Why eating Tortoise could save the planet

the galapagos tortoise is the oldest

living tortoise species

in the world they can weigh up to 415

kilograms

live for up to 120 years

and they are incredibly delicious

so delicious in fact it took them over

300 years

just to get a scientific name no live

specimen

ever made it back to europe without

being eaten on the voyage

in 1850 u.s navy captain david porter

once declared

after tasting the galapagos tortoises

all other animal meats fell off greatly

in our estimation so if it’s so good

why is it not on the menu today well

dipping into existing populations would

completely decimate the numbers so to be

a

pretty limited time offer so today

i’m proposing the creation of industrial

galapagos tortoise farms

around a number of sites in australia

that’s a joke but we’ll come back to

that one later no hopefully by now it’s

raising another question in your mind

why is it that almost every mouthful of

meat that we eat comes from just five

different animals

to answer this question let’s go back in

time a little bit ten thousand years

we’ve just started to see the

domestication of plants and animals and

for perspective the

global population is between 5 and 10

million people

so take the population of new york today

and send it out across the whole globe

at this time there’s some theories that

we domesticated certain animals for

spiritual worship

and only when we got too efficient at

breeding them do we turn the surplus

into a

steady supply of dinner ingredients

others talk about a

criteria for domestication that made it

possible to domesticate some animals but

well frankly impossible to domesticate

others

but even beyond this criteria over time

there’s a certain group of animals

that expressed characteristics and

traits that simply made them

easier to farm and therefore cheaper to

produce and more widely available and

that ultimately makes for better eating

material

in fact it was our ability to scale our

production for certain animals that

allowed us to meet the growing demand

for meat

and also ensure that those animals

reigned supreme on our menus for a

century to come

in fact our ability to scale

industrial animal agriculture and the

efficiencies they’re

in is simply breathtaking

we’ve harnessed these incredible

breeding programs to

perfectly craft creatures who are made

for meat yield right down to a genetic

level

we’ve harnessed breakthroughs in

antibiotics so that we can take more

animals and put them together and have

them alive for longer periods of time

and our understanding of essential

nutrition and the role that it plays the

vitamins and the role they play

with animals means that we’ve now been

able to take a lot of our farming

and move it indoors away from the heavy

conditions of the outdoor world

constant and enduring advances over the

past century means that we can at any

given point have a hundred billion

animals

in our global food system so if you take

this and

mix it in with a growing population

maybe

10 billion by 2050 what you find is that

we have more people

with greater access to more protein than

ever before

is an incredible feat of human ingenuity

and it also poses one of the greatest

existential crises we have

ever faced as a human race

these breeding programs perfectly

optimizing animals altering their

genetics for more

yield and meat means that we have

created for billions of animals

lives that are not worth living from the

very beginning their legs breaking under

their weight

pigs on top of each other and cows very

much the same

it’s also leading to another kind of

breeding program one for antibiotic

resistant superbugs whose

pandemic potential around the globe far

outweighs that

of covert 19. and growing animals

to make meat contributes more greenhouse

gas emissions to the atmosphere

than all transport methods combined

that’s planes

trains and cars and clearing land

to grow crops to feed animals is one of

the leading causes of deforestation

and biodiversity lost around the world

we’re at the point

already right now where 96

of all of the mammals on earth they’re

either humans

or the animals that we grow to feed us

so let’s take this and mix it with a

grown population maybe 10 billion people

by 2050

and meat demands to double by that time

and what you find is the situation is

it’s catastrophic

and the existential crisis for us for

all of us is very

very real scientists have been warning

us for some time about

the relationship between our dinner

plates and this climate countdown crisis

that we’re facing

some studies say that as much as a 90

reduction in individual meat consumption

is required just to stop things from

getting worse

about three years ago i went on to an

exploration into my food choices and how

i was impacting this climate crisis

i learned about some of these facts and

these figures and about the state of the

current food production systems and

one day i made a decision to adopt a

plant-based diet

which as the name suggests means i

stopped eating meat

for two years i was strictly vegan

and then i wasn’t i started eating meat

again

at first it was just a one-off you know

a sense of culinary pleasure and then

this sincere pang of guilt

and then after that it was only on rare

occasions just to sometimes food i’ve

been very good

this year so i can have that and then

slowly but surely over time it it just

became a normalized habit

i’m quite embarrassed to get up in front

of a room full of people here and admit

that time and time again i cave to

temptation

and sometimes even when i know all of

the facts

my actions don’t reflect the wider

actions that i would like to see out

there in the world

the sad reality of it is i’m i’m not

alone

i record 72 percent of americans said

that

global warming is of personal importance

to them

in australia 79 of people say they’re

either fairly concerned or they’re very

concerned about climate change

and we’re the two biggest meat eaters in

the world

see for most there is this huge gap

between the righteous choice and

the more desirable one it’s an

everyday challenge that for most of us

even the most conscious of consumers it

causes us to turn a blind eye and really

not think about those everyday perils of

our food choices

and in a world where we’re constantly

fighting off temptation

be it from advertising or social media

or from social pressures around us

it’s just easier to eat the delicious

thing

there’s more information readily

available today than it

ever has been about the negative

consequences of industrial animal

agriculture

and eating meat but still meat

consumption globally it is on the rise

at a faster rate than ever before

studies show that as people get

wealthier they just consume more meat

and with the huge emerging middle

classes in places like africa and china

and other countries around the world

what we’re seeing is an explosion in

purpose and meat consumption

and that’s even more terrifying when you

realize that there’s over a billion

vegetarians in the world

and the vast majority of them are not

that way by choice

they’re that way by circumstance they’re

ready and they’re willing to eat more

meat as soon as it’s more affordable for

them to do so

and it makes sense meat is a phenomenal

product it is

very very good and this notion of

