Guest essay by Eric Worrall
If Silicon Valley green tech giants have their way, real meat will become an unaffordable carbon taxed luxury item eaten by the very rich. The rest of us will have to eat “meatless meat” – meat flavoured mashed vegetables and lab grown tissue cultures.
Silicon Valley and the Search for Meatless Meat
By BETH KOWITT
December 19, 2017
In August one of Silicon Valley’s hottest startups closed a $17 million round of funding. The Series A had attracted some of the biggest names in tech. “I got closed out because of Richard Branson and Bill Gates,” bemoaned Jody Rasch, the managing trustee of an angel fund that wasn’t able to buy in. Venture capital firm DFJ—which has backed the likes of Tesla and SpaceX—led the round, with one of its then-partners calling the nascent company’s work an “enormous technological shift.”
The cutting-edge product the startup was trying to develop? Meat—the food whose more than $200 billion in U.S. sales has come to be the defining element of the Western diet. But what made this company’s work so revolutionary was not what it was trying to make so much as how it was attempting to do it. Memphis Meats, the brainchild that had the startup-investor class salivating, was aiming to remove animals from the process of meat production altogether.
It’s the type of world-saving vision that has oft captured the imagination of Silicon Valley—the kind of entrenched problem that technologists believe only technology can solve: feeding a fast-growing, protein-hungry global population in a way that doesn’t blow up the planet. Conjuring up meat without livestock—whose emissions are responsible for 14.5% of global greenhouse gases—is core to that effort. Just listen to how the progenitor of Googleyness itself describes the prospect of animal-free meat: “It has the capability to transform how we view our world,” Google cofounder Sergey Brin has said. “I like to look at technology opportunities where the technology seems like it’s on the cusp of viability, and if it succeeds there, it can be really transformative.”
…
As a sign of the market’s potential, alternative meat producers point to the explosive growth plant-based milk has made in the dairy aisle, now capturing almost 10% of U.S. retail sales by volume. “I want to be able to say you don’t have to make a choice in what you’re eating,” Memphis CEO and cofounder Uma Valeti says, “but you can make a choice on the process of how it goes to the table.”
Hoping to make that choice easier, the new agripreneurs are tackling semantics first—redefining what “meat” means. Beyond Meat CEO Ethan Brown says he’d like to get people to think about meat “in terms of its composition” rather than its origin. The reframing isn’t just an epistemological one, but also a scientific one, reducing meat to its molecules.
That won’t be an easy sell, and the movement has its detractors—some of whom seem miffed by the notion that anyone would try to mess with Mother Nature. “They want to make up their own dictionary version of what meat is, and these are people who do not eat meat,” says Suzanne Strassburger, whose family has been in the meat business for more than 150 years. “The real question is, are they feeding people or are they feeding egos.”
…
Read more: http://fortune.com/2017/12/19/silicon-valley-meatless-meat/
There will be a market for this product. While I understand some people drink soy milk because of allergies or cost, many of those 10% of people who drink Soy milk do so for idealogical reasons – they also try to avoid other cattle products, buying veggie burgers and suchlike, and will likely be ready in many cases to buy lab grown cultured meat (guaranteed cruelty free).
For people who genuinely can’t afford meat at current prices, a cheap substitute which helped them and their children get the protein they require wouldn’t be a bad thing – though cutting red tape to help reduce the cost of real meat would likely achieve the same goal.
I doubt most of the remaining 90% of us would willingly embrace highly processed artificial meat tasting substitutes when we can buy the real thing.
Discouraging ordinary people from buying real meat will have to be a business goal of these high tech entrepreneurs. No doubt they would justify such efforts in terms of saving the planet from climate change.
It is easy to see how discouraging real meat consumption could happen – advertisements flooding the airwaves with messages emphasising the “cruelty” of cattle farming, adding Vegan messages to elementary school lessons, imposing carbon taxes and animal welfare regulations to make cattle farming impossibly expensive, lots of donated cash for politicians who pass laws which favour well funded artificial meat producers. Though I suspect real meat would still be available at climate conferences and UN events, at least for important attendees.
Coming soon to a supermarket shelf near you.
