So either way, it wont work that well in it's current state.
That's only because we are "subsidising" meat production cost through immense animal suffering. Once you have regulations that make the animals we keep in captivity have a somewhat good life, then meat price goes through the roof and those alternatives are the only reasonable option for the non-rich.
> And if they replace meat consumption then it puts even more stress on the agricultural land that can actually grow vegetable crops, which is only about a quarter of all farm land.
And where do you think the animal food is grown? Instead of feeding it to animals, make veggy dishes out of it.
It's true that some land can't be reasonably used for growing and harvesting crops, and keeping animals there which turn this into high quality protein is the best option, but that's only for certain regions on the planet.
"Ingredients: Water, Pea Protein†, Expeller-pressed Canola Oil, Refined Coconut Oil, Rice Protein, Natural Flavors, Dried Yeast, Cocoa Butter, Methylcellulose" (there are a bunch of ingredients that are less than %1 that I'm excluding)
On top of that, there is a vast amount of land you will never be able to use for vegetable crops, and the ONLY way you will get food out of it is ruminant grazing. Removing that from the food supply is going to create price shocks and even more soil depletion as food demand concentrates on that %25 of land left. On top of that, animal food production takes a lot of uneditable plant material and turns it into something human edible, which subsidizes vegetable prices. Without that either plant prices will go up.
This focus on plant only nutrition reminds me of 'environmentalists' shunning nuclear power, and in the end cause more damage to the earth via increased coal power production in the end, like Germany. While the actual answer is nuclear and solar power. Cows and other ruminants are the nuclear power of food.
> Beef fat clogs your arteries and causes heart disease.
That is fairly outdated science, it's quite the opposite actually! In 10 to 20 years, your doctor is going to start singing the praises of saturated fat and it's going to be quite hilarious. You can look up research papers today.
I am completely down to eat bugs even but eating bugs at a scale anything close to meat in general is a laughable amount of bugs. We would probably need 10 times the long haul trucking to ship that many bugs around.