May I recommend a book you may welcome: "Rethinking Food and Agriculture 2020-2030: The Second Domestication of Plants and Animals, the Disruption of the Cow, and the Collapse of Industrial Livestock Farming" by Catherine Tubb & Tony Seba, of the independent think tank, RethinkX. These paragraphs are from an essay I've been composing (I will presently use information from your wonderful essay to update it.):
Following the Labor Disruption, RethinkX’s Food Disruption may be the second most provocative of their four. It is based on two technologies, the more fundamental one called Precision Fermentation (PF). By adding the gene for producing human insulin to yeast cells, technologists could “brew” human insulin to replace problematic animal insulin (harvested from the pancreases of pigs and cows in slaughterhouses). The cost curve of PF, initially too high for anything but pharmaceuticals, has plummeted, and is forecast by RethinkX to fall below one fifth the cost of traditional animal protein by 2030, to below one tenth by 2035, and ultimately to approach the cost of sugar. The products should include any nutrient molecule imaginable (as well as many other things fabricated from molecules, like leather from brewed collagen, and silk). Conventionally produced, many of these nutrient molecules would be prohibitively expensive; but the cost of creating and inserting this-or-that gene will not differ: the different inputs are just price-neutral genetic information. No herbicides or pesticides are involved in PF, so it is inherently Organic. In production of food from these phytonutrients the gene-modified brewing organism will be finally removed from the brew, so the food is Non-GMO. It is also Not “highly processed food” in the sense that term is currently used. Today’s food processing involves crude manipulation of mostly monoculture crops to maximize profitability: adding preservatives, thickeners, stabilizers, dyes, and emulsifiers, and stripping fat and fiber to increase shelf-life; bleaching to remove odors; adding sugar for palatability; etc. (The Energy Disruption will make economically feasible the refrigeration of all food in grocery stores to increase shelf-life.) It has the appropriately ironic acronym SAD, for Standard American Diet: appropriate because it is foundational to our current global epidemic of chronic diseases initiated by insulin resistance, in turn initiated by “foods” containing chronic toxins, preeminently sugar and starch. See the work of functional physicians such as Robert Lustig, Mark Hyman, David Perlmutter, Eric Westman, and William Li. The SAD will happily go away!)
The second technology of the Food Disruption is Cellular Agriculture (CA), cultures started from stem cell biopsies taken from various food animals (mammal, bird, fish, or seafood species): a process harmless to the animals and allowing the creation of any meat tissue. The production cost is determined by the cost of the growth medium, and as the cost of PF plunges, the cost of CA follows. Using the cultured cells as building materials for 3-D printing, CA technology should be able to attain optimally desired meat textures. Note that traditional meat, produced in the filth of a slaughterhouse, presents dangerous health hazards, while cultured meat might be mandated to be produced in a medically sterile environment. Traditional meat might be labeled as grass-fed, pasture-raised, or wild-caught to indicate the animals had a natural diet and that their flesh is not nutritionally compromised. Otherwise, the animals are typically prepared for slaughter in Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), likely fed antibiotics remaining in the meat tissues, and given minimally expensive cornmeal: not a natural diet and a diet producing a nutritionally deficient end-product (and the CAFO runoff is environmentally polluting). Wild-caught fish contain omega-3 fatty acids in their flesh from eating algae or from eating other fish. Farm-raised fish, like CAFO animals, are also fed with cornmeal, so their flesh contains no (dietary critical) omega-3 oils. But, the PF cultures created to feed CAs will be designed with chosen phytonutrients to produce optimally nutritious flesh, beyond a merely natural animal diet. RethinkX coined the term, “Food-as-Software”, to describe the New Agriculture’s information-intensive process of turning products of PF+CA into final food products.
RethinkX forecasts the Food Disruption will drive conventional agriculture into bankruptcy mostly within the next fifteen years. It will need about one percent of the land area used by conventional agriculture, freeing an area of land worldwide equal to that of the United States plus China plus Australia. A great portion of this freed land (hopefully in unfragmented segments) is likely to be used for managed rewilding, putting an end to the Anthropogenic Extinction Event. And with the slaughterhouse and commercial fishing becoming things of the past, the human relationship with animals might transition from exploitation to guardianship. Where the genes are available or reconstructible, some of the extinct species we destroyed, like the wooly mammoth or the passenger pigeon may be recovered and re-established.