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The real question is if CO2 is NOT a problem, would there be a viable market for this product?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but we are not at “peak cow”.
I suspect we’re approaching peak bull product though…
The original argument was animal cruelty, they will merge both arguments eventually to seek a ban on the alternative.
The sad thing is that Bos taurus will soon thereafter be extinct.
It’s hard to factory produce anything that matches the price of chicken and a number of pork cuts. Nor is hamburger expensive at $3 a pound.
Meanwhile, apples and much of the decent produce equal or exceed the cost of meat.
I can buy whatever is available at the farmer’s market; but their prices are set to be just below grocery stroe levels. What one gains from the farmer’s market is freshness; if one buys from the rare actual farmer.
Then again, I can buy a quarter steer or half a hog from a farmer butcher at rates far below grocery chain prices.
I do drink almond milk as late in life, my family’s lactose intolerance and casein allergies overcame any ability I had to tolerate milk. Otherwise, I’d still be drinking milk.
Nor do the many efforts to prepare various soy product meat imitations help.
Sadly, my body am also intolerant of legumes. Very sad, as I love well cooked beans and peas. Peanuts or soy beans in food have ruined many a day.
For a few dollars, a fishpole and a fishing license, one can catch panfish and catfish locally that are delectable.
The sad truth is, people mostly buy imitation meats for ideological or utterly mistaken reasons.
I don’t know how farmer’s markets are run where you live, but where I live, farmer’s market prices exceed grocery store prices considerably, as if buying good nutritional food is rich person’s pursuit, or as if nutritionally educated consumers have higher incomes and can be gauged for the higher cost of good, healthy food.
Farmer’s market, my ass. More like price-gauging-in-the-name-of-profit-because-eating-healthy-is-perceived-as-an-educated-affluent-high-income market.
Then, I would not consider that a farmers market.
That market is a classic example of the boutique markets the USDA pushed back in the 1970s with their “organic” labeling and product plan for small farmers. Yes, the whole “organic” movement was started by USDA as a method to aid small farmers to charge higher prices.
There are other imitation farmer markets that typically operate in or next to urban centers. Farmers, unless they’re desperate for cash, are very unlikely to drive far to run an urban located farm stand. Distance and time stuck in hot traffic seriously irritate farmers.
That said I know a couple who went into a farmstand career. They bought the stand lease and began operating the road side stand. Neither of them are farmers, gardeners or even green thumb folks. They are in it solely for the cash and buy/sell product solely for money. They do not care if the melons were picked when properly ripe or if the corn spent several days riding in the back of a pickup truck in hot weather.
Vote with your feet and wallet. Refuse to shop there.
My Father, and I take after him, would spot some stand operator’s sign that touts a product as some highly desired plant clonal name; e.g. Silver Queen sweet corn.
Irrespective, that silver queen is an older variety that has been far bypassed by modern sweeter corn varieties and is infrequently planted; sellers use the well known name as the lure to sell their unknown variety corn.
My Father will ask when was the corn planted?
Silver queen takes 92-110 days to grow and ripen.
With an early April plant date, (Virginia time); e.g. April 15th, means the corn can not be available before July 15th.
Late frosts are deadly to early planted corn, not that corn sprouts well when the soil is cold.
Silver queen corn safely planted after all threats of frost, e.g. May 1st; will not be available before the first week of August.
A more modern sweet corn variety can reach maturity in 77 days. That still leaves an April 15th planting not being ready before July 1st.
Local farmers will immediately tell customers whether they or a neighbor farmer grew the corn or that they got the corn from down south; and they’ll describe the shipping conditions too along with exactly when the corn was picked.
Farm stand shysters rarely tell the truth, even when cornered with their falsehoods. I’ve met a number who will insist they grew the corn when a mid-June shopping date eliminates local grown corn.
As a youngster, My Father grew corn and we sold it from our front porch in Pennsylvania.
When our stand of corn got too old, or rarely when we sold it all, we had a deal with a local farmer to sell his later plantings and split the profits.
Still, I and my Brothers had to get out and pick the corn before the sun got hot and then get it under cover and kept cool.
Day old corn got fed to the pigs.
Husking corn is never necessary to inspect corn ears. The corn silk and stem are the freshness indicators and wrapping one’s fingers around an ear lets one feel the kernel size and any cutworm gaps.
