Tag Archive for: Fake Meat

Op-ed: We Don’t Need a ‘Moonshot’ for Faux Burgers—We Need To Hold ‘Big Meat’ Accountable

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In a recent New York Times opinion piece, Ezra Klein proposed a moonshot investment in “Meatless Meat.” Klein makes a cogent, fact-filled case for the government to spend a few billion dollars on public research to increase the commercial viability of plant-based and cellular (i.e., lab-created) meats.

Klein’s objective is straightforward: reduce the climate footprint of meat and dairy, reduce the suffering of animals confined in feed lots and barns, and prevent the next pandemic. He proposes use public funding to accelerate research and development—much like Tesla’s boost to e-cars or the Department of Defense’s boost to the internet—as the best way to move production and demand of alternative meats quickly and effectively.

The stakes are high. And Klein is not wrong. Cheap meat is a problem. The much-loved (recently mythologized) hamburger is brought to us by an extractive industry whose recent record profits come on the backs of disadvantaged workers, animal cruelty, mountains of manure, and a whole lot of public subsidies. But even the quickest, most superficial look at today’s U.S. food system shows the solution to the mess is not public subsidies for petri-dish proteins that will inevitably be produced (or at least funded) by a handful of large, vertically integrated food and feed companies.

 

CONTINUE READING ON CIVIL EATS

Bill Gates: Let Them Eat Fake Meat!

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Below is an excerpt from “Bill Gates & His Fake Solutions to Climate  Change,” a 23-page report coordinated by Navdanya International which sheds light on the dangers of philanthrocapitalism.

One of [Bill] Gates’ most recent promotions is his prescriptions of synthetic foods for developed countries as a means to combat climate change. In a recent interview with MIT Technology Review, Gates says he thinks “all rich countries should move to 100% synthetic beef.”

Fake food replaces animal products with highly processed food grown in labs, like fake meat, fake dairy products or fake eggs. It is made possible by technical innovations such as synthetic biology, which involves reconfiguring the DNA of an organism to create something entirely new.

For instance, plant-based meat companies like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods use a DNA coding sequence from soybeans or peas to create a product that looks and tastes like real meat. Some companies are also investing in cell-based meat, grown from real animal cells, but it has yet to reach the market.

KEEP READING ON THE DEFENDER

Plant-based Meat Doesn’t Stack up as a Planet Saver, Scientists Warn

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The environmental credentials of alternative proteins and plant-based foods are increasingly being scrutinised by scientists and academics and the report card is far from rosy.

Some experts are now warning the spin doctoring employed by promoters of fake beef is distracting from real climate solutions and the big polluters.

Ultra-processed plant foods do not stack up as a climate-friendly alternative to natural red meat, they say.

In the wake of a United Nations opinion poll which found switching to plant-based diets was not a favoured solution for addressing climate change in any one of the 50 countries surveyed, the focus has been on what livestock’s real impact on the climate is.