Judy, here's a bit more information from my essay:
Adam Dorr is Director of Research for RethinkX (www.rethinkx.com), an independent think tank that has produced an extensive study of four “Disruptions” (Energy, Transportation, Food, and Labor) currently in the process of remaking human existence over the next two decades. (The “X” in RethinkX stands for crossed logistic curves: up for the disrupting new, down for the disrupted old.) Dorr’s book and his accompanying YouTube series of the same name, Brighter, details how these four Disruptions—most directly Energy, but most profoundly Labor (AI plus robotics)—will give humanity the tools to halt and then comprehensively remediate All the global damage—of land, sea, and air—caused by fossil fuels and other degradations inflicted since the rise of humanity.
(The episodes of Dorr's YouTube series, Brighter, are each about 15 minutes long, and there are currently 13 episodes available.)
I agree with most of this. Calling food “plant-based meat” sounds like something out of a George Carlin routine, however, and is where you lose me. It’s either meat or it’s not. (I almost never eat it anymore, though I do still do dairy, though not as much of it either.) Be straight with people.
There’s a lot of skepticism out there, and rightfully so. What has purported to be healthy in one regard — say, fat — turned out to be high in sugar, for example. And so on.
Hi Michael, I will be relaying this info to my next meetup.com gathering of VegPhoenix. We meet once a month at a vegan restaurant where I or someone else gives a short presentation and then have discussion and sharing. If anyone needs an idea for being an activist, I recommend doing this. In fact, each meeting I put out a plea for "speaking up/out" for the animals, Mother Earth and our health. It's a great way to hear new ideas, gain support and make new friends in a big lonely city.
Michael,
May I recommend a book you may welcome: "Rethinking Food and Agriculture 2020-2030: The Second Domestication of Plants and Animals, the Disruption of the Cow, and the Collapse of Industrial Livestock Farming" by Catherine Tubb & Tony Seba, of the independent think tank, RethinkX. These paragraphs are from an essay I've been composing (I will presently use information from your wonderful essay to update it.):
Following the Labor Disruption, RethinkX’s Food Disruption may be the second most provocative of their four. It is based on two technologies, the more fundamental one called Precision Fermentation (PF). By adding the gene for producing human insulin to yeast cells, technologists could “brew” human insulin to replace problematic animal insulin (harvested from the pancreases of pigs and cows in slaughterhouses). The cost curve of PF, initially too high for anything but pharmaceuticals, has plummeted, and is forecast by RethinkX to fall below one fifth the cost of traditional animal protein by 2030, to below one tenth by 2035, and ultimately to approach the cost of sugar. The products should include any nutrient molecule imaginable (as well as many other things fabricated from molecules, like leather from brewed collagen, and silk). Conventionally produced, many of these nutrient molecules would be prohibitively expensive; but the cost of creating and inserting this-or-that gene will not differ: the different inputs are just price-neutral genetic information. No herbicides or pesticides are involved in PF, so it is inherently Organic. In production of food from these phytonutrients the gene-modified brewing organism will be finally removed from the brew, so the food is Non-GMO. It is also Not “highly processed food” in the sense that term is currently used. Today’s food processing involves crude manipulation of mostly monoculture crops to maximize profitability: adding preservatives, thickeners, stabilizers, dyes, and emulsifiers, and stripping fat and fiber to increase shelf-life; bleaching to remove odors; adding sugar for palatability; etc. (The Energy Disruption will make economically feasible the refrigeration of all food in grocery stores to increase shelf-life.) It has the appropriately ironic acronym SAD, for Standard American Diet: appropriate because it is foundational to our current global epidemic of chronic diseases initiated by insulin resistance, in turn initiated by “foods” containing chronic toxins, preeminently sugar and starch. See the work of functional physicians such as Robert Lustig, Mark Hyman, David Perlmutter, Eric Westman, and William Li. The SAD will happily go away!)