Dried stems indicate the ears were picked yesterday or older. Shriveled dry stems indicate days old corn, perhaps weeks.
Dried stiff corn silk means either overage corn (starchy) or that the corn was picked days ago.
Even today’s super sweet corn varieties start losing sweetness at the moment they’re picked. Heat and time affect the sweetness and flavor.
Few things equal local grown and plant ripened fruit, vegetables and produce. Beware of squeaky clean produce, as that usually means additional handlings.
Additional handlings bruise and damage ripe foods; which is a reason commercial growers pick early, while fruit and vegetables are still green and hard.
Well you know of course that they say that cyanide has the taste of bitter almonds. I wouldn’t know of course having never tried to find out.
But I understand that the truth is, that it is the other way round ! Same gose for apricot pits I believe.
So nyet on that almond milk for me.
G
Bitter or wild almonds are toxic. Don’t think they can be had in the USA. There is not enough toxicity in US domestic almonds to notice. They are a seed, not a nut, nor a stone fruit pit such as apricots.
Natural Toxins in Fresh Fruit and Vegetables”
There are two basic almond flavorings available.
One is “bitter almond” which is harvested from those higher cyanide content almonds. As John F. Hultquist describes.
Almond macaroons, (the only macaroon in my mind) use bitter almond flavoring to accentuate the almond flavor. Excessive use of the bitter almond flavor is highly discouraged and definitely nor recommended.
Quite a few fruits have seeds containing cyanide. Basically the entire family of Rosaceae can have or do have cyanide or amygdalin which hydrolyzes into cyanide.
Rosaceae includes fruits like apples, pears, almond, peaches, quinces, cherries along with other plants; e.g. roses. Perhaps you’ve noticed how apple, peach, almond flowers resemble wild rose flowers?
It’s takes a large quantity of apple pips or even peach pits to reach dangerous levels of cyanide. Bitter almonds are much more deadly.
As with many things, keep things in moderation.
Give a man a fish and you fed him for a day,
Teach him to fish and he’s ruined for life
People prepping for the Grand Solar Minimum are starting cricket farms. I think I could stomach a cricket better that pretend roast beef.
There is NO SUCH THING as Soy Milk! It is SOY JUICE. Milk comes from mammals! Just my rant for the day…
[But the mods saw a movie the other day proving nutritional milk comes from … interstellar sea beasts found on small islands just off of the coast of Ireland. .mod]
Of course, the word “milk” combined with the word “soy” is a misnomer. The idea, I suppose, is to help people trick their minds into thinking that they are drinking a different kind of “milk” that is really juice or cold broth or sludge or whatever you might want to call the watery brew.
Jellybean “milk”, anyone ?
“Soy Juice” is about 98% fat. Soybean oil Soy “milk” is processed soy protein(after pressing the oil), mostly blended with water, sugar, flavorings, vitamin additives, and calcium additives to make the nutritional content resemble real milk.
Soy milk is made by grinding soaked soybeans, boiling them in water and then separating the solids. The liquid is soy milk.
Soy juice is “a name for soy milk given by comedian Lewis Black after seeing it in a grocery store. He named it after stating “theres no such thing as soy milk, because theres no soy titty, is there?””
Soy milk starts at 1:51. Beware, some foul language used but then Lewis Black is one angry Jewish man.
All soy products with the exception of fermented are bad, it turns men into girly men growing man-boobs and increases the chances of breast cancer for women.
The folks who buy this will be the same progressives that only buy “organic” foods to avoid “chemicals” and “artificial” components, blissfully unaware that it’s worse for the environment than conventional agriculture:
And “Certified Organic” does NOT mean free of artificial chemicals. Those certified growers are still allowed to use artificial chemicals; but just the chemicals the food police like. And I can’t buy the argument that the dung of non human animals is good to put on food crops.
G
Sounds like a load of manure to me too
Not to mention the impossibility of avoiding chemicals, because well… everything is made of chemicals.
Actually, if/when it is available, cheap, and can be made palatable, it’s what’ll be used in fast food. OK by me. I rarely eat fast food, but it’s not a religious issue with me. If the only food in sight is a Wendys or McDonalds, I’ll happily eat there. They use too much salt, but otherwise their food seems OK to me.
