Denmark Approves World’s ‘First’ Government Plan to Promote Plant-Based Foods

A cross section of a plant-based patty with a meaty taste, taken on Dec. 28, 2021. Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images

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.

“As the first of its kind, the action plan thus serves as an overview of the governmental measures and initiatives that the actors within all parts of the plant-based value chain can make use of,” the official statement reads.

“There is no doubt that a more plant-rich diet—in line with the Official Dietary Guidelines—helps to reduce our climate footprint,” said the Minister for Food, Agriculture, and Fisheries Jacob Jensen on Oct. 12. “We need the action plan that shows how we can support the entire plant-based value chain and thereby contribute to the necessary transition.”

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.

As part of the plan, the government will encourage kitchens to serve “climate-friendly meals.” Public kitchens serve approximately 650,000 meals daily, with private kitchens delivering additional meals. The government will consider adding a climate label to foods deemed “climate-friendly.”

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 the neighboring Netherlands, the government has pushed pro-climate food policies, triggering protests from people. Dutch farmers opposed the government’s move to cut down nitrogen and ammonia emissions produced by livestock. The decision was taken to comply with the European Union’s climate goals.

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.

There has been a growing momentum to shift people away from natural food choices.

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.”

A farmer collects fresh raw milk from cows in De Lutte, Netherlands, on July 29, 2023. Pierre Crom/Getty Images

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.

“The marketing is coming. You have a lot of things that are happening at the highest level of our food supply chain lines.”

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.

A view of the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, on Oct. 29, 2021. Nikolaj Skydsgaard/Reuters

“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.

The Agreement on the Green Transformation of Danish Agriculture of Oct. 4, 2021, set aside 1 billion DKK, or approximately $140 million, for the initiative, with 675 million DKK ($95 million) going toward the creation of a new fund for plant-based crops. The remainder was set aside as bonuses for farmers who grew plant-based protein crops.

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.

Denmark’s “Official Dietary Guidelines” currently asks people to “eat less meat” and instead “choose legumes and fish.”

While meat-free, vegan diets are promoted as a pro-climate shift, such foods do not provide the body with the necessary nutrients.

Iron deficiency is common among vegans. Though plants contain iron, they only provide non-heme iron that the body absorbs in very small quantities. A lack of iron raises the risk of anemia. Vegans may not receive adequate omega-3 fatty acids by abstaining from fish and fish oils. A low intake of omega-3 fatty acids can increase the risk of depression.

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.

There have been multiple incidents worldwide of parents being punished by courts for imposing a vegan diet on children. In August last year, a 38-year-old American vegan woman was convicted of murder for her young son’s death due to malnutrition.

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.

In 2019, a couple in Sydney, Australia, was sentenced to community service by a court for feeding their baby girl a vegan diet, which left her severely malnourished.

Plant-Based Food Sales

The Danish government’s promotion of plant-based foods comes as American consumers are reportedly turning away from such products.

Plant-based meat company Beyond Meat saw revenues fall by almost a third in the second quarter of 2023, blaming the decline on weak demand, particularly from the United States.

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.

A study published in February last year examined how meat consumption was linked to longevity. The research team analyzed people from 175 nations and territories, comparing their intake of meat and carbohydrate crops.

The study found that meat intake was “positively correlated with life expectancies.” In contrast, “carbohydrate crops showed weak and negative correlation with life expectancy.”

In addition to plant-based fake meat products, climate activists are also pushing lab-grown meat, known as synthetic meat, to consumers. Synthetic meats are grown in labs utilizing animal cells and are proposed to be better for the environment.

However, an April study by the University of California, Davis, found this was false. According to the study, the global warming potential of lab-grown meat is four to 25 times higher than that of average retail beef. In addition, it can be much more expensive.