Evolving Past Killing

I'm excited about the future of food. There are a bunch of smart people thinking hard about how we can make meat production a more efficient process.

These companies tend to view meat the same way I do: as a product that is made by converting water and plant protein into animal proteins. If we're talking about livestock then this process additionally requires a significant amount of land.

Not only that, but animals are terribly inefficient and slow at this conversion. It takes around ~1800 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef, though the numbers on that one are hard to pin down since conditions for raising livestock vary from place to place.

Still, it's a lot of water. It blew my mind when I learned how much water is required to grow the crops that feed the livestock, which in turn feeds us. At this rate, it's almost cute that we think putting a water ban on lawns will make a difference.

So although animals have served as great culinary inspiration for us, we've learned that they suck at turning land, food, and water (which is already scarce) into meat.

Livestock is an outdated technology — Patrick Brown

This inefficiency gets me stoked. It's good for both animals and for us. It gives us incentive to stop killing animals and make better use of Earth's limited resources. We've pushed factory farming to its extremes and proved it won't work, so now we're forced to consider alternative production methods.

This is necessary to keep up with the growth in demand for meat as economies around the world strengthen. More people can afford meat. It's a great example of how constraints help to inspire innovation.

I'm excited to start eating cultured meat, or products like the Beast Burger created by Beyond Meat (so cool, read about how its made). The one thing I'm kind of annoyed about is that in Canada, these kinds of products aren't as available yet.

Fingers crossed that changes soon.

Either way, since October I now have one simple rule that I follow: I don't buy food that was once an animal. I don't vote with my dollars for animals to be raised and slaughtered. I think it's a dated approach to meat production with negative impacts on our health and our environment.

Besides, killing animals seems pretty shitty.

What do you think?