Most Agree Fungi-Based Food Is A Greener, Meat-Like Protein

Fungi are widely mistaken for plants, and many people are unfamiliar with mycoprotein, fungi-based meat alternatives or how they’re grown, according to a new cross-national survey of more than 6,000 Europeans.

Despite these knowledge gaps, a majority of consumers believe such products are sustainable and nutritionally comparable to meat, according to researchers at the Swedish Centre for Resource Recovery. These insights underscore the role perception can play in shaping the future of public communication and engagement around alternative proteins — foods that can help cut down on meat consumption, reducing the environmental impact of meat.

“Most people don’t know how their food is made, and fungi-based foods are no different,” Lucas Eastham, lead fermentation scientist at the Good Food Institute, a nonprofit think tank that advocates for alternative proteins, tells Sentient in an email. “Fungi are a universally familiar food ingredient, with mushrooms playing vital roles in most food cultures. That baseline familiarity likely creates a natural openness to fungi-based foods more broadly.”

The survey was conducted in Germany, Spain and Sweden, countries chosen for their different food cultures, views on sustainable eating and food-related regulations. It focused on what people know and understand about fungi-based foods. The researchers report that many respondents agreed with the statement “fungi and mushrooms are the same thing and are plants.” It combined two common misconceptions to evaluate the general understanding of fungi taxonomy: 60% of German, 38% of Spanish and 34% of Swedish respondents.

Fungi are a kingdom of organisms, distinct from that of plants. Fungi include yeast, mold and mushrooms, and they are evolutionarily more related to animals than to plants. Filamentous fungi are a major subset of this kingdom, which are characterized by microscopic, thread-like organisms that form networks known as mycelia. Mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of certain filamentous fungi. These findings suggest that communication about fungi-based foods should avoid assumptions about knowledge, limit technical language and directly address misconceptions.

Some fungi-based food companies, such as Quorn, use the term mycoprotein to describe a food ingredient derived from a type of edible filamentous fungi, Fusarium venenatum. Most respondents, however, incorrectly defined or did not know what mycoprotein is: 67% in Germany, 68% in Spain and 63% in Sweden.

Despite this lack of awareness about what the product is, the vast majority of respondents — 85% in Germany, 88% in Spain, 86% in Sweden — agreed with the claim that cultivating filamentous fungi can play a big role in managing the planet’s resources.

There is a growing body of research suggesting fungi-based proteins could significantly reduce the environmental impact of meat. A 2022 study in Germany found that substituting 20% of global ruminant meat consumption with microbial protein — including mycoprotein, microalgae and bacteria — by 2050 could offset future increases in pasture area and reduce deforestation-related carbon dioxide emissions by about half. And in 2024, researchers estimated that replacing animal proteins with mycoprotein would reduce greenhouse gas emissions significantly: by as much as 99% for beef, 79% for pork and 96% for chicken.

Edible filamentous fungi are grown by fermenting fungal cells in controlled tanks, where they rapidly multiply into protein-rich biomass that can be harvested within one week, while mushrooms have relatively longer and more resource-intensive cultivation. Most respondents did not know how quickly the fungi-based food product can be grown and harvested.

“Mycoprotein production also requires a fraction of the land and water used for conventional animal agriculture, easing pressure on forests, water sources and major ecosystems,” Eastham writes. “With the power to cut emissions and offer major resource efficiencies, fungi-based proteins offer significant opportunities to help meet global climate and biodiversity goals.”

A majority of respondents also agreed with the assertion that fungi-based foods provide a similar nutritional profile to meat, especially in terms of protein and amino acids. Eddy Smid, a professor of food microbiology at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, explains to Sentient that this is what differentiates fungi-based proteins from some plant-based proteins on the market.

“With food, if it’s only sustainable, it’s a no-go. It has to be nutritious as well. And nowadays, there are also many plant-based alternatives, for instance, for cheese and for meat on the market that are not really very healthy,” says Smid. “They’re incomplete, imbalanced in terms of the nutrients.”

Essential amino acids, which the human body cannot synthesize on its own and must obtain through diet, are found in relatively high levels in both meat and fungi-based proteins, compared to many plant-based proteins. “So fungal biomass is potentially a very good replacement of meat,” says Smid. He notes that both fungi-based and plant-based proteins lack vitamin B12, but because the micronutrient is made by a bacterium, it can be added to products naturally.

Although the survey focuses on consumer awareness of fungi-based proteins, this is not the only barrier to scaling up these products. According to the Good Food Institute’s annual consumer surveys, people are most open to alternative proteins when they believe the products will taste good, be affordable and deliver health benefits.

Sentient reported last year that scientists created a new strain of fungi using CRISPR gene editing. The study’s tests indicated the strain had a better taste and texture and is an even more nutritious protein than the original strain.

Eastham notes that although knowledge gaps remain, consumers’ familiarity with fungi — and positive perception of its health and climate impacts — can benefit the popularization of fungi-based foods.

“Fungi-based foods have been a part of the human diet for centuries, from mushrooms to koji and tempeh,” Eastham writes. “Mycoprotein isn’t a silver bullet, but it’s a powerful, ready-now tool that can help us build a food system that works for people, animals and the planet.”

According to Smid, a global protein transition is necessary and is only just beginning. “The planet can probably not carry 8 billion people that live the same way as we do in the western world,” he says, but “I don’t think we’re there yet” in terms of widespread consumer acceptance of alternative proteins.

He emphasizes that the adoption of fungi-based proteins requires a cultural shift, and cultural shifts are slow processes.

“Food is not something you change overnight. It is also culturally embedded,” says Smid. “People like to talk about food. It’s part of their identity.”