Are we eating our way into climate crisis?
The global food system is responsible for between 21 and 37 percent of annual emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. Roughly half of the world’s land surface is used for agriculture, and 96 percent of the world’s mammalian biomass is either human or livestock, chiefly pigs and cattle. And the global appetite for meat is only predicted to grow.
Bruce Friedrich believes that there is a better way to make and eat meat. He founded the Good Food Institute to advance the future of alternative meats, including plant-based meat made from—duh—plants (like pea protein and coconut oil), and cultivated meats, which are grown from animal cells.
In this interview with Bulletin associate editor Jessica McKenzie, Friedrich elaborates on Good Food Institute’s theory of change, why it is working with—not against—meat companies, how alternative meats could help prevent the next pandemic, and how they can achieve taste, texture, and price parity with meat. He also responds to criticisms that alternative meats are nothing more than corporate greenwashing.
Jessica McKenzie: Could you briefly introduce the Good Food Institute—what you do and what your goals are, and how it was started?
Bruce Friedrich: We were founded because of the observation that the way industrial meat is produced has a variety of significant external costs, but consumers do not incorporate external costs into their buying decisions.
Per capita and gross meat consumption is going up and up and up. The United Nations says we’re going to have to produce 70 to 100 percent more meat by 2050. And there is not any plausible scenario wherein we don’t consume 70 to 100 percent more meat by 2050. Rather than trying to convince the world that what is inevitable shouldn’t happen, we are focused on eliminating or mitigating the external costs of the way that meat is produced. The way we think about this analogizes nicely to renewable energy and electric vehicles: The world is not going to consume less energy in 2050 than it does now. Countries, as they develop, consume more energy. But we can make that energy renewable. We’re not going to convince the world to ride bikes and walk everywhere. People will drive, but we can electrify transport. Similarly, people will eat more meat, but we can make that meat from plants, and we can cultivate that meat from cells with a fraction of the direct emissions, a fraction of the land-use requirements, no antibiotics required, and no pandemic risk.
So GFI is focused on making meat better. Our inspiration was companies like Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat—of making plant-based meat for meat eaters and competing with the meat industry. And also cultivated meat companies like Upside Foods, Mosa Meat, and so many others. With all those companies, the founders would have an idea, and then they’d have a company. The first thing GFI did was hire scientists and say, “Let’s figure out the technological readiness and open source what the world knows about making meat from plants and cultivating meat from cells.” The plurality of GFI’s team members around the world are still scientists. Our global battle cry is, just as governments fund and incentivize research and development around renewable energy and electrification of transport, government should be doing that for alternative proteins.
McKenzie: To what extent are you trying to level the playing field with meat companies? Do government subsidies for animal products make it harder to compete on cost? It seems like you’re more interested in research and development than making meat more expensive.
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