cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/2674486
TL;DR: the meat industry’s misleading messaging campaign + lobbying
The same people fear mongering about the health dangers of fake meat and ‘cancer causing’ aspartame will happily eat red meat which is several categories higher on the cancer causing scale. As in, definitely proven to cause cancer, rather than a soft maybe
I would disagree here. SOME of the backlash may be from the meat industry, but some is also from independent experts in fields of nutrition and the environment.
It’s the same way I constantly catch vegans making false claims about health or the environment. That doesn’t mean there aren’t TRUE claims about the health or environment. You gotta see the forest for the trees on both sides.
I will say, at least the Impossible Burger has a much better environment footprint than lab-grown meat ever will.
Maybe not ever, I’m hopeful for lab grown meat to be a success AND be good for the environment.
I’m hating how lemmy.ml is losing my context parent, but I think I posted a video to you prior.
The problem with lab grown meat is that the process is inherently VERY complex and touchy. They like to compare it to making beer or wine, but it’s an exacting process. IF we could figure out lab grown meat, that advance would likely involve a far bigger advance in nuclear medicine, changing the world of medication to a “this is YOUR cure for cancer, created for pennies based upon your DNA” type of utopia.
Maybe there’s someone close to this who can suggest to me what I’m missing there, but the obstacles for lab grown meat are simply those same golden obstacles we’ve had to far more important problems, that we’ve thrown far more money at.
From the video, the biggest pain point for the next 20 years is this. You cannot scale the process. The bigger your bioreactor, the lower the efficiency. “Scale” involves building hundreds or thousands of resource-expensive bioreactors, filling them all with chemicals, and running the bioreaction over a long period of time, in highly a sensitive lab environment. Unfortunately, it feels like this is a “down to go up”. While possible, it seems as likely to be a success as some sort of New coal tech wiping Solar out and being the real solution for dirty power. If you put THAT kind of money into the already well-understood meat industries that already have some good best practices (that aren’t necessarily followed like they should be), you’ll end up with agriculture that’s good for the environment AND billions of dollars to spare to use on some other green initiative.
Of course, the real issue is that the countries whose people care the most aren’t the problem at all. The US is a great example. Our meat industry is an insignificant part of the problem, at <2% of the GHG emissions. The US meat industry is actually statistically INCREDIBLY effective… but the meat industry in other countries, not so much.
While I’m sure the meat industry/lobbying has made sure people knew about the drawbacks of plant based meat I think there’s several legitimate reasons it hasn’t taken off yet. It’s firmly stuck in the middle.
When compared to animal based meat plant based meat is:
- more expensive
- not hardly any healthier
- doesn’t taste as good
When compared to more traditional plant based protein, plant based meat it is:
- more expensive
- much less healthy
- doesn’t taste as good
The only benefit of plant based meat is that it’s more environmentally friendly than traditional meat.
That’s something that most people don’t care to pay more for.
I hope R&D continues into plant-based meat as I do think that once the cost comes down below animal-based meat it will see wide adoption. Especially because the price of animal-based meat will continue to rise.
The only reason it’s so much more expensive than animal-based meats is because of the amount of subsidies the meat industry gets. Actually, now that I think about it, all of the major pillars of the US agricultural industry, whether it be meat, corn, or dairy, are upheld by subsidies.
In Canada, A&W’s “Beyond Burger” is actually even better tasting than a regular meat burger imo.
When compared to more traditional plant based protein, plant based meat it is:
- more expensive
- much less healthy
- doesn’t taste as good
Now hold on just a minute!
Plant based meat is expensive and unhealthy, but I’ll be damned if I let you besmirch my junk food!
I don’t have any particular issues with plant based meats, but I really don’t like the whole idea that everything has to replicate meat.
There are so many amazing dishes that just happen to be vegetarian/vegan that seem to go overlooked
Because selfish humans love their fucking meat and they don’t care that animals are locked into prisons where they can barely move or clean themselves, generate massive acres of literal shit pools that pollute large areas, the impact that kind of farming has on the environment….
THAT is why there is motivation for replication. Without it how do you shut down these disgusting cow/pig/chicken torture facilities
Just eat some damn falafel, people - it’s not hard to make, it doesn’t pretend to be anything other than a plant, and bulk dry chickpeas are cheap as fuck and last forever.
