The Future of Meat

[Music]

[Laughter]

[Applause]

think about what you ate last night for

dinner

and the night before no unless you’re

part of the five percent of vegetarians

or vegans that make up the united

states’s population

i assume you pictured some type of meat

on your plate

let’s take a look back a little farther

than your dinner two nights ago

here i have a couple of friends homo

erectus and homo sapiens

while their ancestors may have survived

off of herbivorous diets

the development of their brains required

more hearty meals

meals consisting of a dinner plate very

similar to the one that came to mind

just a moment ago

so while meat did play a necessary role

in our own evolution

and was critical in the lifestyles of

our early ancestors

we may no longer have that same luxury

let’s play a game of spot the difference

the picture on the left depicts the

earth’s landscape

approximately 2.5 million years ago when

homo erectus’s earliest ancestors were

roaming the land

hunting whatever meat they could find

this vast and relatively untouched

terrain carried our ancestors to the

beginning of their farming endeavors

following the ice age around 14 000

years ago the neolithic revolution

occurred

and moved our timeline into an era of

agricultural settlements and early

civilization

erectus left behind hunting and

gathering and through the innovation of

more sophisticated stone tools

they established the beginnings of

domestication

fast forward a couple thousand years

farming has evolved

the simple addition of one word results

in what we have now

factory farming what exactly is factory

farming you might ask

well given the changed landscape the

method of obtaining meat seems like it

would be

slightly different than before doesn’t

it

otherwise known as industrial livestock

production or intensive animal farming

factory farming has grown to be the most

prominent method of meat production

and constitutes 99.9 percent of all

animal

products in the united states alone

thus while an agricultural revolution

marked the shift from foraging to

farming

more recent industrial revolutions have

allowed for the true revolutionization

of farming

one that we may have to rethink

our meat-centric diets today not only

require heavy-duty assembly lines and

large-scale factories to keep up with

hungry consumers

but an increasing desire for profit on

the producing end has in turn

contributed to an earthly disaster

global warming now we reach a point

where i’d like to make a short

disclaimer

i’m not a vegetarian i joined the

majority of you

who imagined a nicely seasoned piece of

meat at the beginning of this talk when

asked

to think about last night’s meal so

while factory farming is primarily given

a negative connotation

one to be associated with animal cruelty

or ethical virtues i will not be focused

on either of these throughout the

remainder of this talk

rather the impacts of climate change are

growing ever more detrimental

between 1990 and 2010 carbon dioxide

emissions rose 42 percent

this statistic is just one of many that

points the effects of industrialization

but within this realm of industry

the second largest greenhouse gas

contributor is the agricultural industry

through a multitude of factors including

deforestation water wastage and rumen

fermentation

factory farming is largely responsible

for these greenhouse gas emissions

the amazon rainforest spans across eight

south american countries

making it the largest rainforest in the

world

beginning in the late 1970s however

cattle ranching established itself as

the rainforest leading cause

of destruction as the general demand for

livestock has increased throughout the

years

the ranching and livestock industry has

become the fastest growing agricultural

sector in the world

and today cattle ranching accounts for

80 percent of the rainforest

deforestation

if this trend continues we will suffer

from consequences

not only at a local level but globally

the amazon rainforest alone provides

more than 100 billion metric tons of

carbon

for maintaining the world’s climate and

for comparison

that’s more than 5 billion times our

world’s population

in effect the results of clearing the

entire rainforest would be similar to

that

of the world’s population doubling

in addition to requiring an immense

amount of land resources factory farming

also necessitates water usage for

cleaning their factories

with regard specifically to the meat

sector of the agricultural industry

factory farming necessitates massive

amounts of water

to produce just one pound of meat and

how massive

is massive exactly 2400 gallons

that’s more than 50 bathtubs full all

right now

it gets better this is probably what

you’d buy at the grocery store

three pounds of meat but how much of

this do we consume

a week a year

its effects add up to this and more

but hey it’s okay we’re only part of the

problem

not only are humans a contributor to the

causes of global warming

but the animals themselves pose an even

greater threat to our environment

as more than 50 of agricultural

greenhouse gas emissions

are released as direct and indirect

byproducts of manure

and enteric fermentation the process of

rumen fermentation by which

animals convert food into energy

releases carbon dioxide and methane into

our atmosphere

this equation and these terms might seem

quite complicated

but to simplify it this is all you

really need to know

this problem however is specific to the

traditional method of producing meat

you see take away the animals take away

the fermentation

as our society is becoming increasingly

mechanized and advancements are being

made in technology

the rise of antibiotics vaccines

pesticides and even new transportation

routes have all contributed to our

capability to mass-produce meat for

distribution

knowing this let’s not allow

modernization to serve as our excuse for

moving forward

rather let’s allow it to shift us away

from eating meat

traditionally statistically speaking

somewhere around five percent of the

people in this room are consumers of the

meat-free diet

