The Future of Food

Patients & Purpose
Aug 23, 2017 · 3 min read
Image courtesy of: http://cdn.modernfarmer.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/meathero1.jpg

Americans are obsessed with meat, especially red meat (beef, veal, or pork). The average American eats upwards of 100 pounds of red meat every year. The only places where people eat more red meat per capita than the United States are two countries that routinely top “best steak in the world” rankings — Argentina and Uruguay.


This is reflected in what can widely be considered the most American food out there — the burger. We eat 50 billion of them every year. That breaks down to three burgers per person…every week.

This love of meat has many consequences on the health of our population. On one end, we can observe that there is a relationship between meat consumption and conditions like high cholesterol, coronary heart disease, and cardiovascular diseases. Is it surprising, then, that heart disease is the leading cause of death in the US?

Not only that, but there are substantial environmental concerns involved with the mass production of red meat. Cows raised specifically for meat are generally pumped with chemicals to make them fatter. These chemicals make their way back into the air, ground, and water sources.

With more and more countries beginning to adopt an “American-style” diet, these health and environmental problems are only going to get worse if something doesn’t change.

Cultured meat vs. veg tech

There are two main methods being explored today to tackle this problem. One is more geared toward reducing the extreme inefficiency and unsustainability with which meat is produced. The other is focused on creating a meat-like experience without actual meat.

The first method is a concept that uses cultured meat. This involves “growing” meat from the cellular level in a lab setting, rather than raising animals to kill and eat. There are many challenges with this method, including finding the right cellular construction that will provide similar texture, taste, smell, etc. to meat from animal tissue. However, the environmental benefits of taking animals out of the process are huge.

Mosa Meat, a Dutch company leading the advancement of cultured meat, predicts that once the science has advanced enough to make commercial meat growth viable, their facilities (known as bioreactors) will be half the size of an Olympic swimming pool, and will be able to make 3 million quarter-pounder hamburgers every year. That’s the same amount of meat that 3,000 cows would create.

Other kinds of foods could theoretically be grown as well, including egg whites and other dairy products. In fact, synthetic dairy is likely to hit the mass market first, due to being less complex than meat.

Cultured meat and other synthetic foods is driven by the same general concept as regenerative medicine, where human body parts such as bones, muscles, and skin could be grown at the cellular level for medical purposes.

The second method uses vegetables to imitate meat and generally has fewer challenges. It might be more palatable if lab-grown meat seems a little too weird.

Veggie burgers have been around forever, as have other common meat substitutes such as tofu. What’s different now is that these meat substitutes have advanced to the point where their taste and texture reasonably imitates the meat experience.

Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat are two companies making waves in this space. Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger uses proteins from soy and peas, in addition to yeast and other ingredients to make a fully meatless burger that is close to the real thing. It even “bleeds,” thanks to added beet juice.

Even Tyson Foods, America’s largest meat processor, sees the potential in meatless foods, and recently bought 5 percent of Beyond Meat at an undisclosed price. Bill Gates has also invested in the company, and has said he can’t tell the difference between their products and the real thing.

Just imagine the effects on our health if air and water pollution could be cut dramatically from a reduction in the production of animal meat, and if instead of eating 100 pounds of meat every year, we ate an extra 100 pounds of vegetables.

Check out this article for more on cultured meat here: https://www.fastcompany.com/3055504/when-will-our-meat-filled-diets-go-post-animal .

If you’re more interested in meat substitutes, try this article instead: http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/06/21/482322571/silicon-valley-s-bloody-plant-burger-smells-tastes-and-sizzles-like-meat .

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