The Future of Meat

If you haven't already checked out the youTube channel, The Good Stuff, I highly recommend it.  Most of the channels I follow have some bearing on science, technology and the arts.  While The Good Stuff is no exception, they have a very unique format to the videos they produce.  They release their videos as playlist and each playlist is given a theme that ties the videos together.  In the past they have used themes like the time, sleep, and robots.  The current playlist they are producing is titled: The Future of Food.

Admittedly, this sounded like one of the lesser interesting topics they've chosen to date.  I mean, what's so interesting about food of the future?  Well, they have released the first two of the five eventual videos in this playlist, and while it may not be a thought provoking as some of their other topics, it is really quite interesting.  The first video (which I actually watched second) titled, "Can We Make Meat Out of Plants" covers the possibility that producing meat from animals may not be a sustainable source of nutrients due to the massive amounts of water (up to 2,500 gallons), energy, and feed it takes to raise each pound of edible meat, like from a cow for example, and then explores how one company is turning plants into meat.

The video touches on other problems that arise from the reliance on animal-based nutrients. In addition to the problem of the inputs it takes to get a single pound of beef, studies have shown that the global livestock industry contributes anywhere from 18% to 51% of the total greenhouse emissions.  The potential effect of these emissions on the Earth will be reserved for another post another day, but regardless that is a pretty staggering figure.

Interestingly, the company interviewed for this video, Beyond Meat, is trying to address the meat from plant question in a far more interesting manner than say companies that produce black bean burgers.  Their concept is "Can plant protein be used to create meat that is indistinguishable from animal-based meat?"  They have created an incredible process for tackling this question that at least seems to create product that passes the eye-test.  By starting with pea protein and running it through a process that realigns its amino acids, they are chemically altering the protein to more closely resemble animal protein.  They can then form this product into different types of meat substitutes - like hamburger and chicken.  The host of the video seemed to enjoy the flavor of the hamburger he tried, though he still seemed less than convince.  The chicken on the other hand seemed very impressive.

We appear to still be in the infancy of trying to tackle the sustainability problem, but it at least appears that there is some promising work underway.  I recommend you check out the Future of Food playlist at the link below, and if you enjoy their work continue supporting them by subscribing to their channel.