Hello everyone, you are listening to The Vegan
Report and this is a bonus episode. As you might
know, this movement is a big fan of debating
non -vegans. However, debates around major deciding
strategy questions on how to progress forward
as a movement are much less discussed. Well,
for today, I am happy to present you with an
exception to this rule. What you are about to
listen is a clash of minds about cultivated meat,
an industry worth billions of dollars that promises
vegans a future without factory farming. I invited
one of the debaters, John Sanbonmatsu, for a
conversation about the behind the scenes of this
debate and the release of his new book. Don't
miss our talk which is episode 79 of the podcast.
And an enormous thank you to United Poultry Concerns
who organized this debate and gave me the green
light to release it as a podcast episode. They
are an impactful non -profit that deserves your
support. Visit the episode notes to access their
website. and the original YouTube video of the
debate they recorded. We're going to call it
cell -based meat. That's what we have as a panel
determined that we all can agree on to call it
at this point. Yes, this is the title. It has
a lot of other names. There's cultured meat,
clean meat, in vitro meat, slaughter -free meat,
lab -grown meat, alt meat, I heard recently.
That was an interesting one. So, and what we're
talking about, we're not talking about products
that are out now like Beyond Burger and Impossible
Meat, where it's a plant -based product that
mimics meat. That's not what we're talking about
at all. Those are products on the market now
and they are made. buy from plants and mimic
meat in ways that the texture and everything
is very similar. What we're talking about is
a product that's not on the market yet, doesn't
exist yet. And it's taking cells from living
animals and growing those cells in a nutrient
-rich liquid type thing that, and I'm sure they'll
be able to describe it a lot better than me.
But this cultured medium, it provides nutrients,
there's like salt, sugar, amino acids, those
kinds of things. I think they use a scaffolding
that periodically moves so it mimics muscle movement
to develop and it can develop into different
types of. Muscle cells fat cells tissue to create
meat like products different cuts of meat if
you will so So that's what we're talking about
okay, just so we're very clear and we'll and
we'll get even more information about that and
Another thing that I want to just touch on and
I think it's really a cool thing about this is
that? Everyone here up on this panel I think
can agree on the big picture of, we all want
to see a world where no animal suffers at human
hands. Can we all agree on that? Yes. We all
agree on that, and that's great. That's awesome.
That is a beautiful thing. So what we're debating
is ideas, strategies, tactics, these kinds of
things. So we're not debating that we want a
vegan world. We all want that. So just to keep
that in mind as we go forward, this is really
a playing of ideas, a debating of strategy and
tactic and not like attack on character or individuals
or organizations. It's really about the tactics.
Just a thought on that. And I'm personally in
the perfect place here, being right in the middle,
because I am right in the middle on this issue.
When I first heard about it, I think that I reacted
like I would say probably most vegan animal rights
activists react. My reaction was, ew, I'd never
eat it, but great if it's going to save animals.
Generally, that's my reaction and I think most
people's initial reaction. So I was for it, I
was fine with it. But something, I don't know,
just was not sitting right with me. Every time
I thought about it a little deeper. There were
questions that were coming up in my mind, and
then suddenly I was seeing that other activists
and vegans were having the same kind of concerns
and questions. And I was like, ah, okay, so I'm
not alone. That's interesting. And so I think
that's why we're here today, is to explore this.
I haven't made any kind of decision. I feel like
I need way more information, and that's why I'm
very excited that we're doing this. So, you know,
just a little background, I'm sure we'll get
more. There's numerous cell -based meat companies
that are not necessarily in production now, but
in the research and development phase trying
to get this product happening. We have in the
U .S. Memphis Meats, Mosa Meats, Was Hampton
Creek is now Just, you know, Just Egg, Just Mayo.
They create plant -based foods, but they're also
looking into cell -based meats. Finless Foods,
I love the name, is a seafood plant or cell -based
meat company that's also planning to produce
seafood, cell -based seafood. And across the
world, we're seeing it as well. In Israel, we've
got super meat, future meat technologies, meet
the future. Another good name So, you know, so
it's really interesting it's it's very much Incredibly
prevalent and even big ag is getting in the game.
They are Seeing a potential here. We've got Tyson
Cargill. I'm sure others are looking into it
are investing in it So it's fascinating. And
there's also, we're already starting to see legislation
around it, around the labeling, what's it gonna
be called? The meat industry is getting a little
concerned about this. There's a piece of legislation
going around Washington State right now that
would actually make it a crime to sell cell -based
meat. It's fascinating. It's basically, of course,
Their line is that we don't know if it's safe,
it's also new, all of that kind of thing. But
of course, it's the meat industry getting scared.
So it's fascinating, fascinating. So we're going
to get into it all today. I am going to introduce
all the speakers, I think, right now. And then
how it's going to work is that each speaker is
going to have a 12 -minute introduction Some
are going to use PowerPoint. Twelve minute introduction
just to get us all on the same page really understanding
the arguments. Then I'm going to start asking
some questions and we're going to just open it
up and go back and forth. So I'm going to introduce
everyone first over here. This is the pro side,
the four side over here and the against. So you
know. What's going on in Who's Who? Bruce Friedrich
has been a long time activist. He is the executive
director of the Good Food Institute. That's a
5 -1 -C -3 nonprofit that promotes innovative
alternatives to industrially produced animal
foods. Bruce has pinned opinion pieces for USA
Today, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times,
many other publications. He's a popular speaker.
at college campuses, he's presented at top universities,
Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT. He's
co -authored two books, contributed chapters
to six books, authored seven law review articles,
and graduated from Georgetown Law, and also graduated
Pi Beta Kappa from Grinnell College. And he also
holds degrees at John Hopkins University and
the London School of Economics, so quite a background.
And I just saw him recently actually on CBS This
Morning. I was watching my little, on the elliptical,
my little Morning CBS This Morning clips and
he was there giving an interview about vegan
seafood. So, Bruce is everywhere. That's awesome.
Thank you for being here. Yeah. Okay, and then
also on the pro side, we have Leah Garces. Am
I saying it good? Yay! She is the new first female
president of Mercy for Animals. Yay! She was
the founder of compassion in world farming USA
and She's the author of a forthcoming book called
grilled turning adversaries into allies in the
fight to change the chicken industry She is an
animal advocate who has partnered with some of
the largest food companies in the world with
a mission to end the exploitation of animals
for food Her work has been featured in many national
and international media outlets including the
New York Times Washington Post BuzzFeed vice
Chicago Tribune on and on. She's the contributing
author to Huffington Post and Food Safety News.
Leah serves on the advisory board of Encompass
and Seattle Food Tech. And she's the mom of three
incredible kids. All right. Only two? Okay. Well,
he knows. He's met him. Okay. So, all right.
On the opposing side, we have, this is Vasile
Staniskew. He has received his PhD in the Modern
Thought and Literature at Stanford University.
So he was here with us at Stanford, but now he's
in Atlanta, Georgia. He is currently Assistant
Professor of Communication at Mercer University.
His current research interests include locovorism,
humane meat, invasive species, the linkage between
food and colonialism, and the intersection between
environmentalism and animal studies. Vasile is
the co -senior editor of Critical Animal Studies
book series and the former co -editor of the
Journal of Critical Animal Studies. He's the
author of over 20 peer -reviewed publications
on critical animal studies, and his research
has been recognized by the Woods Institute for
the Environment, Minding Animals International,
the Andrew Mellon Foundation, the Culture and
Animals Foundation, and the list goes on. So
thank you for being here. All right, and then
finally over here in his wonderful Renaissance
man coat. I love this coat. Fabulous. The postmodern
prince. Yes. So John Sanbanmatsu, PhD, is the
associate professor of philosophy at, I can never
say it. Worcester. I always want to say Worcestersh.
It's not. Polytech Institute in Massachusetts.
John's work in critical animal studies probes
the nature of speciesism as a mode of production,
particularly as it intersects with capitalism.
His articles and essays have appeared on Huffington
Post, Christian Science Monitor, and other venues.
In addition, he's the editor of the book Critical
Theory and Animal Liberation, and the author
of The Postmodern Prince. At present, he is at
work on a new book, which I'm very excited about
and can't wait to read. It's called The Omnivore's
Deception. Yes. Great name, right? Great title.
about the ecological crisis, the myth of humane
meat, and the troubling nature of our relationship
with other animals. Okay, what a fantastic panel
we have. Let's give them all a hand. Okay, so
we are going to have the pro side go first. Who's
going to go first? Bruce? Bruce is up. All right,
so... Thank you very much Hope for the introduction.
You did give a lot of my talk just for the record.
And thank you Voss and John for agreeing to do
this and Karen. No, thank you Leah for agreeing
to do this. And there's Karen, thank you for
having us. Thank you for working with Hope to
organize the conference. It is a delight and
an honor to be here with all of you chatting
about. why Leah and I believe, so I was thanking
everybody on behalf of both of us, Leah, why
Leah and I believe that, what's the title of
the resolution? Resolved, cell -based meat is
good for animals. So I want to start by just
talking about a couple of things that I think
most of you, most of us know, but that I think
are useful as sort of background for the conversation
that we're about to have. I think folks here
probably know that animal agriculture, causes
more climate change than all forms of transportation
combined. So then all of the trains and the planes
and the cars and the trucks, animal agriculture
is responsible for about 14 .5 % of climate change.