The second technology of the Food Disruption is Cellular Agriculture (CA), cultures started from stem cell biopsies taken from various food animals (mammal, bird, fish, or seafood species): a process harmless to the animals and allowing the creation of any meat tissue. The production cost is determined by the cost of the growth medium, and as the cost of PF plunges, the cost of CA follows. Using the cultured cells as building materials for 3-D printing, CA technology should be able to attain optimally desired meat textures. Note that traditional meat, produced in the filth of a slaughterhouse, presents dangerous health hazards, while cultured meat might be mandated to be produced in a medically sterile environment. Traditional meat might be labeled as grass-fed, pasture-raised, or wild-caught to indicate the animals had a natural diet and that their flesh is not nutritionally compromised. Otherwise, the animals are typically prepared for slaughter in Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), likely fed antibiotics remaining in the meat tissues, and given minimally expensive cornmeal: not a natural diet and a diet producing a nutritionally deficient end-product (and the CAFO runoff is environmentally polluting). Wild-caught fish contain omega-3 fatty acids in their flesh from eating algae or from eating other fish. Farm-raised fish, like CAFO animals, are also fed with cornmeal, so their flesh contains no (dietary critical) omega-3 oils. But, the PF cultures created to feed CAs will be designed with chosen phytonutrients to produce optimally nutritious flesh, beyond a merely natural animal diet. RethinkX coined the term, “Food-as-Software”, to describe the New Agriculture’s information-intensive process of turning products of PF+CA into final food products.
RethinkX forecasts the Food Disruption will drive conventional agriculture into bankruptcy mostly within the next fifteen years. It will need about one percent of the land area used by conventional agriculture, freeing an area of land worldwide equal to that of the United States plus China plus Australia. A great portion of this freed land (hopefully in unfragmented segments) is likely to be used for managed rewilding, putting an end to the Anthropogenic Extinction Event. And with the slaughterhouse and commercial fishing becoming things of the past, the human relationship with animals might transition from exploitation to guardianship. Where the genes are available or reconstructible, some of the extinct species we destroyed, like the wooly mammoth or the passenger pigeon may be recovered and re-established.
I'll be reading this book.
Judy, here's a bit more information from my essay:
Adam Dorr is Director of Research for RethinkX (www.rethinkx.com), an independent think tank that has produced an extensive study of four “Disruptions” (Energy, Transportation, Food, and Labor) currently in the process of remaking human existence over the next two decades. (The “X” in RethinkX stands for crossed logistic curves: up for the disrupting new, down for the disrupted old.) Dorr’s book and his accompanying YouTube series of the same name, Brighter, details how these four Disruptions—most directly Energy, but most profoundly Labor (AI plus robotics)—will give humanity the tools to halt and then comprehensively remediate All the global damage—of land, sea, and air—caused by fossil fuels and other degradations inflicted since the rise of humanity.
(The episodes of Dorr's YouTube series, Brighter, are each about 15 minutes long, and there are currently 13 episodes available.)
Also I will be sharing the information to my monthly meetup.com group VegPhoenix.
They've been warning us about this for decades even without the concept of a plant-based diet as a solution. The industry needs to be stopped!
I agree with most of this. Calling food “plant-based meat” sounds like something out of a George Carlin routine, however, and is where you lose me. It’s either meat or it’s not. (I almost never eat it anymore, though I do still do dairy, though not as much of it either.) Be straight with people.
There’s a lot of skepticism out there, and rightfully so. What has purported to be healthy in one regard — say, fat — turned out to be high in sugar, for example. And so on.
Hi Michael, I will be relaying this info to my next meetup.com gathering of VegPhoenix. We meet once a month at a vegan restaurant where I or someone else gives a short presentation and then have discussion and sharing. If anyone needs an idea for being an activist, I recommend doing this. In fact, each meeting I put out a plea for "speaking up/out" for the animals, Mother Earth and our health. It's a great way to hear new ideas, gain support and make new friends in a big lonely city.