New book 'Meat' explores how the next food revolution could transform meat consumption

Geoff Bennett:

In his new book, Bruce Friedrich argues that the way we produce meat is unsustainable for the climate, for public health, and for the planet, and that the solution isn't eating less meat, but making it differently.

From lab-grown meat to plant-based alternatives, he says a food revolution is already under way, whether consumers realize it or not.

I spoke with him about the book "Meat: How the Next Agricultural Revolution Will Transform Humanity's Favorite Food and Our Future."

Bruce Friedrich, welcome to the "News Hour."

Bruce Friedrich, Author, "Meat: How the Next Agricultural Revolution Will Transform Humanity's Favorite Food and Our Future": Thanks very much, Geoff. I'm delighted to be here.

Geoff Bennett:

You open the book by saying -- this is a quote -- "I'm not here to tell anyone what to eat."

Why was it important for you to start there and to focus on how meat is made, rather than on the personal choice?

Bruce Friedrich:

Well, because the environmental and global health and animal protection communities have been basically starting on personal choice for more than 50 years.

And what we have seen is that meat consumption just keeps going up. So the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, they started tracking this in 1961. And we have literally hit a new global meat production record every single year since. And that's a problem, because cycling crops through animals is incredibly inefficient.

It takes nine calories into a chicken to get one calorie back out in the form of chicken meat. It's just a shockingly inefficient system that has a lot of negative externalities, negative external costs.

Geoff Bennett:

And you describe this moment as the next global agricultural revolution. What makes this shift comparable to past revolutions in farming?

Bruce Friedrich:

Well, for 12,000 years we have been growing crops to feed them to animals, so that we can eat animals.

That is -- after hunting and gathering, that's how we have been doing it for 12,000 years. As I just mentioned, it's fantastically inefficient, but it's not just the inefficiency of growing the crops to feed them to animals. So, the most efficient animal being the chicken, and that's 800 percent food waste, so eight times the land, eight times the water, eight times the herbicides and pesticides.

You also have to ship all of those crops to a feed mill, operate the feed mill, ship the feed to the farm, operate the farm, ship the animals to the slaughterhouse, operate the slaughterhouse. Like, that's a bunch of extra gas-guzzling, pollution-spewing vehicles, a bunch of extra factories, which take a lot of energy and spew out a lot of pollution.

If we can remove the animal from the equation and give human beings what they love about meat, because I call it humanity's favorite food in the subtitle, that would be really a revolution, animal meat without the animal.

Geoff Bennett:

And you may clear that this will only work if the meat alternative looks, tastes like, and has a price point that matches conventional meat. Where are we closest on parity when it comes to that?

Bruce Friedrich:

Yes, I mean, just to underline that point, like, we started with the idea of personal choice. What is absolutely clear is that people eat meat because it's delicious and it's affordable.

What's also clear is, whenever there are more people and the economy grows, meat production and consumption goes up. And this is, like, one of the most consistent findings in social sciences is that, where food is concerned, people care, is it delicious and is it affordable?

And then you look at meat production, meat consumption, pretty much everywhere, people really love meat. So that's the focus. The products need to be -- they need to taste the same or better, they need to cost the same or less. And that's how you make plant-based meat and cultivated meat that can win in the marketplace.

Geoff Bennett:

I think for people who've had a Beyond Burger or Impossible Burger, it tastes close to the real thing, but not quite. Do you think we can get to a point where it would be indistinguishable?

Bruce Friedrich:

So the last chapter of the book, chapter 11, I interviewed 30 plant-based meat scientists and 30 cultivated meat scientists.

And I started with the question, can we get to plant-based meat, cultivated meat, depending on the scientist, that is cost-competitive with and indistinguishable from cheap chicken and cheap fish sticks? Because that's -- if you can get there, you can get everything else.

(Laughter)

Bruce Friedrich:

And people really -- I mean, they just pointed to first principles. They said, look, if one thing requires nine times the inputs of something else, what would be the hurdle to plant fats and proteins behaving like animal fats and proteins?

What would be the hurdle to growing actual animal muscle and fat in tanks, instead of on live animals? So it's going to take some time. It's going to take some innovation. But 10 years ago, there was no Beyond Burger; 10 years ago, there was no Impossible Burger.

We have come a pretty long way on both plant-based meat and cultivated meat in...

(Snap fingers)

Bruce Friedrich:

... historically, that long.

Geoff Bennett:

One of the takeaways in this book for me was that, as we all know, consuming meat is deeply cultural. It's tied to identity. It's tied to tradition in many ways, and that changing production is really easier and more realistic than changing human behavior.

So you start with changing production.

Bruce Friedrich:

Yes, I mean, it certainly seems to be the case that, I don't know if it's biological or physiological or psychological or cultural, but it definitely does seem to be the case that every place in the world -- India might be to some degree an exception, but even in India, meat consumption is up 300 percent in the last 25 years, still at a pretty low level.

But every place else, the more meat people can eat, the more meat they eat. So we're probably not going to change that. Some people have been trying for more than 50 years, and yet meat consumption just keeps going up. It's great if people want to eat less meat or no meat. But let's add another tool to the toolkit.

It seems really clear that science can make meat from plants that is indistinguishable. And it's absolutely the case that science can grow actual animal meat. Essentially, it looks like a brewery. If you walk into a cultivated meat production factory, it looks like a brewery, so a bunch of friendly neighborhood meat breweries, essentially.

And that, we think, is how you handle the external costs of meat production.

Geoff Bennett:

The book is "Meat: How the Next Agricultural Revolution Will Transform Humanity's Favorite Food and Our Future."

Bruce Friedrich, founder and president of the Good Food Institute, a real pleasure to speak with you.

Bruce Friedrich:

Thanks very much, Geoff. It was a pleasure to speak with you.