Several hundred thousand heavily armed Australian Beef, Lamb, Pork, Emu, Kangaroo and Poultry Growers including Sam Kekovich say “NO”.
Ah but the Left socialists have managed to largely disarm Australians.
Won’t happen ever in the USA.
bumper sticker: “When you come for my gun, I’ll give you the bullets first.”
“have managed to largely disarm Australians.”
Quite a few that matter are still armed, and the country is just immense compared with the population.
err no-one “farms roos 😉 theyre wild the meat on sale is from wild shot ones.
in Victoria over run with roos youre not even allowed to use the damned meat!
looks like that may change for petfood use
only a few decades behind the times SA has been providing pet and human consumption meat from wild roos for decades, yummy steaks cooks well,but you do need to be aware of tapeworm issues and never serve it rare
Love me some ‘roo, marinated in red wine, and cooked hot enough to erase any tape (worm).
If someone wants to make a new product, great. If they can sell it, wonderful. Why would anyone have a problem with that? Capitalism 101.
I have no problem with it as long as government stays out of the way.
What these “meat” cell growers need and want government to impose is highly restrictive government regulations against large scale animal operations like feed lots and abattoirs because animals emit methane (farts and belches, but mostly in belches for ruminants). And methane of course is “carbon pollution” in the climate religion fanatics view. To make this venture profitable, they need the coercive power of government to kill off their cheaper, better competition from live animals and the processing of those animals to grocery store meats.
one further note.
Most, if not all, of these “meat from tissue culture” advocates are from that same cultural mindset class that see late-term abortions as simply the removal of some extraneous tissue from the female body, as if it were a wart or tumor.
Joel is correct what gets argued next is the ban on real meat because of animal cruelty and CO2 emissions.Like most of the econutt things they aren’t willing to play on a level field they want to legalize only one option and erode your rights in the meantime.
During the drought we were hammered with “each almond represents 1 gallon of water!” so poof almond milk should have disappeared ,from an Enviro point of view. A beautiful 6 oz filet will be what, an acre of production of both field and factory?
The almond growers and their growers are slowly migrating out of California to southern Arizona.
errata: growers and their almond tree groves.
Well, southeast Arizona. Although groves around Yuma in the southwest are also expanding. The vast middle is mostly taken up by the bombing range – mixing bombs and nuts is a bad idea…
Anyone who has done sterile lab tissue culture (TC) knows the issues here. And there are many.
– The first is keeping cultures sterile during growth. Not a trivial task, but doable… with antibiotics.
– Tissue-culture grown muscle-fiber cells (myocytes, chondrocytes) are grown with a media concoction known as media+serum+amino acids+antibiotics.
Commercial media are simply phosphate-buffered saline solution with various sugars and a pH dye indicator (usually phenol red). Those are all non-animal derived. Common antibiotics like pennicillin and streptomycin are non-animal biologic origin, but they can be heat sterilized. But the other additives are not. Serum and essential amino acids come from animals.
By far the most commonly used serum is derived from fetal calf blood. It is a semi-clear to brownish colloidal liquid remaining after centrifuge spinning-down all the cells from the blood. Essentially it is the blood plasma with a few more treatments. Those additional procedures are used to remove antibodies and it is then slightly heated just enough to inactivate complement proteins (heat denaturation of protein structure). Other sources of serum can be used like horse, goat, even human. The biggest threat in animal-origin serum is the presence of virus particles too small to filter out. Some synthetic serum concoctions have been developed, but it is a poor substitute for animal-derived serum. No one really knows all what is in fetal calf serum. We know it contains lectins (protein-binding long-branched sugars) and inactivated proteins.
And then there are the antibiotics that must be added to culture media as the cells grow to inhibit bacterial growth/contamination. Without antibiotics, TC just won’t work past a few rounds of passing cells through culture.
Now I suppose these tissue “meat” cultures are being grown with some kind of synthetic serum to avoid the biohazard of viruses. But the essential amino acids are usually animal derived.