At GFI we're talking more and more. There we
go. About antibiotic resistance bacteria. According
to a report from the UK government a couple of
years ago, antibiotic resistant bacteria is going
to kill more people than cancer by 2050. It'll
be killing 10 million people a year by 2050.
Will be costing the global economy $10 trillion.
And then I'm guessing if you didn't see this,
that you'll be surprised to hear that all of
you who oppose slaughterhouses, it's actually
about 47 % of Americans also. oppose slaughterhouses.
Now, the meat industry read about this, and they
were absolutely flabbergasted. And they realized
it was a group called the Sentience Institute
that had released their report. And that's an
animal rights think tank, the Sentience Institute.
So they picked a researcher at Oklahoma State
University, a hand -picked ag researcher at Oklahoma
State University, and said, you know, prove these
vegans wrong. And he ran the numbers and he came
up with the exact same number. 47 % of Americans
want to ban slaughterhouses. And yet, when surveys
are actually done, what we find is that 98 %
of Americans continue to eat meat. So we see
numbers like 5 % vegetarian, 7 % vegetarian,
2 % vegan or whatever. Once Fawnalytics actually
asked people in the last month, what products
have you not eaten? What they determined was
that two out of three vegetarians had eaten fish
or chicken in the last month so not vegetarian
and This is what meat consumption looks like
in the United States and those of you who are
attentive to the small bird the small animals
as opposed to the large animals will also realize
that this graph for the United States is similar
to the graph globally, so Although it looks like
meat consumption is skyrocketing on the previous
slide, and it looks like meat consumption is
fairly stagnant since 1970 on this slide, because
chicken consumption has skyrocketed, even as
beef consumption has somewhat fallen, the actual
number of animals slaughtered has gone up from
somewhere on the order of 5 billion animals per
year to almost 10 billion animals per year. And
in the United States alone, we eat about 100
million pigs, about 40 million cows and 9 billion
chickens. It's literally 250 chickens for every
cow, 100 chickens for every pig. 2018, according
to the USDA, was the highest per capita meat
consumption in US history. USDA says that in
2019, per capita meat consumption is going to
be even higher. All that despite the revolution
almost 50 years ago. This is the book that turned
me vegan in 1987. So I'm going on 32 years of
veganism. So the book that started. Thank you.
So the book that started a revolution in the
way that Americans eat. Since that revolution
started almost 50 years ago, we are now eating
annually about 5 billion additional animals.
I wish the revolution had been more successful.
20 years ago this year, I put this video together,
Meet Your Meat. It's now been seen by literally
millions of people. Ten years ago, I put together
the glass walls video, which was narrated by
Paul McCartney. And I just want to underline
again, this is what's happening with meat consumption.
Number of animals since 1996, it's about two
billion additional animals every single year.
And globally, we're expected to need 70 % more
meat. by the year 2050. So hopefully people listened
to Karen's presentation a moment ago. Nobody
paints a picture of what animal suffering looks
like better than Karen Davis paints a picture
of what animal suffering looks like. But chickens
on these farms, as Karen illustrated, every single
moment of their lives is categorized by abject
misery. poultry scientists at the University
of Arkansas said that if a human baby grew as
quickly as a modern broiler chicken She would
weigh more than 600 pounds by the time she was
one year old 600 pounds every moment of these
animals lives is categorized by unmitigated misery
So we need to be very laser focused on asking
the question if I were a hen in one of these
battery cages If I were a chicken in one of these
broiler sheds What would I want my advocates
to be doing and supporting? So Chatham House,
the Royal Institute of International Affairs
is the foremost think tank in Europe. About three
years ago, they were looking at the climate issue
and they said, it is a scientific impossibility
that the governments of the world meet their
obligations under the Paris Climate Agreement
to keep climate change under two degrees Celsius
by 2050. A scientific impossibility. unless animal
product consumption goes down. The Chinese government
rose to the, yeah, it's good, right? The Chinese
government rose to the challenge in 2015. They
said we are going to cut our meat consumption
in half by 2030. What do you think's happened
to Chinese meat consumption since 2015? Yeah,
it's skyrocketing. It's absolutely skyrocketing.
It seems to me, that what we have been doing
for 50 years or 20 years or 10 years or whatever,
it's important. We need to change the zeitgeist.
We need to educate people. We need to be a voice
for animals. And I'm not advocating that anybody
change what it is that they're focusing on or
what it is that they're working on. But it certainly
seems to me that we should be looking at, we
should be using all the tools in our toolkit.
So at GFI, we think this is the tool of choice.
Ben and Jerry's vegan ice cream Who here likes
Ben and Jerry's? All right a couple of people
are you know don't probably don't like them because
Unilever bought them, but almost everybody raised
their hand And the reason you raised your hand
is that Ben and Jerry's tastes amazing Right
everybody nobody thought that's not healthy.
You know everybody thought it tastes amazing
It's reasonably priced That's what you were focused
on and in fact 100 % of the world Thinks about
taste and price when they're thinking about when
they're making their dietary choices even at
Whole Foods Even at the co -op you look at what
people are buying like these are the two dichotomous
factors of food choice But doesn't taste at least
acceptable. Nobody's gonna eat it. You can't
afford it. You're not gonna eat it And then convenience
is also important. If you can't find it, you're
not gonna eat it I actually use this slide in
Mexico and everybody just sort of looked at me
like We don't know what this Ben and Jerry's
thing is. So the slide didn't go over well, which
underlines the idea that no matter how awesome
a food is, if you can't find it, you're not going
to eat it. But how do we apply the Ben and Jerry's
trifecta to food? One way we do it is we grow
meat directly from cells. Because for the vast
majority of people, they think meat tastes great.
They're not eating it because they want to see
animals slaughtered. 47 % of them, all of whom
know slaughterhouses are essential to meat, still
think slaughterhouses should be banned, remarkably.
Nobody is a fan of causing more climate change.
Nobody is a fan of factory farms. Nobody is a
fan of slaughterhouses. We all have loved ones
who continue to eat meat, and they say things
like, I don't want to know. Where else in your
life do you not want to know? Where else is there
this cognitive dissonance? There's something
in human beings. I don't know if it's psychology
or physiology or emotion or what, but there's
something that causes a lot of people to want
to continue to eat meat. And we can grow meat
directly from cells. Take a biopsy the size of
a sesame seed from a live living turkey and grow
turkey meat in perpetuity for everybody. Seems
to me if I'm a turkey on a factory farm, that's
something I'm pretty excited about. So this is
Memphis Meats cell -based clean. We call it clean
meat oftentimes as a nod to clean energy. Clean
energy is energy that's better for the environment.
Clean meat is meat that's better for the environment.
It's also just literally a cleaner product. That's
a meatball. That's clean meat duck. And that's
what clean meat will look like at scale. Your
friendly neighborhood meat brewery, essentially.
I'm going to spare you. Everybody in here knows
what a factory farm and a slaughterhouse looks
like. Not this pretty. You know, Memphis Meats
is planning on streaming their production on
the internet. Get boring after about 10 seconds,
but it makes, I think, a critical point. So who's
excited about clean meat? Ingrid Newkirk is excited
about clean meat, the president of PETA. Her
deepness, Sylvia Earle, the foremost living marine
biologist, is excited about clean meat for its
capacity to save our seas. GFI had a conference
and we had at our conference we had USDA, ADM,
Tyson Ventures, DFJ, Kraft Heinz. We had moderators
from the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times,
Inc. magazine, Good Morning America. This is
something that an animal rights conference is
not going to bring these sorts of thinkers together.
I love this quote from Tyson Ventures talking
about how awesome he thought our conference was,
how excited he was about it. As Hope mentioned,
I know that John and Voss are planning to use
this against us, but we can have that discussion
at the discussion. Former CEO of Tyson Foods,
the last sentence of the cover story about this
guy, if we can make meat without the animal,
why wouldn't we? Former CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt,
very excited about plant -based meat and clean
meat, not because he cares about animals, but
because he wants to feed the world high quality
protein without the climate impact. Bill Gates,
very excited about the capacity to feed hundreds
of millions of people in the developing world
using clean meat. This is a slide that shows
the clean meat investment landscape. So the first
clean meat company was incorporated in 2016.
Clean meat companies, there are now more than
a dozen of them that have raised a million dollars
or more. And then I'm going to just say a couple
of words about what the Good Food Institute does.
And wow, 12 minutes goes fast. All right, so
at the Good Food Institute, we have four programmatic
departments, science and technology, innovation,
corporate engagement, policy, and international
engagement. International engagement is a multiplier.
So science and technology, we're laying the groundwork
for both plant -based meat and cell -based meat.
