\n<\/p>\n
Paul McCartney has joined calls for the EU to reject efforts to ban the use of terms such as \u201csausage\u201d and \u201cburger\u201d for vegetarian foods.<\/p>\n
The former Beatle has joined eight British MPs who have written to the European Commission arguing that a ban approved in October by the European parliament would address a nonexistent problem while slowing progress on climate goals.<\/p>\n
The new rules would spell the end the use of terms such as steak, burger, sausage or escalope when referring to products made of vegetables or plant-based proteins. Suggested alternatives include the less appetising \u201cdiscs\u201d or \u201ctubes\u201d.<\/p>\n
McCartney said: \u201cTo stipulate that burgers and sausages are \u2018plant-based\u2019, \u2018vegetarian\u2019 or \u2018vegan\u2019 should be enough for sensible people to understand what they are eating. This also encourages attitudes which are essential to our health and that of the planet.\u201d<\/p>\n
The musician is one of the world\u2019s most prominent advocates of a vegetarian diet. He and his late wife founded the Linda McCartney plant-based foods brand in 1991 and he and their daughters Mary and Stella launched the global \u201cMeat Free Monday\u201d campaign to encourage people to eat less meat.<\/p>\n
<\/span>The EU is set to decide whether to ban wording for plant-based and vegetarian foods following lobbying by the meat industry.<\/span> Photograph: Vuk Valcic\/ZUMA Press Wire\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n Linda McCartney sausages and burgers have been part of a global trend of increased interest in products to replace meat, even if investment has waned since a bubble during the coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n Yet with the growth of plant-based products has come a backlash, particularly from the politically powerful farming and meat distribution industries, which are worried about the potential effects of lower demand on jobs.<\/p>\n The European parliament voted 355\u2013247 to ban \u201cmeat-related\u201d names from being used on plant-based products. According to Euronews, C\u00e9line Imart, a French member of the centre-right European People\u2019s party and proponent of the ban, told the parliament: \u201cI accept that steak, cutlet or sausage are products from our livestock farms. Full stop. No laboratory substitutes, no plant-based products.\u201d<\/p>\n The letter signed by the McCartney family and the British MPs argued that the EU rules could force Britain into changes as well, because the markets and regulation are still so intertwined despite the UK\u2019s departure from the EU.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Sign up to Business Today<\/span><\/p>\n Get set for the working day \u2013 we’ll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n The EU has a longstanding \u201cgeographical indication\u201d system of preventing businesses from trading off the names of products associated with specific places, such as champagne (north-east France), Kalamata olives (southern Greece) or Parma ham (northern Italy). But the attempt to limit the use of generic terms is more controversial.<\/p>\n Many of the terms that would be banned have malleable meanings. For instance, the Collins dictionary defines a sausage firstly in relation to meat but secondly as \u201can object shaped like a sausage\u201d. Even more problematically for a ban, the primary definition of \u201cburger\u201d is given as a \u201cflat round mass of minced meat or vegetables\u201d.<\/p>\n The eight MP signatories to the letter include the former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and the former Green party co-leaders Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Paul McCartney has joined calls for the EU to reject efforts to ban the use of terms such as \u201csausage\u201d and \u201cburger\u201d for vegetarian foods. The former Beatle has joined eight British MPs who have written to the European Commission arguing that a ban approved in October by the European parliament would address a nonexistent<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36359,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[163,12788,4470,4136,1725,1545,4731,973,20322,3213,20321],"class_list":{"0":"post-36358","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-ban","9":"tag-burgers","10":"tag-drink","11":"tag-drop","12":"tag-food","13":"tag-industry","14":"tag-mccartney","15":"tag-paul","16":"tag-sausages","17":"tag-urges","18":"tag-veggie"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/36359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}