September 12, 2022
NOW YOU CAN EAT MEAT AND SAVE THE PLANET!
By Barry Sardis
Introduction
If this article appears to be too much information, then just look at this YouTube video (13:41) titled Meat Without Animals: The Future Of Food. It was not shown in the meeting due to its length. There is a newer alternative meat technology, described below, not mentioned in this video.
August 2023: Read this CNBC article about Bill Gates
My food tech journey began in 2013 with a movie, Forks Over Knives. It led me to become vegan, initially for health reasons. Read what the largest municipal health care system in the nation is doing for the health of its patients, and why.
Boxes like the one above contain links to the reference material.-Click anywhere in the box.
Over the last couple of years, I have begun to take notice of several developments in what I termed Farm Tech. Those that have attended some of our meetings are likely aware that we have frequently featured videos of CES (formerly the Consumer Electronics Show) panelists who are subject matter experts in the meeting topic.
In reviewing the CES 2022 batch of videos, I found several on Food Tech. One, in particular, caught my attention because I learned about something new and important to me, and it was the focus of the 9/12/22 meeting. I like learning new things, and that’s why I’m a Technology Explorer.
The meeting, and this article, is organized thusly:
- Relationship of agriculture, farms, and food to technology
- An overview of how agriculture, and in particular, animal agriculture, has become a major threat to the planet
- References to the CES 2022 Food Technology conference
- The Future of Meat and the three categories of alternative meats:
- Plant based meat
- Cultivated meat
- Fermentation
Technology
The earliest and simplest form of technology is the development of knowledge that leads to the application of basic tools. The prehistoric invention of shaped stone tools and the discovery of how to control fire increased the sources of food that were available to human beings. The invention of the wheel led to the travelling technologies that helped humans to further increase the yield of food production, travel in less time, and exchange information and raw materials faster.
From From Wikipedia’s description of Technology
This Wikipedia quote leaves out a related and important technology (because it appears much later in the article) that went even further to increase food production – agriculture.
I searched for Farm Technology on Wikipedia and got interesting results – The page “Farm technology” does not exist. The search results page did include quite a few interesting references related to farms and technology, some I’d not heard of before.
But there is a Wikipedia page for Food Technology. One of the page’s references has a comprehensive answer to the question What is FoodTech?
The video (7:09) below touches on the development of agriculture, how it has led us to the point where it is endangering the planet, and future changes needed to address several critical worldwide problems.
This is a preview (10:15) of an hour long documentary currently on Netflix. Sir David Attenborough hosts with Johan Rockstrom from the planetary resilience center at Stockholm University. Rockstrom is a rock star in planetary science.
I used my iPhone to capture, off my TV, a very short (1:12) part of the full documentary, with Rockstrom stating the primary message of the presentation. Warning, the audio is not very good.
To learn more about planetary boundaries and resilience, this link will take you to the Stockholm University website. There are several other references on Planetary Boundaries in the Notes at the end of this page.
CES 2022 Food Technology Conference
I originally considered using another CES expert panelist video for this meeting. As mentioned above, I found that 2022 was the first time CES included Food Tech in its annual event. There were five sessions, with four moderated by Michael Wolf of The Spoon, which labels itself as “The go-to source for food tech execs.”
Click this box to go to an overview of the conference
These are the five sessions.
This one highlights three innovations. These panelists also appear in subsequent sessions.
As mentioned above, you can watch these sessions by clicking within the box.
This is the website of the moderator Michael Wolf:
The Future of Meat
The content of the Future of Meat session, and panelist Bruce Friedrich of the Good Food Institute (GFI.org), provided the inspiration for the September 12, 2022 meeting, and this article. Bruce’s informative, and short, introduction to the subject (5:49) below was shown in the meeting.
A newer, more informative, but longer (13:41) alternative presentation by Bruce was not shown in the meeting due to its length.
This is the preview link to the GFI page on the three types of alternative proteins (alt-meats). There are several other GFI references in the Notes at the end of this page.
Plant-based
Plant-based meat is the first category. Most of you have probably heard about one or both of these as the Bistro serves Impossible meat. CNBC produced this YouTube video (13.53) titled “How Impossible Foods Turned A Plant-Based Burger Into A $4 Billion Brand”.
I prefer the taste of the Beyond Burger but no longer eat either because of the overall nutritional profile. I look at the fat, sodium, fiber, and added sugar of processed products I buy. I am happy with the ever growing availability of plant-based “burgers” (aka patties).
Over the past few years, I have moved from being vegan to plant-based. I want to get to whole-food plant-based as it provides the most health benefit. Click this image for the full details for the differences.
A Good Food Institute scientist explains the ins and outs of Plant based meat in this video (9:45).