Innovation department is starting companies,
among other things. Corporate engagement, we
are actually meeting with Tyson and Smithfield
and Purdue and other companies. And policy, we
are inspiring governments, including the US government,
to put money into this space. Animal Charity
Evaluators has done an evaluation and ranked
us a top charity three years in a row. The last
thing I want to say is this is not for you. We
don't care if you eat it. You're vegan. You're
on our side already. It will save massive numbers
of animals or at least has a very good prospect
to do so. The bar for the opposition is insanely
high. Think about the hens and the cages. And
in 100 years, all meat is not even going to be
thought of as an animal product any more than
insulin is today. 1951, 10 ,000 pounds of pig
pancreas to make a pound of insulin. We'd be
having this debate and somebody would be saying,
insulin is an animal product. We absolutely can't
go to synthetic insulin. If you want to learn
more about GFI, you can find our annual report
at gfi .org up slash 2018. You can go to gfi
.org to get our bi -weekly newsletter. You can
email me if you want our monthly highlights.
Thank you. I came here today to bring you three
simple truths about in vitro meat simple truth
number one in vitro meat harms the planet proponents
of in vitro meat like to claim that it will help
the planet however what they fail to mention
is that the only peer -reviewed study, positive
peer -reviewed study was both commissioned and
funded exclusively by the in vitro meat industry,
was published by a graduate student, and was
based solely on a series of possible future thought
experiments, assumptions which are premised on
a series of technologies which currently do not
exist and are unlikely to exist in the future.
To provide one example among many, the study
assumed that all in vitro meat would be grown
exclusively in cyanobacteria hydrostate, a type
of algae, even though no in vitro meat is currently
cultured in this process and there is no current
research proving that it would be possible to
do so in the future. Unsurprisingly, I have not
been able to locate a single other peer -reviewed
study that has duplicated these findings. In
fact, Later research has found that in vitro
meat may be more harmful in terms of climate
change than even traditional animal agriculture
as one recent study concluded Cultivation of
in vitro meat requires more industrial energy
often produced by burning fossil fuels than pork
poultry and maybe even beef The reason for these
counterintuitive results is that while cultured
meat uses less land, it requires more energy
inputs, i .e. fossil fuels, than even factory
farms. As a thoughtful article in The Atlantic
explained, cell culture is the most expensive
and most resource -intensive technique in modern
biology. Keeping the cells warm, healthy, well
-fed, and free of contamination takes incredible
labor and energy, even when scaled to the 10
,000 liter vats the biotech companies use. And
on top of that, the fact that these three dimensional
wads of meat would have to be exercised regularly
with stretching machinery, essentially elaborate
meat gems, and you begin to understand the incredible
challenges of scaling in vitro meat. As Marco
Springman, a post -graduate researcher at Oxford
University, phrased the same critique, although
the technologies are evolving, there is no indication
the lab -grown meat is significantly better for
the environment and health than existing alternatives
to beef. The latest reviews have put the emissions
of lab -grown meat at several times that of chicken
and far beyond any plant. based alternative simple
truth number two in vitro meat hurts animals
lots of animals the proponents of in vitro meat
like to focus on how the meat is grown from a
cell of animals without any animals have to be
killed to produce these cells which is true what
however they fail to point out is that these
cells can currently only be grown in fetal bovine
serum i .e. the blood of unborn cows Therefore,
it is hard to argue that shut up practice should
be considered either vegan or cruelty free. And
just to be clear, such extraction causes massive
suffering as both the mother is killed in order
to have her fetus extracted and the fetus is
kept alive outside of the womb for the entirety
of the extraction without any form of anesthesia
ever being applied despite the scientific reality
that they show normal brain activity and pain
responses for the entirety of the procedure.
As a peer -reviewed study specifically on the
topic of fetal bovine serum concluded, quote,
fetal bovine serum, FBS, is the common component
of annual cell culture medium. It is harvested
from bovine fetuses taken from pregnant cows
during slaughter. FBS is commonly harvested by
means of cardiac puncture without any form of
anesthesia. Fetuses are exposed to pain and discomfort,
so the current practice of fetal bovine serum
harvesting is inhumane. Nor are these amounts
of bovine fetal harvest small, since each bovine
fetus produces relatively little FBS, and since
a large amount is necessary to culture these
cells, a large number of bovine fetuses are required
to produce in vitro meat. Current estimates place
the total at over 2 million bovine fetuses and
their mothers annually. And this number is growing.
And the financial benefit to the factory farms
is massive. Since research on in vitro meat has
begun, the price that CAFOs can charge for FPS
has increased by over 300%. It is currently the
single most profitable item that a factory farm
sells. Even if other countries do develop new
technologies and some are in vitro meat represents
animal experimentation on a mass scale and Pretending
it doesn't because the suffering happens on the
farm and not technically in the lab is a distinction
without a moral difference Simple truth number
three in vitro meat helps factory farms. It does
it in three ways one It keeps people eating meat.
Driven by increasing population, increasing obesity
rates, and in particular, increasing rates in
meat consumption in countries such as China,
India, and Brazil, global meat demand is increasing.
However, because of hard limits, they're running
out of room, space, and the environment. Factory
farms cannot meet this demand. In -vitro meat
is being developed to supply this new demand
that Bruce talked about. to keep people eating
meat, not to trade off with factory farms. Two,
to act as a new filler. Tyson's own internal
studies show that people no longer want their
meat to look like animals. Think boneless chicken
nuggets, which creates the opportunity to create,
in their words, a blended product. However as
controversy over Taco Bell blending in soy with
its beef or the controversy over so -called pink
slime highlights Consumers often resist this
blending process Factory farms are funding in
vitro meat not to trade off with factory farms
But to be able to use it as a new filler so they
can label their product 100 % beef Perhaps they
will even market it as an eco burger Assuming
a 50 -50 blend, in vitro meat won't trade off
with the number of people who are eating factory
farm meat. It will effectively double it. Three,
to help with public relations. As you can imagine,
Tyson and factory farms do not currently pull
well with consumers. Funding clean meat and their
small amount of funding for plant -based protein
is designed to improve their image and public
relations. While the first two are still purely
theoretical, this last goal is already working.
In January of this year, in part because of their
funding of in vitro meat and plant -based protein,
even Bruce claimed in a published interview,
quote, for the Good Food Institute in particular,
we have really good relationships with Tyson
Foods, with Smithfield Foods, with Purdue. with
huge chicken conglomerates and meat companies.
It's helpful to recognize that the people who
run these companies want to do something noble.
I don't believe they do. Because the most basic
problem of in vitro meat is that it represents
a solution without a problem. The idea that the
reason that people are refusing to give up meat
is because of a lack of adequate meat substitutes
is simply untrue. From taste to texture to nutritional
quality, a cornucopia of options, both natural
and artificial, already exist, are widely available
and reasonably affordable. Just to highlight
the absurd degree to which meat has already been
successfully imitated, impossible foods even
produced a completely vegan hamburger that bleeds.
In fact, under taste tests, many non -vegans
cannot tell the difference between the real and
some of the new imitation products unless they
are told. Even Michael Pollan. One of the most
famous proponents of humane meat and one of the
most ardent critics of so -called mock meat had
to admit in a blind taste test aired on PBS that
he could not tell the difference with a sub of
actual KFO meat and a sub made from the new types
of mock meat. In conclusion, in response to rising
concerns about its effect on climate change,
coal companies, hire consultants to come up with
new marketing campaigns, to decrease protest,
ward off government oversight, confuse consumers
and activists, and most importantly, to ward
off the growth of actual valid alternatives such
as solar and wind. Their terminology was clean
coal. Likewise, responding to similar criticism
from environmentalist, animal rights organizations,
and growing fears of governmental oversight and
shifts to actually valid options of identically
tasting plant -based options, the meat industry
has started to fund a new technology it calls
clean meat. However, what we need, what I believe
in, the simple and obvious truth is that what
we should be fighting for is not for clean meat,
but for no meat at all. Thank you. Hi, everyone.
How you doing? Good, good. Thank you for that
lively discussion. Some facts we will dispute
in the coming session. And if I have a couple
minutes, I might hand it over to Bruce for at
least one fact we would dispute. However, I want
to talk a little bit about myself, why I'm here.
I am Leah Garces. I am the president of Mercy
for Animals. Yay! And this is our mission. And
our mission is to construct, an important word,
a compassionate food system by reducing suffering
and ending the exploitation. of animals for food.
I use the word construct because it's very important
to me. It's not good enough for us to just point
out what's wrong. We have to be actively working
to solve the problem and constructing a better
food system. And that's important to keep in
mind today as we tear apart what I think is a
very valid solution that we should not be throwing
away at this early stage in its development.
So why are we all here? Let's just remember that,
because that was a heated exchange, I would say.
We're all here for the same reason. Hope brought
us all here for the same reason. We all are trying
to stop this. Because as a reminder, there are
nearly 80 billion farmed animals that move through
our food system. And that's just land. That's
not sea animals. Those are not water animals
that are in systems like this that are atrocious.
And we're in crisis mode now. We're at an urgent
point in our history because guess what? This
is not working very well. More people are eating
animals than ever before in history. More animals
are being slaughtered than ever before in history.
That is the reality that we have to keep in mind
and we have to keep in mind for the animals that
I just showed you. That's a fact. And that trend
has not changed, and in fact, it's exponential.
And there are two reasons for that. One is this.
