Episode 83: Joe Fassler Dissects Cultivated Meat
Cultivated Meat, aka “Lab meat” or “Cell-based meat” has attracted billions in investor dollars and frequent headlines. It has become the great hope of many animal rights activists and alternative-protein boosters who wish to reduce or eliminate the cruelty of industrial meat production. But once we cut past the hype, there are major issues. Joe Fassler returns to The Checkout to discuss some of the potentially intractable externalities and engineering, supply chain and scalability issues with this brave new food technology.
Joe Fassler is the Deputy Editor of The Counter, a leading source of investigative journalism in the food sector. Joe’s original long form piece on the topic is here: https://thecounter.org/lab-grown-cultivated-meat-cost-at-scale/
Other important pieces on cultivated meat that cut past the hype:
https://www.ft.com/content/f22b4ace-5276-45fa-9810-4a50427e6b7b
https://www.motherjones.com/food/2021/08/is-lab-meat-about-to-hit-your-dinner-plate/
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Episode #83 Notes
1:00 - How did you get interested in writing about cultivated meats?
4:50 - On finding sources for Joe’s journalism on cultivated meats.
10:05 - How cultivated meats are made.
13:30 - Scaling and sterility in cultivated meat production
22:00 - Cultivated meats implications and animal rights
30:00 - The feed source for cultivated meat.
34:00 - The waste products and byproducts of cultivated meat.
39:00 - The economics and risks associated with cultivated meat companies.
42:10 - On the energy needs of cultivated meat
45:15 - How might the food system be truly repaired?
51:00 - Closing thoughts
