[Home](/) What we know What we know # One question at a time. Every entry here answers one fixed question from dated sources, and each one gets its own card. The tags below are the shared vocabulary: how a food, a way of making food or a question about food is filed across the directory and the entries. Each tag names the entries that carry it, so a label always leads somewhere you can read. A tag appears only when an entry answers for it and carries a sentence with its own source. A tag with nothing behind it is not shown. 5 entries, each answering one question from dated sources This page is the site's answers half: one fixed question at a time, and every factual sentence carries its source and the date we checked it. The other half of the section is [the shelf of related books](/books/) — other people's writing, read and noted. Where the site argues a case of its own rather than answering a question, that is [Why food](/why/). ## The entries 5 questions Alternative protein · regulation · labelling ### [Where does algae protein come from, and what can you actually buy?](/what-we-know/algae-and-seaweed-protein/) Short answer: from two different things. One is a microalga grown on purpose in a pond or a tank, and the other is a seaweed taken from the sea or from a marine farm. What you can actually buy is mostly a supplement or a sea vegetable, and the word protein is doing less work than it sounds: the clearest consumer product that names a seaweed protein is a bacon sold in the United States. Factual sentences 46 Checked 19 September 2026 Every sentence carries its source; each entry says on its own page when we checked it. [Read the entry](/what-we-know/algae-and-seaweed-protein/) Cultivated · Alternative protein ### [What is cultivated meat, and where can anyone actually buy it?](/what-we-know/cultivated-meat-and-seafood/) Short answer: animal cells are grown in a tank and then mixed with plant ingredients, so this is animal-derived food that is not vegan. Regulators in at least four countries have cleared it, and a person outside those markets will struggle to find it. Nothing is on sale in Canada. Factual sentences 25 Checked 18 September 2026 Every sentence carries its source; each entry says on its own page when we checked it. [Read the entry](/what-we-know/cultivated-meat-and-seafood/) Plant-based ### [How do plant-based and animal-based diets compare for health?](/what-we-know/health-comparisons/) Short answer: closer than the argument suggests, and not in one direction. On the outcomes measured in large groups, people eating plant-based diets have less heart disease and about the same all-cause mortality as the meat eaters they were compared with — but the same British cohort shows them with more stroke, and its vegans with more than twice the hip fracture rate. Our reading is that what replaces the meat matters more than whether the meat is there. And the strongest-sounding argument for either side is usually an argument from mechanism, which is the one kind of argument this page shows going badly wrong. Factual sentences 85 Checked 20 September 2026 Every sentence carries its source; each entry says on its own page when we checked it. [Read the entry](/what-we-know/health-comparisons/) Mycoprotein · Traditional fermentation · Alternative protein ### [What is mycoprotein, and is it a fungus or a fermentation?](/what-we-know/mycoprotein-and-biomass/) Short answer: both, in that order. A fungus is grown, the growing is a fermentation, and the fungus itself is eaten. The word covers at least three different foods, though, and only one of them is a supermarket brand you have probably already bought. Factual sentences 31 Checked 18 September 2026 Every sentence carries its source; each entry says on its own page when we checked it. [Read the entry](/what-we-know/mycoprotein-and-biomass/) Precision fermentation · Alternative protein ### [How is precision-fermented protein actually made, and where is it approved?](/what-we-know/precision-fermented-protein/) Short answer: a micro-organism is given one job. It makes a single molecule — usually a protein — and that molecule is separated out, dried and sold as an ingredient. Very little of it reaches a shelf as itself. In Canada two things are true at once: an ingredient can be approved here and still not be something you can buy. Factual sentences 22 Checked 18 September 2026 Every sentence carries its source; each entry says on its own page when we checked it. [Read the entry](/what-we-know/precision-fermented-protein/) ## Beside the entries Three pages The entries answer a question each. These three are the section's own pages: what a food category means, what each place's regulator has decided, and where those places are. [Corrections and revisions](/what-we-know/corrections/) is the fourth: every change this site has made to a sentence, dated, with what it said before and which kind of change it is. ### [Food categories](/what-we-know/categories/) Every kind of food this section answers for, the entries behind it, and where the directory lists something of that kind. ### [Regulation by place](/what-we-know/regulation/) What each place's regulator has decided about these foods, sentence by sentence, with the entry and source behind each one. ### [The map](/what-we-know/map/) Pick a place and see what its regulator has decided and which kinds of food you can meet there. ## What the tags mean 8 tags in use These tags file the directory and the entries. A tag appears only when an entry answers for it, and each tag below names the entries that carry it. ### Alternative protein The umbrella: protein made by a route other than farming the animal it came from. category · carried by [Where does algae protein come from, and what can you actually buy?](/what-we-know/algae-and-seaweed-protein/) · [What is cultivated meat, and where can anyone actually buy it?](/what-we-know/cultivated-meat-and-seafood/) · [What is mycoprotein, and is it a fungus or a fermentation?](/what-we-know/mycoprotein-and-biomass/) · [How is precision-fermented protein actually made, and where is it approved?](/what-we-know/precision-fermented-protein/) ### Cultivated Food grown from animal cells in a tank rather than from a whole animal. food type · carried by [What is cultivated meat, and where can anyone actually buy it?](/what-we-know/cultivated-meat-and-seafood/) ### Mycoprotein Foods whose protein comes from a filamentous fungus grown in a tank. food type · carried by [What is mycoprotein, and is it a fungus or a fermentation?](/what-we-know/mycoprotein-and-biomass/) ### Plant-based Foods made with ingredients from plants. food type · carried by [How do plant-based and animal-based diets compare for health?](/what-we-know/health-comparisons/) ### Precision fermentation Foods whose useful part is a single molecule made by a micro-organism and then purified. food type · carried by [How is precision-fermented protein actually made, and where is it approved?](/what-we-know/precision-fermented-protein/) ### Traditional fermentation Foods made by fermenting familiar ingredients, the way tempeh and kimchi are made. food type · carried by [What is mycoprotein, and is it a fungus or a fermentation?](/what-we-know/mycoprotein-and-biomass/) ### labelling · carried by [Where does algae protein come from, and what can you actually buy?](/what-we-know/algae-and-seaweed-protein/) ### regulation · carried by [Where does algae protein come from, and what can you actually buy?](/what-we-know/algae-and-seaweed-protein/) ## How these entries are written Each entry answers one fixed question. Every factual sentence in it was checked against a retrieved copy of the source it names, on a date the source list prints, one sentence at a time: one retrieved source, one verbatim quote from that source, one checked date. No person approved these sentences before publication. — no named reviewer has reviewed these entries, and no clinician has. They are compilations of published sources by this site. This section is unfunded: it takes no sponsorship, and no funder may be a company whose products the entries or the directory describe. If a sentence here turns out to be wrong, or a source behind it changes, the change is recorded at [Corrections and revisions](/what-we-know/corrections/) rather than being made quietly. [Explore the food →](/foods/)