Human population growth. By 2050, we predict
there will be, the United Nations predicts, there
will be 10 billion people on the planet. That's
not slowing down. That's not stopping, that's
not what we're here to debate or try to stop.
That's gonna happen. 10 billion people, and they
all need to eat. And what's more, second trend,
is that there's undernourishment is decreasing.
Across the world, people are living higher qualities
of life, and that's a great thing for human beings.
And in some countries, that's really pronounced,
like China and Brazil, where childhood mortality
is dropping off a cliff. We've stayed pretty
steady, but in some countries, where, by the
way, the population is rising astronomically,
They're also having higher quality of life. And
comes with that, the unintended consequence,
the negative consequence, is that people are
eating more meat. And this is why more animals
are being slaughtered than ever before in history.
So by that thought, we are failing miserably
at doing our job, Bruce and I, as activists.
And we are hopeless optimists, is why we're still
here, we're still working, because we believe
we can change it. And I think that's why you
all are here today, too. But we have to keep
in mind these real figures, these cold, hard
numbers that we're faced with. Because if population
increases as it's set to increase, the Food and
Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
says that we're going to have to more than double
the number of animals in factory farms to meet
this demand. This is not my figure. This is the
United Nations. So, we did a math problem. We
said, what if we modestly, modestly, because
we want zero, right? What if we modestly wanted
to half the number of farmed animals that are
slaughtered today by 2050 given the rising population?
So we want to go from 74 billion to 37 billion,
let's say. What would that mean per person? Would
it mean? half the number of farmed animals per
person? No, because there's going to be so many
more humans on the planet. What it would mean
is 10%. That would mean everybody in the United
States today would have to eat 90 % less of what
they eat today to get us to only half the number
of farmed animals today by 2050. What's, it's
realistic for us to look. Oh, so this is around
the world, it's very similar. So, I know, cute
picture for a second so we can just have a cute
picture moment to make us happy again. Oceana,
the same thing, which is where Asia is housed.
Brazil, Latin America, they're all the same.
They all have to do major reductions, 90%. Just
to get us to half, just to get us to 37 billion,
which is totally unacceptable, right? And okay,
so let's think, okay, what's been happening in
the last 20 years in terms of meat consumption?
Or vegetarianism, plant -based? It's not good.
Actually, a Gallup poll recently showed that
it stayed the same. Over 20 years in the United
States, it's been at 6%. It hasn't changed. So
again, Something's not right in the way that
we're approaching this problem So let's review
10 billion people on the planet by 2050 they're
gonna have higher standards of living And we're
gonna have to more than double the number of
animals to meet that demand To reduce the number
of farmed animals by even half an American would
have to eat 90 % less of what they eat today
But vegetarianism has stayed around five to six
percent of the last 20 years in this country
So What should our approach be? What should we
do? This is what I think about every day in my
job, what Bruce thinks about every single day
as activists. We are thinking, how do we stop
this trend? Now, our opponents might try to tell
you that clean meat is the holy grail for us,
that we think this is the only answer, we're
gonna throw all our resources, we're giving up
on everything else. It is not true. But clean
meat didn't exist only a few years ago. We're
in the first stages of developing this should
we throw it out right now forget it Should we
say no to this obviously a technology that has
a great amount of potential Is clean meat bad
for animals absolutely not it doesn't harm one
animal in the process given its full potential
and Is it something that is the answer to stopping
the exploitation of animals for food? Maybe.
It might be. Or maybe not. But we shouldn't stop
now. And is it good for animals? Absolutely.
It's worth exploring. But so are all of these
to continue doing. All of these things we do.
There's not one answer. And I think we get into
this idea of there's one hero to the story of
ending factory farming. But there's not one hero.
We're all part of this story. And all of the
options that we're exploring, we have to support.
And our opponent also talked about stopping consumption
of all meat. But what is meat? Meat is a word,
is a social construct that we created, that we
decided comes from a slaughtered animal. Our
opponents might say that meat shouldn't be eaten,
even if it comes from an animal that was never
slaughtered, that was never harmed, that was
never alive. So should we reject it for that
reason? Because it comes originally from a system
of injustice and exploitation? Well, it turns
out that we can reassign things at any time,
and we are doing so, and we have done so. The
industry feels really threatened by this and
confused and they're conflicting internally about
this. They don't know what to do. We have the
Cattlemen Association who are throwing petitions
to stop us from redefining meat as a word because
this is super threatening to them. Where we're
saying, you don't get to decide what meat is,
we do. And it doesn't come from a slaughtered
animal. And companies like Cargill are thinking,
I got to stay in business in the future. They're
not doing out of mal intent. I work with these
companies. They're just caring about the bottom
line. And if we can convince them that the bottom
line can come from an animal that was never slaughtered,
they're like, thumbs up. That's all they care
about. They don't care about animals. They don't
really care about consumers. They care about
money. Right? And if we can make it so that it
just makes money, they're all for it. And CARG
will prove that. Cargill renamed their meat department.
They read just listen they renamed their meat
department to be a protein department Because
they're preparing for the future they know this
is where we are headed Where this word and protein
we're in a protein revolution right now Where
this word is changing? And is there any history
that where we reassigned a word And to do that
I have to tell you the story, the tale of the
two Henrys. Has anybody heard the tale of the
two Henrys before? Oh good. Does anybody know
who is on the left? Or on the right? Henry Ford,
okay. On the left is Henry Berg. Henry Berg is
the founder of the ASPCA and Henry Ford made
cars. So Henry Berg in 1863, he was an American
diplomat and he went over to Russia and he saw
this driver beating a fallen horse and he got
out and he stopped him and right then and there
he realized he was an activist and he could do
something to change the world. He went back to
the United States and in 1866 he founded the
ASPCA with the primary focus of protecting those
horses, of stopping the abuse and cruelty towards
horses used for the simple thing that humans
needed, transportation from A to B. But his dream
was really accelerated, really driven home when
Henry Ford came up with a car. Henry Ford very
famously said, if I had asked my customers what
they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.
I gave them a car. And it was the car, it was
this vehicle, this transportation, innovation
that led to the near end of the use of horses
for transportation. Because human beings were
going to continue to need transportation from
A to B and demand that. And as population grew
and our world grew smaller, they still wanted
to get from A to B and they still needed it.
And that's the... Okay, my last one. So, in this
same way, where... The abused horse is now the
forgotten ancestor of our modern car. One day,
with any hope of this technology working, the
burger or the farmed animal that is slaughtered
will just be the distant memory, the ancestor,
the forgotten ancestor of the burger. And cell
-based meat will have helped us get there, hopefully.
And farmed animals will thank us for not stopping
to explore every avenue, take every option, because
of those astronomical numbers we are up against.
Thank you. Our resident pirate, John Sanbanmatsu.
Thank you, Hope. Thank you, Hope, and thank you,
Karen, for having me here. I'm going to speak
very quickly, because I have about 20 minutes.
I'm combining into 10. I get it. We have some
courageous activists on the stage. And I get
that after so many years of frustration with
people eating more meat, more animals suffering,
we see something bright and shiny and new, a
high -technology item, something that has the
backing of a lot of very powerful, rich white
men. So it must be award -winning, kind of like
the film Green Book. Well, my message for you
today, my message for you today is that all that
glitters is not gold. Sometimes under further
scrutiny it turns out to be fool's gold, which
has all, actually none of the properties of real
gold, but all of the sheen. Geologists call that
pyrite, which is why I have come dressed as a
pyrite myself tonight. Ladies and gentlemen,
welcome to the land of make -believe, where the
Good Food Institute tells us that the two forces
which have destroyed most animal life on the
earth, which are capitalism and the meat economy,
the meat industry, are going to, guess what,
be the solution to saving the animals. It would
be funny if it wasn't horrifying. So I have many
different arguments to make. The main one is
that synthetic meat is an opportunity for the
meat industry to diversify its markets and to
ensure its long -term survival, including of
its... I need the clicker. Where's the clicker?
We've been in heated negotiations about time
here. Clean meat is part of a strategy not to
replace animal agriculture, but to enshrine the
meat economy forever. Oh, by the way, so this,
you'll be able to, I'll show the slide later.
We are putting together a website, thecleanmeathoax
.com. My first point is that clean meat strengthens
meat culture. Synthetic meat reinforces meat
culture as a whole. As Justin Van Cleet points
out, quote, the problem with clean meat is that
it keeps meat as a concept on the plate. The
continued preponderance of meat will therefore
mean that real meat will always have a cultural
cache that nothing else will. I think that aestheticizing
meat as an attractive commodity is a terrible
idea. Consumers are being thrust into a twilight
zone of ontological ambiguity. Is it real or
is it Memorex? Is it real meat or is it real
meat? Who can say? Much of the public relations
and marketing discourse around clean meat actually
reinforces myths about meat. The idea that animal
flesh is essential, indispensable, inevitable,
irreplaceable, natural, something we need rather
than merely want. When Bruce was interviewed
on Vox, his interviewer said, quote, you often
hear that eating animals is natural. And it is,
but not the way we do it. Bruce, unfortunately,
did not correct the interviewer. But in fact,
it is not natural. It's a historical cultural
artifact, as Leah was saying. Meat is even being
depicted as aesthetically beautiful. Here's how
the Israeli synthetic meat startup Aleph Farms,
a beneficiary of one of Bruce's two venture capitalist
firms. You're too modest, Bruce. You talked about
your non -profit work, not the fact that you
are principal in two venture capitalist firms
to produce and profit from this. Yes, debate
later. One of the firms that's profiting from
these capital venture firms is Aleph Foods, which
says, quote, we believe meat is one of life's
pleasures to be celebrated and enjoyed, but without
the downsides to health and the environment.