The bottom line is cell culture grown “meat” will be analogous to the coal-powered Tesla. If one traces backwards to all the products it takes to make it, you might as well just keep cows and feed them grass and water. Much easier. Much tastier.
A juicy beef steak or cut of lamb have their taste we crave because of the presence of blood. How hot one prepares the meat of course we call rare, medium, well-done, and variations in between. With TC-derived “meat” one probably gets a something that looks like a tofu-burger. And tastes about the same.
The other issue with TC is that it literally uses mountainous piles of plastics to growth the cells in. The plastic TC containers are usually polycarbonate plastic with a vapor-coating (for cell adherence). The plastic can be recycled after it is used, but then that’s more energy. But polycarbonate plastic is not as easily recycled as polyethylenes, And the original plastic comes from petroleum.
Since bacteria and molds are a constant problem, they could just as well grow the right strains of bacteria or mold from a petrol-based or grain-based substrate and harvest them to make their d..mned steak. That’s where a lot of industrial food ingredients already come from (citric acid, Maggi sauce, glutamate…)
I believe the main problem may be cell oxygenation and nutrient transport. You can grow a layer of epidermal cells over a petri dish easily. But if you want to grow a slice of meat, you need to provide all the cells with nutrients and oxygen, and remove all the garbage the cells produce, CO2 included. That is what the circulatory system is for.
Unfortunately, it’s hard to argue that grass fed beef is not environmentally sound. Grown in pastures that are too rocky to farm, or have to unfertile soil, it utilizes non-croppable land, has lower fat and better fatty acid profiles than conventional beef, lamb, mutton, or pork. It will be way better for you than any factory grown meat. I think the FDA would require long term replacement trials for vat grown meat, similar to drug trials but maybe lasting 3-4 generations to ensure wholesomeness before allowing it to mass market.
The primary source of vitamin B-12 is animal tissue, eggs, and milk, very little in plants. Most of the B-12 in a vegan diet comes from the insect contamination in most flour, especially organic flour or else B-12 supplements derived from meat or chemically sythesized vitamins. You could also try grasshoppers or crickets.
Vegans will not deliberately eat bug, anyway, so crickets are out.
The UK noted some decades ago that strict vegan Hindu-men in the UK were having vitamin B1 (thiamine) deficiency issues aka beri-beri. But these traditional vegan Hindus were following the same diets they had used in their native India where beri-beri was not common.
What the investigation revealed was that Indian-origin white rice was highly contaminated with insects and insect parts, which of course was consumed along with the rice and thus they got their Vitamin B1. But in the UK, polished white rice was free of insect contamination. So these Hindu vegans were now getting beri-beri in a Western country with high food safety standards.
Maybe so, but polishing rice removes rice bran which contains B1. Extract of rice bran is used to treat beriberi. Brits must not add B1 to polished rice like yanks do.
icisil,
similarly, fortified wheat flour has B vitamins (B vitamins: thiamin, niacin, riboflavin and folic acid, and sometime also calcium) added to it. Fortified wheat flour is now highly encouraged by governments (mandated?) in bread production of commercial bakeries.
“You could also try grasshoppers or crickets.”
Got to do something about the name though. Cricketburger is gonna be a tough sell. Microlobster meat maybe.
Two words: Project Ginger
If you’re not familiar with the hype, just google the history of the Segway. All the same types of people were saying all the same types of things. It was the event that finally cured me of my own technology-as-savior mentality.
One of the most wrong- headed of the several mistaken notions within the Silicon Valley proposal is that properly managed cattle grazing is a net Carbon sequestration process. Properly managed grazing creates more productive, fertile soils.
Consider the most productive and fertile soils of North America. They are all found where vast herds of grazing Bovidae have played their part in building that soil, for eons.
pimf… should have read: …the failure to realize that properly managed…
Presuming that the ‘Frankenmeat’ contains the correct nutrients in the correct amounts as red meat:
Protein containing all 8 essential amino acids, Vitamin B12, Zinc, Selenium, Iron, Niacin, Vitamin B6, Phosphorus, naturally-occurring Ruminant Fats, Iron, Omega 3 and Omega 6.
I’m also reminded of George Orwell’s prediction in 1984 that real meat (steaks) were a luxury item not available to proles (working class). Only BigBrother party elites could acquire real meat.