if i were to have given this talk 50

years ago however

this statement would have applied to

only one percent of you

but even five years ago a harris poll

national survey

found the percentage of vegetarian

american adults to remain just under 3.5

percent

the slow growth of our country’s

vegetarians has done little to remedy

what is a larger global crisis

climate change the united states

currently stands among the top consumers

in the meat industry with consumption

rates significantly higher than the rest

of the world

let’s take a look at one example

although pork and beef production has

remained relatively constant since 1970

between 1970 and 2018 chicken production

soared and is now 3.5 times higher than

the world average

physically requiring less space to raise

chicken has become a popular choice of

factory farmers

and constitutes 99.9 of all the chicken

products we eat today

what’s more in less economically

developed countries let’s take

ethiopia as the extreme example we see

an even greater disparity

the united states is consuming poultry

meat at almost 100 times more than

ethiopia

emphasizing our own country’s

accountability in the larger issue

of climate change so

america as part of the problem we must

also be part of the solution

there are those of you who already

choose to drink soy milk over cow’s milk

for whatever preferential reasons

so why not make a change to other parts

of your diet as well

in the past few years companies like

impossible burger and beyond meat have

emerged and marketed their plant-based

meat products

as their future of protein requiring

less land less water

and less energy to produce ultimately

releasing 90 percent fewer greenhouse

gas emissions made from plants such as

peas soy wheat and rice plant-based meat

has developed a reputation for being a

more sustainable alternative to

traditional meat

of course there are obstacles that

plant-based meat producers currently

face

in order to keep the same nutritional

value as conventional meat

products like the impossible burger and

beyond burger patties require much more

processing than regular ground beef

patties do

additionally while the search for new

protein sources from materials including

fungi and algae suggest possibility for

expanding the plant-based meat market

it also implies the difficulty with

which manufacturers may need to adjust

their processes

all of which are still more expensive to

both producers

and consumers than traditional meat

products

for those of you who are who may be

reluctant to embrace the concept of

plant-based meat and

propose the valid argument that it is

not real meat

the near future brings with it hopes of

a promising solution

another targeted area of study has been

the development of

animal cell-based meat known as clean

meat

cell-based meat is grown from connective

tissue

fat cells and muscle cells all of which

are grown in the lab

though still in its early stages this

process has the potential to further

transform

our roles as consumers of meat

in addition to organizations like the

good food institute which seeks to bring

together scientists entrepreneurs and

even students to contribute to its cause

companies like memphis meats and finless

foods are among the first

to experiment with cell-based meat

following a process similar to this

these companies begin by sourcing a

small sample of self-renewable cells

from their desired source then providing

the necessary nutrients for these cells

to grow

following proliferation these cells are

structured to form

muscle and connective tissue and culture

before being distributed

to producers and consumers alike

by eliminating the need for factory

farming clean meat lives up to its name

through both getting rid of the effects

of the dirty slaughtering

of factory farming as well as getting

rid of the

dirty world that we are creating

otherwise

the research currently being conducted

on self-renewal and differential stem

cells and culture

has opened up new opportunities for the

meat industry in the past few years

and presents continued hope for the

future

just a couple of weeks ago memphis meets

announced their latest funding round of

161 million dollars surmounting to a

total of over 180 million dollars from

investors like

softbank group bill gates richard

branson and others

additionally the usda and fda have

agreed to jointly regulate the clean

meat industry

in our bacteria and virus-filled world

clean meat provides literally cleaner

meat

and even the government has recognized

this

just think about it if clean meat had

been globally implemented in history

it would have been impossible for the

avian and swine flu viruses to have been

transmitted to humans

in today’s world the prevention of such

animal-to-human transmission of viruses

could save us furthermore

the cultures that these cells are grown

in can

be modified to include specific genomes

or

nutrients designed to make the meat

richer in vitamins that we may otherwise

be lacking

effectively making clean meat a way to

address both the preventatives

and the possibilities

whatever it may be this period of rapid

development

leads us to reimagine what our future

dinner plates may look like

what our future world may look like

available land for agricultural use is

finite

that’s already been established but the

number of the cells in this world is

seemingly infinite

and along with this comes infinite

possibilities

a stem cell technology is becoming more

accessible and more efficient

it is possible that the future brings

with it

the potential to produce to use both

cells animal stem cells and plant stem

cells in the production of

cell-based food in the next few years it

will be cell-based meat

in the next few decades will be

cell-based meat and vegetables

will we wait for these answers and

imagine our world’s future though

let’s not forget the world isn’t waiting

so next time you stop into dunkin donuts

try out their beyond sausage breakfast

sandwiches

craving a burger burger king’s got you

and it’s impossible whoppers have got

our climate

thank you

[Applause]

you