Finally, meat you can enjoy that's good for your
health and good for the planet. So, two messages.
One, meat is one of life's essential pleasures.
Two, you should eat the new meat for health and
the environment. And my friends, it's not about
the animals in most of the discourse of the advertising.
It's an anti -vegan discourse. The animals barely
get mentioned a lot of the time in many of the
presentations, as though they're an embarrassment.
It's doing the opposite of what we want to do,
which is try to get people to actually care about
animals, not to trivialize them. But Bruce himself
says that the whole point of clean meat is, quote,
take ethics off the table for the consumer. But
taking ethics off the table subverts animal justice
and damages the long -term interests of both
animals and our movement. Secondly, Clean meat
is not intended to replace animal agriculture.
Neither the Good Food Institute nor the venture
capitalist firm's new crop capital or clear current
capital are against animal agriculture. Quote,
our team views conventional animal agriculture
as an antiquated and inefficient food production
system. And Bruce himself said at a debate, quote,
I understand the concern of people in slow food.
And we're absolutely not trying to make people
unhappy about, you know, animal farms. I would
be completely shocked if the fact that clean
meat is being promoted, if that had any negative
ramifications for the folks in the regenerative
animal agriculture, slow food, high welfare crowd.
And in fact, to the degree that clean meat is
successful, it replaces conventional animal agriculture.
We see Tyson, Smithfield, and everybody else
go to clean meat. And then the options are clean
meat on one hand and then the sort of regenerative
high -welfare meat on the other. So it's reducing
the future to these two possibilities. Quote,
so I don't see them in competition at all. I
don't think there are any real negative ramifications
for high welfare regenerative agriculture. Just
as a reminder, this is what high welfare animal
agriculture looks like. Camus Davis, of course,
the local hunting people, and all the animals
end up in these slaughterhouses anyway. This
is high welfare. And these people basically get
a pass. Make no mistake. This is an anti animal
justice position. It is a welfare's position
It is not an abolitionist one the clean meat
Lobby has set up a false dilemma a choice between
conventional animal agriculture on one side and
new synthesized animal flesh on the other What
we need is an is a choice between animal agriculture
and animal free agriculture This, by the way,
is an intensification of humane meat discourse,
which I've written on. We don't have time to
go into it. Bruce has been a promoter of that.
I think humane meat and the myth that animals
can be killed, gassed, shot, stabbed in the billions
or millions ethically is horrific and has done
great damage to our movements. Clean meat won't
eliminate meat from animals killed on factory
farms either so I could agree with my partner
in this facility Who quoted Bruce is saying for
the good food Institute? We have really good
relationships with Tyson Smithfield Purdue and
so forth and says that the people who run these
companies want to do something noble They want
to feed the world high quality protein. That's
their goal But as Leah said, it isn't their goal.
They have one goal. It isn't to feed the world.
It's to make profit. And if they're going to
kill billions and billions of animals to do that,
they'll do that. So that much of the argument
is clear. Well, James Levesque, over a decade
ago, wrote this really great article. You should
look up online. It's called Invasion of the Movement
Snatchers. And it's about how the meat industry
is taking over the vegan movement and the animal
rights movement, believe it or not. So you have,
just in the last A few years, you have all of
these companies now taking over the vegan foods
industry. In 2016, the Danone Dairy Company in
France bought White Wave and Silk Soy Milk. In
2017, Field Roast and Light Life, the vegan meat
companies, were purchased by Maple Leaf Foods,
the biggest killer of animals in Canada. So this
is maple leaf foods. In 2017, the Daiya Cheese
Company was purchased by the Otsuka Pharmaceutical
Company, the second biggest big pharma in Japan,
which of course tests on animals. Last year,
Good Catch, which is one of the companies that
Bruce has promoted, I believe. raised 8 .7 million
dollars in new funding, including from the PHW
Grupa Lohmann Company. Who are they? One of Europe's
largest poultry producers. They killed 350 million
chickens just last year. Meanwhile, thanks to
these capital investment firms, the biggest meat
companies are now buying into synthetic meat.
Tyson and Cargill are investing in Memphis meats,
and it could give you many other examples. So
why are companies doing this? Why are they gobbling
up the vegan industry? Well, I want to concur
with my debate partner here. First of all, there's
vegan washing and green washing. These companies
are able to put a compassionate label, sustainability
label on their products. Secondly, they are hedging
against future risk by buying up vegan enterprises.
They gain strategic, growing influence and advantage
over the vegan market and the animal rights movement.
They're defining our discourses for us and now
here we are as though summoned. Three, it's about
the money. to ensure future market dominance
through a two -track strategy to preserve and,
where possible, to expand traditional live animal
markets. It is quite clear these companies have
no intention ever of ending animal agriculture.
Now, it's possible that if they could do it cheaply
and so forth, that is a possibility, but I think
it's an extremely remote one. Here's what Cargill
said. Now, they're an investor in Memphis Meats.
Quote, Cargill is committed to growing our protein
portfolio. This includes investing in and growing
our traditional animal protein businesses. Our
commitment is reinforced by nearly $600 million
in recent investments in conventional protein,
meaning factory farming, in North America alone,
including acquisition of five -star custom foods,
modernization of our turkey hatchery in Virginia,
the conversion of our Columbus Nebraska plant
into a cooked meats facility, and on and on and
on. They say this underscores This further underscores
Cargill's overarching commitment to animal protein.
At Cargill, we recognize that meat is a core
part of consumer diets, central to many cultures
and traditions. Our traditional proteins as well
as new innovations like cultured meats are both
necessary to meet that demand. What Leah didn't
mention is that, no, the desire for meat is not
natural. It's actually marketed. And these companies,
like Cargill, spend billions of dollars to make
people want to buy the meat. So it's creating
the demand. And these are the people who are
supposed to trust. And we see the same thing
with the Danone Company. pronged strategy, a
dual track strategy. There is room for dairy
alternatives and milk products. Our data shows
that both milk alternatives as well as dairy
products can perform well and not necessarily
take share from one another. That in turn suggests
that consumers can be swayed either way. So basically,
this is how the future looks to maple farms.
They're going to have ham, and then they're going
to have field roast vegan. They're going to preserve
this. There's no intention. There's nothing that
suggests they're going to get away from it. The
introduction of a versimilitude in a commodity
does not have anything to do with how it changes
consumption. Faux fur has been around for decades.
And guess what? Fur consumption is increasing.
I've never seen so much fur. This is actually
fake fur. This has not replaced real fur, just
as the meat, the synthetic meat, is not going
to replace the other meat. It's going to come
right along with it. Now, the last thing I wanted
to say, almost the last thing, is that the clean
meat is the strategy of robbing Peter to pay
Paul, and Vasili touched on this. But if you
buy, say, recycled papers, I do, from Georgia
Pacific, you're actually supporting Koch Enterprises,
which is to say the Koch brothers, who own Georgia
Pacific. So every time we try to do the right
thing and buy a field roast burger, we're actually
supporting factory farming. Cargill which has
been come up come up for praise one of the leading
companies involved in deforestation right the
homelessness of orangutans and others and Finally,
it's not going to work if you take ethics off
the table There's no longer a compelling reason
to buy the synthetic meats in the first place
and as Vasili said they're not it's not even
clear It's that sustainable and basically you're
gonna leave consumers with the choice Do they
want the real thing or they're gonna want the
synthetic thing? Well, especially if they're
comparably priced they're gonna want the real
thing most of the time or half the time or a
quarter of the time, whatever. But we're talking
about billions and billions and billions of animals.
So the last thing I wanted to say is, then what
is all of this about, you know, fundamentally?
And I think it really is about this, actually.
You know, I really do. What's a pirate? No, I
have two sentences, two sentences. So the new
meets lobby, including these venture capitalist
firms, are going to make their investors a ton
of money. As the new crop capital's chief investment
officer, Chris Kerr said, quote, we will be rich
no matter what. That's a direct quote, Bruce,
from Chris Kerr. We will be rich no matter what.
We are being treated as fools. They get the gold,
and the animals lose. Thank you. OK. Wow. Lively.
I'm feeling like, I was going to get right into
questions, but I want to check in with the panel.
And I wonder if either side would like to just
have five minutes to respond to what was said.
It feels like we might want to clear up a little
bit. I don't know. I just saw a lot of frantic
notes being taken and all that. So does any side
want to take just five minutes to respond to
anything that was said? Bruce, go ahead. So for
people who don't know, I was at People for the
Ethical Treatment of Animals for 15 years, Vice
President of Campaigns for PETA. I put together
the Meet Your Meat video, put together the Paul
McCartney Glass Walls video. What I expected
to be discussing was what John said. That was
pretty much what I assume both sides would say.