Next up from Silicon Valley, the best recipes for Soylent Green.
It might bring down the price of meat!
You might not be able to buy real meat it could be banned animal cruelty and Co2 emissions 🙂
Cool. As long as they compete freely without tax payer “incentives” ( carbon tax). Let the people freely choose their meat. I prefer the mooing kind thanks.
Cows are wonderful!
I hope this never catches on.
Well that might take care of the meat but what about milk, butter, cream?
And cheese?
One word: Spam……………mmmmmmmmmmmmmm!
Let them eat seaweed. Let them take animal protein out of the stores. Even in California, we can still graze our own. “Got a shotgun, a rifle, and a four wheel drive; country folks can survive.”
I never thought something raw could smell burnt, until I tried seaweed salad for the first–and last–time.
There is only one ‘a’ in ideological
“I want to be able to say you don’t have to make a choice in what you’re eating,” Memphis CEO and cofounder Uma Valeti says, “but you can make a choice on the process of how it goes to the table.”
What does that sentence even mean??? The second clause makes sense on its own, but the full sentence is nonsensical. I would not invest 17 cents in a company headed by someone who is that inarticulate.
People who invest in these schemes should have to pledge to only consume such products. No more real meat for Branson or Gates. I doubt either would/will actually consume the franken-meat behind closed doors anyway.
Well, we could always do what free marketeers say is the right way to prosper; “Eat the rich.” And their minions too. Call it redistribution. Just to be ‘fair’.
Stop being cruel to Yeast!
To me the biggest lie in all this anti animal flesh argument is that plant based food is better for the planet. Growing plants, in the modern, high yield setting requires large energy inputs in the form of artificial fertiliser (from oil), pesticide and herbicide (from oil), energy for production (from oil), transport (from oil) and post processing (from electrical sources), packaging (from oil), transport to the point of sale (from oil), consumer collection (from oil), cooking (from lets say electrical sources) and then disposal of said packing to recycling or land fill (from oil and/or electrical). In order for this to be viable government subsidy is required otherwise it’s not viable, same as renewables, its taking money from the masses and putting it into the pockets of the new tech elites. Most intensively farmed land is essentially dead hence the need for inputs to get the yield required. A wheat crop here in the UK requires 8 to 12 treatments during the season to get the yield and quality needed. This is not sustainable. Mixed farming i.e. animals and arable is; since the energy input requirements would be dramatically reduced and the land would be in ‘good heart’ as they used to say, ergo requiring less energy input.. Locally produced meat and vegetables require much less transport, packaging and all of the attendant overhead and marketing needed for mass distribution in the form of the omnipresent ‘supermarkets’. I’m not a Greenie at all but at times common sense needs to be bought to bear. The people developing these products see a market and the same ridiculous amounts of investment that have dominated the ‘tech’ markets which will enable them to trouser $$$$, the rest of the spin about the planet etc is utter BS.
” Most intensively farmed land is essentially dead hence the need for inputs to get the yield required.”
Maybe you are not a Greenie but you are repeating the greenies’ nonsense.
No, intensive farmland is not dead, neither “essentially” dead (whatever that means), nor any such things. Intensive farmlands are thriving and produce more and more each years. If they have less input, they will have less yield (but still more than “organic”), that’s all that’ll happens, but they are NOT dead.
It’s sad that you need to be explained such no brainer.
I don’t think you understood the premise of my reply i e that if we all become vegans all will be well according to the so- called eco warriors (not my view). My point being that mono cropping is not without its impact on resources, nor is it anymore ‘sustainable’ (I hate that word) than mixed farming or raising livestock, something that green vegan advocates don’t seem to grasp, rather like ignoring the fact that fabricating wind turbines has no carbon footprint. Intensive farmlands ‘thrive’ precisely because of the artificial fertiliser, pest treatment and plant breeding I listed- I live next to a large intensive farm, I see it year in year out and the number of fertiliser treatments is rising. The real growing condition of the soil is not important in this system of production since it’s condition can be modified as discussed above and it is just a medium for propagation. Over time the soil loses its structure and this can be a problem. I’m entitled to use any sentence modifiers as I see fit.