird species section to find the plant-based information. The meaty section may be worth reading through for inspiration if you want to start with a pre-made or DIY vegan chicken, duck, or turkey recipe, before adding the appropriate spices for your mock pheasant.
Cattle
Cattle are the main global driver of deforestation, causing 5 times more deforestation than any other sector. Their population is much lower than some smaller species, but they cause some of the worst air and water pollution, erode soil, damage waterways, and are helping to drive a large number of species to extinction.
Beef
Beef farming is particularly problematic as it has driven between 80-90% of deforestation in the Amazon. When introduced to islands such as Hawaii, they have helped strip native vegitation to the point of extinction, and with less roots to hold the soil in place, landslides are becoming a greater risk. As the vegitation has been stripped
Dairy
Horses
Horse meat and dairy is consumed in various places around the world, but is illegal in others. For example it's illegal to butcher horses for meat in the USA, yet millions of horses are slaughtered for meat eat year, including horses exported from the USA.
Horse Meat
"U.S. horsemeat is dangerous to humans because of the unregulated administration of numerous toxic substances to horses before slaughter. In the U.S., horses are raised and treated as companion animals, not as food-producing animals. Unlike animals raised for food, the vast majority of horses sent to slaughter will have ingested, or been treated or injected with, multiple chemical substances that are known to be dangerous to humans, untested on humans or specifically prohibited for use in animals raised for human consumption. Horses are gathered from random sources at various stages in their life, and there is no system in the U.S. to track medications and veterinary treatments given to horses to ensure that their meat is safe for human consumption. Due to concerns about the health threats of drug-laced horsemeat, the European Union (EU), a primary importer of North American horsemeat, suspended horsemeat imports from Mexico—where 87 % of horses slaughtered for export to the EU are of U.S. origin. EU authorities made the decision after a series of scathing audits that exposed a plethora of problems, including the lack of traceability of American horses and horrific suffering on U.S. soil and in Mexico." - US Humane Society
Recipes
Mushroom Beshbarmak "The peoples of the great Steppe (grasslands) of Central Asia were historically nomadic herders, reliant on their animals for survival. Most cuisine of this region is based on meat, typically mutton or horse, for the same reason. In this recipe, we adapt a traditional meat and noodle stew recipe called ‘Beshbarmak’ as a plant-based meal that has tons of flavor and all the local comfort. Tender mushrooms add umami and potatoes add protein and a heartiness to replace the meat. You could also crumble a vegan sausage or use vegan “ground meat” for a more authentic replacement. This is a filling vegan recipe that is easy enough to make on a busy night and adapt to ingredients you have on hand. Pour this lovely stew over noodles for a complete meal."
Vegan Braciole is an Italian dish traditionally made from horse meat.
Horse Milk
Just like cows and goats, female horses must be impregnated over and over to keep them producing milk. The problem is their babies must be removed for them to produce enough to be economically valid, and horses haven't been bred with over-sized udders like the other "dairy animals". There is already a problem with people breeding more horses than there are loving homes to accept, meaning that breeding these extra foals will lead to more horses taking up valuable space and other resources from shelters, being euthanized, or worse, ending up slaughtered for meat.
People have been turning to horse milk because they can't digest cows milk, but horse milk is going to have a similar ecological footprint to cow milk due to the animal's size and diet. Diet being the largest source of livestock-created emissions. One major benefit of switching to plant-based milks is that we no longer have to worry about dairy allergies or lactose intolerance, but all plant milks we've encountered have much smaller ecological footprints than dairy from animals, in terms of land-use (including deforestation), water use and water pollution, as well as emissions.
Pregnant Mare Urine (PMU)
"Premarin is a very common drug prescribed to millions of women worldwide as a hormone replacement therapy. The name stands for PREgant MAres uRINe, as the drug is produced from the hormones present in the mare's urine. The horses used to produce this drug are referred to as "PMU" horses, for short.
Premarin is created by collecting the urine of pregnant mares. The mares are kept in small standing stalls in order to limit their movement, so not to displace the urinary bladder bags used to collect every drop of urine. The mares are kept in this manner for a lengthy portion of their pregnancy, normally about six months. Once the mares are full term and ready to deliver, they are turned out to have their foals. The mares are able to nurse their foals until weaning age, about 4 months, at which time they are separated and the mare is bred back to repeat the whole process again. This cycle of breeding has created an overabundance of unwanted foals, most of which are sold to the slaughter industry.
PMU farms used to exist all across the USA and were also prevalent in Canada. Conditions at PMU farms vary, and some farms work very diligently to place their unwanted foals. Many others are not as responsible. Due to increasing pressure of animal welfare regulation, and public outcry over the horrible fates often suffered by the foals, current PMU production has moved overseas." - Gentle Giants Draft Horse Rescue: PMU Industry
Fund for Horses: Alternatives to Drugs Made with Pregnant Mares Urine "As part of the Fund of Horses’ continuing campaign against the manufacture and use of the Premarin® family of drugs – Premarin®, Prempro® and Duavee® – we have compiled a list of alternatives to drugs made with pregnant mare’s urine (conjugated equine estrogens).
We encourage you to go online to further acquaint yourself with the effectiveness and safety of these compounds. There is a wealth of information out there, but beware of false claims and err on the side of caution.
And, as always, please consult with your doctor before you use these or any other alternatives for the relief of menopausal symptoms."
Seafood
Grants & Funding
International
Animal Charity Evaluators "ACE Movement Grants (formerly “Effective Animal Advocacy Fund”) is for anyone who is interested in making the animal advocacy movement more effective."
Beyond Animal "Where investors and vegan businesses meet" "Using technology, for online funding, networking and business services, to accelerate the transition to an economy free of animal exploitation. Our vision: a kinder, cleaner, healthier world."
EA Animal Welfare Fund "The Animal Welfare Fund supports advocacy, research, and movement-building work aimed at improving the wellbeing of nonhuman animals, primarily farmed and wild animals. This includes corporate and policy advocacy, research, and the promotion of alternative products."