I just want to say PETA came out in favor of
and has been vigorously supportive of clean meat
for probably 15 years since it was just sort
of a pipe dream and has continued to be vigorously
supportive. I'm not familiar with any. animal
rights organization that has come out against
it. The Humane League has come out in favor.
Mercy for Animals has come out in favor. Animal
Equality has come out in favor. The Humane Society
has come out in favor. If anything that Vlas
said in his first 12 minutes were true, none
of those organizations would have come out in
favor of it. None of them. So you either have
to believe that Ingrid and David and Leah and
me who's dedicating my life to this, either we're
willing to sacrifice animals for the greater
good, which we're not, or we're stupid, which
we're not, or we didn't do due diligence and
just didn't realize all the things that he said,
which isn't the case. All of the organizations
and I and Leah did due diligence on the technology
and really just None of it's true. So that's
the first thing to say. I am just in the interest
of sort of settling everything, going to just
sort of knock down each of the things to tell
you what our position is. Does it harm the planet?
Well, the LCA that he said the in vitro meat
industry had funded came out in 2011. And the
in vitro meat industry raised its first $50 ,000
in 2015. and so had not existed for four years
at that point. There really isn't an in vitro
meat industry. The clean meat companies so far
have raised about $70 million, some total across
all of them. Very little of that so far has come
from the meat industry, although we're optimistic
that a lot more will. The LCAs that exist, I
do agree with him that there aren't many of them
and they aren't very good. I'm sorry, life cycle
analyses. Yeah, the environmental impact assessments,
I apologize. But the study that he cited, which
I was really very surprised by, the study where
he said the CO2 requirements of clean meat are
so high and consequently clean meat will actually
be worse for the environment. This is a study
that came out maybe three weeks ago and it said
at the thousand -year mark in one of the four
scenarios that they studied starting in 800 years.
clean meat will be worse than industrial animal
meat. But the main point that the Good Food Institute
has made, and if you Google the Good Food Institute
and life cycle analyses, or my name and life
cycle analyses, or if you just go to gfi .org
upslash blog, I think it's like three or four
blogs down, you'll see our analysis of this.
It's a little bit like predicting the life cycle,
the environmental impact of something like an
iPhone 10 years before there was an iPhone. Basically,
what's happening is that we are extrapolating
from medical therapies, which is what tissue
engineering is being used for now, taking that
process, applying it to food, and saying that's
the best it's going to get, which is simply not
the case. And the price thing is like attacking
the iPhone in 2012. Both Voss and John said both,
it's not going to work. It's not going to save
animals. and it's going to make the meat industry
insanely profitable. You kind of have to choose
between those two things, it seems to me. I'll
give you one more minute, Bruce. Okay. Fetal
bovine serum. That was going to be my first question,
so if you've got anything else. Okay. There are
no animal experiments. Oh, yeah. I started two
venture capital funds by recruiting the people
who run them, both Chris Kerr and Kurt Albright.
The guys who run the two venture capital firms
are longtime animal rights activists, animal
rights philanthropists, and vegans. I have no,
absolutely no. I'm not a principal. I have absolutely
no interest in either of them, although I am
an advisor to both of them. The idea of ethics
off the table, I mean, that's just we want meat
not to be associated with animals. We want people
when they are eating meat, like when people take
insulin now. Does anybody think people shouldn't
take synthetic insulin? We want to take ethics
off the table. So when he says not clean meat
but no meat, the main thing I want to say is
how is that going for us? How is that going?
Highest per capita meat consumption 2018, 2019
is going to be even higher. Nobody has a scenario
for how education turns back the clock. But both
of them said over and over, this is going to
make the meat industry a ton of money. It probably
will make the meat industry a ton of money because
it's more efficient. So the idea that they're
going to be doing 50 -50 blends, how many people
are riding around by horse and carriage? How
many pictures are you taking not on your digital
camera? How much communication is happening with
landlines? As this scales up, it's going to be
less expensive. Maybe there are cattle ranchers
and dairy farmers who actually like the fact
that they're working with animals, but none of
the executives at Tyson and Purdue and Smithfield
and Hormel, For none of them is the idea of factory
farming and slaughterhouses, the reason they
get up in the morning. If you meet these people,
they're like all of our families and friends
who eat meat. They really do want to provide
high -quality protein to the world. They went
to business school. They got the job at Tyson
or Purdue or Hormel. They could have just as
easily been just about anyplace else. Yes, a
capitalist economy, which is what I thought we
were going to be talking about. We get to animal
liberation. This is how we take ethics off the
table. This is how we make meat harmless. And
if we care about animals, think about the animals
on the factory farms, think about the animals
in the slaughterhouses. Do you want 70 % more
of them dead in 2050? I'm going to wrap you up,
Bruce. OK. Thank you. So I'm going to give this
side one of you five minutes, and then we're
going to get into questions to respond. Okay,
that's fine. This is a now response to what you
heard from the introductions. So let me just
say one thing briefly. I just want everyone to
know, I personally respect Bruce a great deal.
And I think most people here do. And I'm just
now meeting Leah, but I personally respect her.
And I respect every animal rights organization
out there. I respect every vegan out there. There's
not that many of us. I, you know, I disagree
with this topic and I think that there has been
some mistakes that have been made. I don't think
that people are fundamentally different in their
hearts. I'm just trying to highlight some information.
So one part of information I'm trying to highlight
is the preponderance of peer -reviewed research
that has been done on in vitro meat. So you can
go to the Good Food Institute. They have a white
paper. So, and don't trust me, Google it on your
phone. You can do Good Food Institute, White
Paper, Clean Meat. They cite three and a half
studies in favor of the environmental benefit
of clean meat. Very briefly, I'll go through
them. So, the first one they cite is the one
he mentioned from 2011. This is the only positive
study. As earlier discussed, it was created by
a graduate student, and that doesn't mean graduate
students can't do great work. They do. But it
does mean that there might be some mistakes that
cropped in. It was funded by the in vitro media
industry. Maybe that wasn't a precise term. But
what happened is New Harvest, and you can Google
New Harvest, take a look. They put out money
and they said, hey, we want to fund the study.
Now, it's not the case that funding studies always
makes bias. But there's better and worse ways
to do it. And New Harvest did the worst possible
one. They said, we have some money. and we're
going to look at all the applications. And then
after you've applied to us, we're going to choose
who does the studies, and we're going to choose
which methodology we support. So that is the
most amount of bias that you can interject into
a study. And this was by an organization which
explicitly wants to promote in vitro meat. That's
who funded the study. If you take a look at the
paper, It says it's funded by them at the bottom
of the paper. It is also on their website. So
this is not in debate so as I mentioned the study
had multiple thought it wasn't an actual Lifecycle
analysis because it doesn't ask light it had
thought experiments And I mentioned one that
was untrue and we have time in the questions
later I can tell you how the other thought experiments
were all not also possible one of them included
the statement that she didn't need to consider
the energy that was needed for the bioreactors
because cells make heat, even though that's actually
one of the primary areas that produces GHG. So
it's a flawed study. And then if I have time
later in the questions, I can go through the
rest of the white paper and explain to you how
each of the studies they cite actually concludes
that in vitro meat would be more harmful to the
planet. then pot then all forms of chicken or
pork and possibly beef and Certainly worse than
any kind of plant -based alternative. Thank you
I Just wanted to briefly comment on the horse
thing because Bruce I've seen you give that talk
on your TED talk and so we're making that point
about horses In the horse carriage, yeah, right
horses transfer, you know Many, many, many more
animals have been killed and mutilated by Henry
Ford's innovation than ever died through the
horse and carriage business. So you have to be
aware of the unintended consequences of technology
when they're in the hands of very powerful people
and where there's no democratic accountability.
Henry Ford, of course, who's been kind of lionized
here, was a notorious anti -Semite, you know,
buddy, very friendly with Hitler, you know, treated
the workers terribly, etc. My point is that you
can't, we can't just assume that a market mechanism
is going to correct a moral problem. It won't.
It hasn't. Capitalism has destroyed two -thirds
of all animal life in the last 40 years, according
to the World Wildlife Federation. destroyed,
being killed by this metastatic system. So to
think, regardless of what the particular individual's
moral character are at the head of Tyson and
Purdue and so forth, I don't know these people.
But I can tell you, just look at their record.
Look at the undercover investigations by PETA
and so forth of the horrific abuses of animals
by these companies. Are these people going to
be trusted? No. What's going to happen is meat
consumption per capita is going to probably go
up because they're going to market more of this
stuff. And what I think is going to happen is
that, yes, there's potentially fewer animals
suffering, but it's going to bottom out at a
certain price point. And then you're going to
have both factory farmed flesh available and
the synthetic meat, and it's going to go on.
And that's why Vasili and I feel strongly that
it's a mistaken strategy. We're not impugning
motives here, but we are saying that it's a very
mistaken strategy. Thank you. Okay, so we're
gonna get into some questions. We're really I
mean, it's it's so fascinating and amazing and
and we're the time is just ticking away so I
want to get into the specific question of the
concern with the embryonic, the fetal bovine
serum, using that as the medium right now. I've
also heard that horse serum is used, chicken
embryo extract, things like this. I'm not sure
how accurate that is, so I'm asking the panel.