Cultivated
The second category, Cultivated, also known as Cell based, Cultured, Lab Grown, etc., is the same meat as that from an animal. It has the same physical properties, look, and taste. Early semiconductors (computer chips) were very expensive. Once the cultivated technology matures, the cost will be less and a tiny fraction of the the planetary impact.
It is believed that this category has the greatest chance of significant adoption once the price is at or more importantly, below, that of the “natural” equivalent.
It is not for me because it has the same negative health concerns that made me choose plants.
PBS Terra is a part of PBS Digital Studios. This enjoyable video (8:44) talks about the promise and potential pitfalls of cultivated meat.
TIME discusses some history, the current state, and a visit to a leading company developing cultivated meat explaining how it is done.
In addition to land animals, companies are working on creating cultivated seafood.
Fermentation
This is the third, and newest, category of alternative protein (alt-meats).
Harvard provides a very brief (1:14) explanation of fermented, or microbial, food.
PBS Eons, is another one of the Digital Studios from PBS. This video is an informative deep dive (9:52) into how humans may have come to enjoy and develop fermented foods.
Mycoprotein is a protein that is derived from fungi (mushrooms). A Scottish company explains (3:45) how it is made and how to use it in food preparation.
I purchased, and have been using, this mycoprotein product on Amazon to replace similar plant-based products because of the nutritional profile and it has far fewer ingredients. Goodside Foods gets its mycoprotein from the ingredient company Myco Technology.
Fermentation technology is also applied to algaes such as kelp, seaweed, and as discussed in the video (1:52) below, microalgae.
This is one of the pioneering firms that participated in CES panels. You would think that they use algae, but the product is derived from mushrooms. It is not yet available for sale.
Finally, a potentially hopeful note. This initiative was launched at last year’s annual UN climate summit, named COP26, by the U.S. and UAE (United Arab Emirates). Right now, there are 41 countries involved along with many others, including philanthropists, universities, major corporations, startups, NGOs, and others. Johan Rockstrom was a participant and his COP26 presentation is available on YouTube. Of course, there are naysayers, but we can hope.
Additional Notes
1-Planetary Boundaries
The Planetary Boundaries concept, includes climate change, but goes well beyond. Wikipedia sums it up as “Limits not to be exceeded if humanity wants to survive in a safe ecosystem” (seen when typing Planetary Boundaries into the Wikipedia search box). Animal agriculture negatively impacts six of the nine boundary categories. This Smithsonian Magazine article from 2012 describes these impacts.
This video was created not long after the concept was first introduced in 2009.
At 1:31 of the above video, the graphic shown below appears and Rockstrom describes the Holocene, the age supporting human development, and at 2:25 he begins to describe why many believe we have entered a new age, the Anthropocene. The graphic below links to a 2015 article, the year of the Paris Agreement, titled Humanity is in the existential danger zone, study confirms.
A short review ten years after the concept was introduced.
Specific actions that need to be taken by 2030 and 2050..
2 – Good Food Institute
This also appears above. It was used in the presentation because its length is less than the next video, which provides more information.
This video provides better information about why Cultivated meat could be the solution to feeding the ever growing human population while greatly reducing the negative impacts of animal agriculture.
GFI offers a treasurer trove of information for those that want to know more about the technologies of alternative proteins via its YouTube channel.
3-Fermentation & Fungi
When researching this subject and discovering this category of alternative protein, I also learned how amazing fungi (mushrooms) are via a 1 hour 20 minute Netflix movie titled Fantastic Fungi:
Fantastic Fungi is a descriptive time-lapse journey about the magical, mysterious and medicinal world of fungi and their power to heal, sustain and contribute to the regeneration of life on Earth that began 3.5 billion years ago.
IMDB
Click the box below for the movie’s website:
What Johan Rockstrom is to Planetary Boundaries, and Bruce Friedrich is to Alternative Protein technologies, Paul Stamets is to Fungi/Mushrooms. He was instrumental in the making of the movie Fantastic Fungi and Fungi Perfecti is his website offering products and learning, such as this page on the benefits of the various types of mushrooms offered .
Other
A recommended alternative to the Beyond Boundaries documentary on Netflix , or for additional viewing, is Eating Our Way to Extinction
Starring globally renowned figures and the world’s leading scientists, EATING OUR WAY TO EXTINCTION will take you on a journey – A powerful cinematic feature documentary that opens the lid on the elephant in the room no one wants to talk about. Alarming and entertaining this compelling feature documentary will make you never look at your food or the food industry in the same way again.
IMDB
I chose to go plant-based because of heart issues. This 2014 article from USC discusses how consuming animal protein could lead to cancer. Click the box to read.
The first YouTube video in this post is from Brent Loken from WWF. This article by him sums up the proposition that moving diets from animals to plants can reverse the damage done to the ecosystem and improve human health. Click the box to read.
