The Clean Meat Future

“An ideal world.”

- Maneka Sanjay Gandhi

A long time ago I realised what McDonald’s and KFC had understood quite a while back; that, for an average person, the gratification of his tastebuds – if only for ten minutes- was more important than saving the world, being compassionate, stopping global warming or even looking after his own health. So I mentally gave up on trying to make everyone vegetarian – even though I point out the health hazards, week after week.

Thank God I saved my mind from despair. Instead of diminishing, FAO has estimated that the worldwide demand for meat will rise and rise – an increase of 76 per cent by 2050. 76 per cent more animals taking up 76 per cent more space, more water, more grain, more dredging of an already overfished ocean, finding more species to eat – like insects. A world of pain and hunger, at the brink of destruction.

About 20 years ago Linda McCartney tried to change the world by inventing and promoting simulated meat by making plants taste like it. It had no effect. It remained a charming curiosity and it was eaten by vegetarians who wanted to explore the world of meat. Even though companies, like Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat, have used biology to identify the molecules that give meats their flavours and textures (eg. protein myoglobin, which gives meat its colour) and reproduced them exactly using non-animals, this becomes just another dish on the table.

So nothing has excited me more in the last five years than the knowledge that real meat is being made by scientists and entrepreneurs without using animals.