Basically, what is the likelihood that this is
going to continue? I would hope that, you know,
that we're working towards not using these, but
right now it's the best media to use. And you,
you know, by the pro -side zone admission, you
know, these people aren't in it for the animals,
a lot of them. So how can we guarantee that these
things are going to move towards a more ethical
vegan process and only use vegan methods and
medias? And this kind of goes into one of the
audience's question that says that I'm concerned
about the animals who will be used for lab -grown
meat. How will these animals live and be treated?
Leah, do you want to start since you haven't
spoken for a bit? Yeah. Well, I'm confused about
the animals that are used because there was a
great video that came out created by Just, and
it was called Ian the Chicken. Did anybody see
that video? So the whole process was there was
a chicken named Ian, a feather had fallen. They
picked up the feather. They extracted the cell
from the feather. And then they grew the meat
from this fallen feather. Then they made a nugget.
They ate the chicken while Ian was wandering
around. Right? So there's no animal harmed in
the process, in that process, right? And Bruce
can answer this better than I can about the serum.
So am I right that Memphis Meats, are any of
the company, well you probably should answer
this question better about the serum. I'll let
him answer the serum. Because the direction is
we're not going to use bovine serum. And none
of it is coming to market yet. Nothing's on market.
You can't purchase this anywhere. And all of
the research is looking at a total plant -based
solution to feed them. And that's every company's
objective right now, is to only use a plant -based
serum. So the technology that they're borrowing
is from cancer research, where, of course, they
didn't think about that. And they are using bovine
serum. And that's where the research they're
borrowing. That's the knowledge to date. But
all of the work is around finding a plant -based
solution 100 percent and not using, none of us
would. Do you think that Bruce and I, collectively
we have 40 years of animal rights activism between
us. Would we be supporting that? Absolutely not.
No way. I also want to point out there's been
the heads of these companies, they don't really
care about the animals. That is also not true.
The head of Memphis Meats is a vegan, he's a
cardiologist, he cares deeply about animals.
The head of Just is a vegan, he's an activist,
he cares deeply about animals. The people who
are starting these companies, I know them personally,
care deeply about animals. Because I was talking
more about Big Ag and Tyson that's getting into
it and Cargill. Right. Okay. Well, they're investing
in it because it looks lucrative and they're
threatened by this and they only care about the
bottom line and they want to make sure they stay
in business as the trend. Goes away from this.
I also I didn't put this in my slides, but there's
a reality that those businesses are seeing Which
is arable land is running out So when we have
a chicken, it's not just the environmental impact
of raising that chicken in that spot There's
all of the soy and the grains that are being
raised and we are running out of land arable
land We it's just a math problem. We literally
cannot eat that much meat in the future But people
are still demanding it. So we're just going to
run our plan into the ground if we don't come
up with a solution. If you don't care about the
animals, the future of our planet is not going
in a good direction. And one other thing I just
want to say, well, I didn't get a chance to respond,
is I get what it feels like to be angry about
these things. I really loved Renee's talk. And
I've worked with factory farmers turned activists.
Bruce is going to that she put Yes, Bruce is
going to she said that she didn't have the knowledge
is gonna Let Bruce answer it and now she's making
a response because she didn't get to speak earlier
So now she's responding to some of the things
that were said earlier We're gonna get that that
response from Bruce Go ahead promise that answer
and I did answer it I said that plant -based
serum is being looked at that is where we're
headed is we're getting plant and most of the
companies are that's all of their R &D is devoted
to plant -based solution not the bovine fetal
solution They're all looking at that. It's not
the future. And I said that cancer research used
bovine and all the cancer research, the organ
transplant research was all using the bovine
serum. And that's where we started to get the
science and the ideas to be able to do this.
But that's not where we're going. And none of
these companies, they're all looking at plant
-based only serums. So maybe you'll just answer
that. Well, Leah, please finish what you were
going to say. It's OK. Well, I would just say
that I have been an angry activist for 20 years
where I'm just beating my head. The industry
sucks. They're not doing the right thing. It
feels good. I think Renee, you said angry doesn't
change them. We're not going to change anybody
by being angry. We have to put ourselves in their
shoes. We're not in charge of one animal, not
one. Not one of us are in charge of those animals
that Tyson are overseeing. So you have to put
yourselves in Tyson's shoes and say, what's going
to make them stop killing animals? Not like I'm
angry they're killing them, I'm angry they're
capitalist, we could have a whole debate. We're
not actually debating capitalism here today.
I'd love to do that debate, but that's not the
one for today, so let's just put that aside.
But you have to. This is my life, is trying to
think about. How do we stop Tyson from wanting
to slaughter animals? And it's not going to be
me sitting in the room yelling at them about
be ethical. Why aren't you ethical? It's not
working. One more minute. OK, great. All right,
so Bruce. Bruce and just about if you can in
like three minutes Let us know about that the
you know the bovine serum like I've heard chicken
embryo extract all these animal Products that
I have heard are being used in this process.
What's up with that? Well, I'm not familiar with
chicken embryo extracts But fetal bovine serum,
I mean you can get a longer explanation of FBS
by googling my name and FBS I have an article
about why This is, as Leah said, this is therapeutics
applied to food. You have to test every single
batch of FBS. FBS inclusion is part of the reason
that the life cycle analysis, the environmental
assessments that Vas was talking about are bad,
which if you read our white paper, it goes into
why their extrapolations are not extrapolations.
to a technology that actually works. So it's
certainly possible that when they said clean
meat isn't going to work, that's certainly possible.
We don't know if it's going to be able to scale
up. If it does scale up, it will be the exact
same product, and it will cost less, which means
that it'll be like insulin. Insulin is not used.
It doesn't come from pigs anymore. It used to
come from pigs. And we will just completely take
away the idea that meat comes from animals. Multiple
companies are not using FBS now. Just isn't using
FBS. Memphis Meats isn't using FBS. FBS is Fetal
Bovine Serum. Fetal Bovine Serum. And as Leah
said, all the companies want to move away from
it as quickly as possible. It won't be used at
commercialization. Plant solution. Yeah. Yeah.
FBS is FBS. We can Google it. Sorry? I would
like to know how we can actually get documentation
of that statement you just made. I mean, you
do have to believe the companies. So I mean,
you have to believe Just, which is run by vegans,
and Memphis, which is run by vegans. But if you
look at my paper, you can see just for what Leah
says, which is just that FBS is extremely expensive.
And there's no way clean meat works if FBS is
an ingredient. It's one of the reasons that the
environmental assessments. are bad, because they're
scaling up with this assumption that they're
going to keep using FBS. FBS is not allowed in
a lot of medical tissue engineering. It's absolutely
not an essential ingredient. It just works really
well for cell multiplication. So at bench scale,
a lot of people in tissue engineering use it
at bench scale. But when they're actually producing
the products, they can't legally use it. It's
not allowed. And because these companies are
run by vegans, Multiple of them have stopped
using it because they have an ethical objection
to it. And then as Leah said, all of them, nobody's
going to be using FBS when this stuff is being
produced commercially. Okay, we weren't going
to do questions to the audience, but it's Karen,
so yes. Okay, as you know, billions of acres
of land are used just to grow crops. to feed
chickens and other industrially raised animals.
And even compared to the heavily sprayed crops
grown directly for human consumption apart from
organic, these crops are very heavily sprayed,
these millions and billions of acres in Brazil
and the United States and everywhere else, with
every type of pesticide, herbicide, fungicide,
and you name it. What is the difference between
growing all these crops and using all this cropland
energy and the whole resource to feed actual
living animals in the food industry versus feeding
the cellular versions in the vats? They still
have to be fed, right? The cells have to be fed.
Could you address that? So, I mean, for people
who want to dive into the technology of all of
this, you go to gfi .org upslash essentials.
There are lots of white papers and other things
that you can read. The worst case scenario right
now is that, so as probably most people in this
room know, it takes nine calories fed to a chicken
to get one calorie back out in the form of chicken
flesh, according to the World Resources Institute.
So that means nine times as much land, nine times
as much water, nine times as much everything.
Even with the current technology, without improving
anything at all, it's three calories in for one
calorie back out. So it's three times as efficient,
so three times fewer. Even for chicken. The cell
-based, yeah. Yeah, exactly. So relative to cattle,
it's like 95 % to 99 % less land, even with no
improvement on the current technology. It's like
so much less land. So one of the critiques that
we make of those environmental assessments is
that it assumes that none of that land is repurposed
in a positive way. for example, for clean energy.
And this is one of the things that the Gates
Foundation talks about when they talk about being
enthusiastic about clean meat. But we do have
a cost assessment paper in the clean meat section
on gfi .org upslash essentials that sort of walks
through media recycling. So nutrient recycling,
which could make this more and more and more
efficient. And obviously, because the companies
are. profit motive driven, they have incentive
to make it as efficient as possible. So it should
get more and more and more efficient. So it's
300 % more efficient than chicken, even more
efficient relative to killing pigs and cattle.
