PLANT-BASED MEATS
POSSIBLY IMPOSSIBLE FOODS
We know that raising animals for food is a climate killer. It’s 65% of nitrous oxide emissions, which have three times the impact of carbon dioxide. Add land and water consumption, related emissions, and disease.
Humans will always crave meat. There’s no taking it out of the equation unless things get dicey, planet-wise. What if we could fake ourselves out?
There are two alternatives out there.
Plant-based – “alt meat” – has long been favored by vegetarians. It is gaining a broader audience as a menu option at chains like Starbucks, Burger King, and Applebee’s. Partnerships with Impossible Foods put it in more than 45,000 locations. CEO Peter McGuiness has been very outspoken about the battle to get people to accept plant-based meat. He has been telling news outlets that his company is thriving, even though he doesn’t like where the sector is right now. It can’t shake the narrative of processed food.
Impossible Beef Lite has been designated by the American Heart Association as a heart-healthy food. The upscale Beyond Steak has earned the same certification, and offers up the tantalizing tagline, “Everything bad is good for me.”
Plant-based is healthier, with more protein, less fat and sodium, and no cholesterol. But it’s still mostly consumed by non-meat-eaters, viewed more as a compromise.
The second option is lab-grown meat, also called cultivated or no-kill meat. This takes “processed” to another level, with a shiver of disgust.
Honestly, though, would you rather eat potentially hormone and disease-ridden meat, or real meat grown in a sterile lab?
This is real meat, starting with animal tissue, cells from a fertilized egg, or stored cells. A nutrient broth coaxes them to grow and divide, in the same type of bioreactor used to make vaccines. Triggered cells turn into muscle, fat, and connective tissue. But there’s a but, which we’ll get to shortly.
In the US this past June, the Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration gave the industry the green light to sell products. Singapore has also approved it. But scaling to the point where it will make a real impact is far from foreseeable.
Does meat taste different if it never had a face? Most of us will never know.
A brief rundown of the issues:
Cost to produce can be as high as hundreds of thousands of dollars ... per ounce. Manufacturers will be eating the loss, while billions are poured into continuing research; a scenario expected to last years or even decades. The only realistic goal for startups is to merge with or sell to major food companies.
Facilities to house those super-expensive bioreactors can cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Investors will need to continue to be motivated.
There is no current track to this providing an economic/accessibility solution for food insecurity.
About 80% fewer emissions compared to raising cattle is predicted, but only if renewables are used for the energy-hungry process. Studies show that, if not, climate impact could be as much as 25 times worse.
Questions remain about health impacts, if cultivated proteins are ultra-processed, as some experts define them.
It sounds like a dead end, but isn’t that how revolutionary things often evolve?
What do you think? Does lab-grown poke your gag reflex? Would you, or do you avoid meat for environmental reasons?
