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