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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Bill Gates

The Right’s War on Alt-Meat is Intensifying. Here’s What the Food-Tech Industry Should Do About It

In a new video posted online, far-right firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene claims that the government wants to surveil every aspect of our lives, including what we eat.

“They want to know if you’re eating a cheeseburger, which is very bad because Bill Gates wants you to eat his fake meat that grows in a peach tree dish,” Greene said. “So you’ll probably get a little zap inside your body and that’s saying ‘no, don’t eat a real cheeseburger. You need to eat the fake burger, the fake meat from Bill Gates.'”

Greene’s video is the latest example of the right’s effort to politicize meat alternatives as a way to agitate its base into voting for them and against those who allegedly are scheming to take away their Big Macs. Since the vast majority of these claims are easily disprovable and make us all a little dumber for just hearing them (peach tree dish?), we should ignore them, right?

Wrong. The problem is, as dumb as these statements are, the more they’re repeated, the more likely they take hold in the collective consciousness of consumers and risk becoming widely accepted folk wisdom.

So what should the food tech industry do about it? The most important thing is not to be complacent and be clear in its messaging about its industry and its product, so misinformation doesn’t fill the void.

What exactly should be the message? Here are a few ideas:

No one is taking anyone’s animal meat away. Let’s face it: There’s really nothing more ‘American’ than eating a big slab of red meat, and if Americans think they will be forced to do anything (or have something they like taken away from them), many will reflexively react negatively. The alternative meat industry needs to be clear that its goal is to make plant-based and cultivated meat good enough that consumers choose it over the alternatives. And those who want to continue to pay ever-higher prices for traditional factory-farmed meat will always have that option. Speaking of higher prices…

Real meat has lots of problems, including a rising price tag. One of the reasons red-meat Americans might actually consider an alternative is that real meat has lots of issues, including being a vector for viruses, it’s cruel and often unhealthy. But perhaps the most significant negative for everyday Americans when it comes to meat is it’s getting a lot more expensive. Alternatives to industrialized meat might not only taste just as good and be healthier but there’s a good chance they will also be more affordable in the future.

There are a lot of options when it comes to meat alternatives. Not every meat alternative is built the same. There are plant-based alternatives that rely heavily on science to taste like the real thing, there’s real meat grown in bioreactors instead of animals, and there are meat alternatives that don’t pretend to be meat at all. There are many options for different preferences, and the industry should try to be clear if one doesn’t fit your needs, another might.

Stop using terms like ‘synthetic meat’. I’m looking at you, Bill Gates. Gates used the term in an interview with MIT Technology Review, despite the fact the type of meat he’s invested in with Upside Foods (formerly Memphis Meats) isn’t synthetic at all. It’s real meat, only instead of being grown on an animal, it’s grown in a bioreactor. While this might seem like nitpicking, terms like ‘synthetic’ and ‘lab-grown’ – while often wrongly applied – really turn consumers off and are easily weaponized by culture warrior-minded politicians looking for their next grievance to make hay with on social media.

The reality is the politicization of meat is only going to intensify, and if the alt-protein industry wants to avoid becoming a casualty of the political culture wars, they need to get their messaging straight and do it soon.

Bill Gates Names Meat-Free Burgers in Top 10 Breakthrough Technologies of 2019

Today MIT Technology Review released its list of the Top 10 Breakthrough Technologies of 2019, and this time they had a special guest curator: Bill Gates.

In his intro to the list, Gates wrote that he made his choices not only based on what would make headlines, but also “captured this moment in technological history.”

Among smooth-talking smart assistants and a swallowable gut-probe pill, Gates also named the “cow-free burger” as one of the Top 10.

By 2050, humans are predicted to eat over 70 percent more meat than they did in 2005. That’s bad news for the environment, since raising poultry and (especially) cattle requires oodles of land and water, and also contributes to fossil fuel emissions. Gates posits that one of the best ways to limit the environmental toll of meat is to, well, stop eating so much — and instead turn to cell- and plant-based alternatives.

Cell-based meat isn’t yet available on the market. A recent study has also raised questions about whether it’s actually that much better for the planet than conventional meat production.

But plant-based meat is here, and people are loving it. (Bill Gates himself is an investor in both Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, two of the top startups pushing plant-based “meaty” burgers, as well as cultured meat company Memphis Meats.)

The potential environmental impacts of plant-based meat is significant: according to an analysis by the Center for Sustainable Systems at the University of Michigan, a Beyond Meat patty would generate 90 percent less greenhouse gas emissions than a beef burger from a cow. Presumably other meatless burgers have similar environmental footprints.

As of now, the plant-based meat sector makes up just a small fraction of all meat production globally. But with more and more major food companies getting into the vegan meat space and Beyond Meat set to file for an IPO by the end of this year, odds are Bill’s right, and we’ll be biting into a lot more plant-based burgers in the future.