consuming meat being a pleasurable

act is something that is so deeply

ingrained

in the cultural fabric of societies and

the eating habits of billions of people

so what if i told you that we could have

our meat

and eat it too what if i told you that

we could feed billions of

new and existing meat eaters real

delicious meat products

but in a way that’s completely

sustainable what if i told you that

right

now we are on the brink of the most

important disruption in food and

agriculture

literally since we first domesticated

animals and plants 10 000 years ago

what i’m talking about is the next great

domestication

the domestication of the cell

right now around the world a number of

companies are producing real

animal meat products directly from the

cells of animals

instead of the animals themselves it’s

called

cultured meat and it might just be the

solution to our industrial

animal agriculture problems okay so how

does this work

you can take a small sample of cells

from an animal it’s a harmless biopsy

it’s about the size of an almond

and from that what you can do is isolate

the stem cells that are responsible

for building fat muscle and connective

tissue which really are just the

building blocks of all of the meat that

we eat today

what you can take is seed those building

blocks into a cultivator which

essentially is it’s a fancy beer brewery

it’s a big tank

in there they’re fed with salts and

sugars and amino acids which is all of

the essential nutrients

that they need to grow and they do

trillions

and trillions of cells divide and divide

and divide and then they come together

to form complex structures

and then after four to six weeks

you get real delicious meat products

like these that have been made with the

cells of animals

but not the animals themselves

okay so there’s at least a dozen

scientists around the world right now

who are rolling their eyes at how much i

just simplified that

in reality it is a scientific and

engineering challenge that demands

and continues to demand some of the

greatest minds in the world

but when you understand the payoff that

is available here

it’s so worth the challenge an early

study out of the university of oxford

suggested that by growing meat using the

cells of animals instead of animals

themselves

will result in a 98 reduction in

greenhouse gas emissions

it would result in a 99 less land use

and a 96 percent less water use

it also lowers the risk of any

animal-borne global pandemics

and by taking this production that’s not

impacted by climate

or seasons or weather suddenly

production

is available to countries that could

never have it before not just those who

have

large swathes of arable land like we do

and from 250 000 euros for just one

burger

back in 2013 it’s now being produced for

less than a thousand dollars a kilo and

that still sounds like a lot but it’s

projected to be less than any meat on

our shelves in the next 10 years

and for the foodies in the audience the

connoisseurs

it doesn’t stop there see by rethinking

food from the ground or

the cell up we can reimagine not

restricted by the criteria that we

started with in the old systems

this might be new creations like beef

that tastes like bacon

or it might be that we get pork cells

and lobster cells and we bring them

together and have a surf and turf burger

and truly it’s just as easy to grow the

cells of a galapagos tortoise

as it is a cow or what have we got

together cells that were naturally rich

in l-tryptophan

we brought them together to create this

meat product that naturally elevates our

mood

and then after which we drift off into

this nice rejuvenating rest

for everyone in the audience tonight

that would be a sleep steak

okay let’s fast forward a little bit

thinking about a world where we’re all

eating cultured meat

what we found is that it’s having

incredibly positive impact on global

hunger

on nutrition and general health for

billions of people

it sounds like an absolute no-brainer

right

well sometimes the greatest of food

staples don’t come to market for the

strangest of reasons

let me give you an example put up your

hand if you have had a food product with

potato in it in the last

week that should be most of you

statistically

each of us eat global as global citizens

each of us eat

34 kilograms of potatoes a year which if

you think about 7 billion people that’s

a lot of spuds

but it wasn’t always quick this quick to

catch on

in fact in 1748 france outright banned

the potato

across the whole country they thought

that it looked like a small hand that

had leprosy

and if you ate it then you were at risk

of contracting the same

they also believed that it would give

you rampant sexual urges but it’s

probably another ted talk

so look to overcome the technical

challenges that are associated with

bringing culture meat to market

we’re going to need some of the greatest

minds the greatest entrepreneurs

scientists engineers and policy makers

to start working together

but to get over the trappings of the

erotic potato leper myths

we need you guys to start talking about

it

my father’s in the audience tonight when

i was a kid

my father told me that almost all

problems could be solved by just simply

having better communication

he’d say start a conversation let’s just

see what happens

so when i found out in 2017 the culture

meet was a thing and that i could

have the need and not feel that guilt

and that also by being involved i could

potentially positively impact billions

of lives

i got obsessed i called everyone i could

in the industry and they told me

tim the verdict is very clear we need

more scientists

and if you don’t have a phd well you’d

better have an mba and for a university

dropout like me that was a pretty bitter

pill to swallow

so i did what i knew and had been taught

and i started a conversation

just around the corner actually in

sydney i started a panel discussion the

title why should australia get involved

in cultured meat

i invited as many people as i could i

was worried nothing would happen

and actually over 200 people came that

day it was incredible conversation

that the questions were intelligent the

energy in the room was

vibrant and out of that one conversation

that one day that one event i met my

future business partner

i met the lawyer who would end up

handling our patents and i met the

investor that

was connected with the investor who

actually ended up cutting our very first

check

and if he cuts to two years later it’s

not just me

we’re a team of 18 people and one of the

fastest growing culture meat companies

in the world

every single day we have some of the

smartest phd scientists from around the

world contributing to creating meat

products

directly from the cells of animals

instead of the animals themselves

you see the point i’m trying to

illustrate here is never

ever doubt the power of just one

conversation

you never know where that’s going to

lead so what i want you to do not

tonight you’ve already had your dinner

but

tomorrow when you’re having dinner with

someone else i want you to start that

conversation

i want you to ask them all right would

you eat a burger that’s made from the

stem cells of a galapagos tortoise

and when they look at you like you might

have lost your mind

just politely explain to them that it

might just save the planet

thank you