OK. OK. So believe it or not, we are four minutes
away from where we need to give everyone their
closing statements. And I have eight more questions
I wanted to ask. Well, I have several questions.
The FBS, if that's okay. Did you want to respond?
Please. All right, let's give a couple of minutes
to respond and then I want to get at least one
more of my questions in. So the idea that there
are no longer startup companies of in vitro meat
which are using FBS is untrue. He is correct
that Just Foods has stated that they have developed
a plant -based growth medium which no longer
uses FBS. They are also correct that Memphis
Meat has claimed that they have developed one,
but they haven't actually produced the product
yet, so they don't have like, they haven't actually
grown it, but they think they might have a medium.
All the others do, for example, Finless Foods
recently reassured us that they had decreased
their use of FBS by 50%. Since they won't tell
us how much FPS they used to use, they won't
tell us how much FPS they currently use, and
they won't tell us even what their new growth
medium is, it's hard to be reassured. There are
two other deeper points I'd make quickly. As
vegans, we don't believe that it is okay to use
animals and torture them and experiment them,
even if there's a claim that it's going to help
animals later. You heard the earlier talk. All
animal experimentation makes this claim. If you
go to any of the websites today, just look what's
on the website. It says we're experimenting to
help animals. So I don't think it's acceptable
to be using FBS, even if the claim is later on,
it might help animals. Who knows? We can't predict
the future. I can tell you today those fetuses
are being taken out and hurt. The second thing
I would say, and this goes to how we can't predict
the future, Look, I kind of like and trust the
people in charge of Just. I kind of like and
trust the people in charge of Memphis. But Tyson
just invested in Memphis to an undisclosed amount
of money. I don't like or trust Tyson. If FPS
works, and Tyson has a virtually unlimited amount
of FPS, once they own the startup, what's to
stop them from using it even if a different plant
-based alternative is there? There's a plant
-based alternative to the meat already. So why
wouldn't they just recycle their own cow blood,
their own FBS? And then as activist, I already
have the problem of trying to explain, here's
a factory farm, what about humane meat? Here's
humane meat. What's what's really going on? Now
my burden in addition to that is to be like,
well, there's clean meat. Well, this is the vegan
clean meat, and this is the FBS being leaked.
What's FBS? Final point. Why are you only hearing
about FBS? Now. From me. Okay. So I feel like
this is just so riveting and everyone is wanting
more and feeling they want more. Yeah. So what
I'm going to propose is that we maybe don't have
the 10 minute break between... If that's okay,
and it's got to go and go to the bathroom and
get whatever do whatever you need to do But maybe
not having the 10 -minute break and being able
to take this into that 10 -minute break And then
we'll just go right in to the larger question
and answer and bring the other speakers on would
that be Acceptable we continue this I feel like
people are wanting that okay, and I just We we
will we will have to break momentarily to bring
the other speakers up yes, give me a minute Okay.
All right. Yes. Well, I'm going to ask my question,
I think. Okay? And I have a lot of questions,
but I think this one is the one for me that is
really, really important. And the thing that
I keep coming back to with all this, the thing
that is my biggest concern, I would say, and
that is that basically this technology Could
could potentially just you know it certainly
continues the commodification of farmed animals
Okay, and you can okay, so does it let me rephrase
my I'll ask the question Does it continue the
commodification of farmed animals? the concern
that You know is this going to hinder the concept
of animal liberation creating a status? You know,
the status that animals have a fundamental right
to live free of human commodification and exploitation,
i .e. animal rights. Does this reinforce the
fundamental paradigms of oppression and domination
that animals are just here for our use? It's
still meat. So will this help to dismantle speciesism?
That's the part that I keep coming back to. And
if we don't establish these concepts, is there
potential for exploitation in the future? And
I'll just conclude with a quote. I wrote, I read,
I didn't write it, I wrote, I read, sorry. Geez.
I read a really wonderful book recently called
The End to Animal Farming by J .C. Reese. And
J .C. is, yeah, it's a great book. And he is
very pro -cell -based meat. and has an entire
chapter promoting cell -based meat, getting excited
about cell -based meat. But at the end of this
chapter, he had this quote. If society does end
animal farming with technology for the sake of
efficiency alone, but fails to develop compassion
for farmed animals and other sentient beings,
then our descendants might inflict similar abuses
in the future comparable to factory farming.
Such tragedies could be even greater in scale
as future humans will likely have greater technological
capacity. So I think what I'm talking about is
that we need to have an underlying end of speciesism
Not just another meat product Okay, so yeah and
I You guys have been though. I think I'm gonna
let this side start and then you can respond
how much time oh I don't know how about four
minutes. Okay. Thank you So Leah you said we're
not here debating capitalism, and I disagree
I mean the whole thing everything is going on
within the matrix of capitalism the same people
who brought us colonialism slavery to great world
wars and as I said the destruction of all animals
on earth and also by the way factory farming
and etc etc That's the context and so yes of
course. This is going to preserve the commodification
of animals now Yeah, I can't say anything about
the character of the person who's running Just
Foods. Let's say he's a great guy. Well, I don't
know who started Field Rose, but weren't they
great people? And what about Ben and Jerry's?
Well, they're taken over by Unilever. That's
the problem with the capitalist system. You have
to look at this as a structural organism. So
I don't buy Ben and Jerry's vegan ice cream because
I'm then supporting their exploitation of cows.
All that money goes into one coffer. And has
the alternative, has the growth of the vegan
ice cream at Ben and Jerry's hurt their dairy
Ben and Jerry's? No, it's just absurd. And so
I don't think we're picking nits here. I think
these are very profound economic, social, political
issues that are at stake. And again, so I agree
with, or not to agree with you, but I. I think
the answer to your question is yes, that the
commodification of animals will continue and
this doesn't touch speciesism. Now, if it was
the case that the people running the show were
going around showing people what animal suffering
is like, explaining what speciesism is, explaining
how it ties into aquaria and zoos and laboratory
experimentation and structural violence against
animals in the transportation industry, the destruction
of all ecosystems, all the freshwater systems
just being destroyed. You know what I'm saying?
If the public was being educated, their consciousness
was being raised about what speciesism is as
a mode of production of human life, then I could
perhaps get on board with this. But that's not
how the messaging is going. to work. And you
can bet that Cargill and all these other companies
who end up buying out just in five years when
they have their IPO. And you bet. When I said
it's not going to work, it is going to work probably
as a technical matter, but it's not going to
work in terms of replacing animals. That's my
concern. So you can bet that when Cargill takes
over Just in a few years, they'll sell it on
the sustainability grounds, whether it's sustainable
or not, just as they now claim. Smithfield claims
to be the leader in animal care. Did you know
that? Smithfield claims to be the leader in animal
care. And you find these same claims by Tyson
and Perdue and all of them. That's capitalism.
So it just seems to me it just seems to me that
that I don't think we're just being like angry,
you know cranks to say look whoa Look at the
history of this process and look at how the stuff
is being marketed now It's a real problem. And
and again, it's just gonna we have is Vasili
said we have so many fantastic delicious sustainable
Alternatives to animal products. We don't need
synthetic meat and why don't you get Bill Gates
to just promote veganism, for God's sakes, right?
Okay, sure. My turn? Yes. How long do I have?
Three minutes. I get less than him? Four minutes.
There's just so little time. It's alright, it's
been happening. Just on the commodification point,
I think everybody knows that Mercy for Animals
doesn't actually work on cell -based meat. We're
not out there as entrepreneurs trying to create
it. We're an animal rights organization, and
we are out there protesting in front of McDonald's,
and we're doing undercover investigations. To
be really clear, we're not saying stop doing
those things. We're not saying stop being activists
and arguing. to take apart and look at this speciesism
issue. And these companies are not being, these
are not just coming out of nowhere. Nothing exists
in a vacuum. These technologies are not existing
or being created in a vacuum. They're being created
because of pressure. Pressure that activists
are creating, pressure the environment is creating,
pressure human population is creating, and we're
gonna keep doing that. I think that it's, It's
fundamentally important that we don't throw out
any possible solution right now when especially
when as Bruce said the first company was created
in 2015 It's really soon. It's really early and
Just keep in mind what I said before There's
only five to six percent vegetarians right now
in the United States and hasn't changed for 20
years and every day more animals are being killed
so you know I we have to be careful as people
who care so much about this, that we just, we
don't live in our bubble, and we don't continue
to just think, we're just gonna be, stand on
our principles, and we're just gonna be angry
about this, just think if you were in the room
with Tyson, and you had the chance to talk to
them, and this was your one shot, really, put
yourself in their shoes, and what would convince
Tyson executives to change? Just think about
that. Right and Right now it's not working what
we've been doing and we've got to invite other
opportunities We've really got to try to invite
other opportunities so yes They're investing
in plant -based, and that's great, and we're
doing that too, but why would we throw out this
option as well? And I think that I'll just close
by saying it's not about do we like it, but does
it work? What will work what will stop animals
from being slaughtered and that's what we have
to remember Do you want to continue? Because
there's still four minute. I mean, you've got
some time. One minute and a little. I mean, I
really do think, I mean, obviously all of us
resonate not with the phrase not clean meat,
but no meat. Obviously all of us would like to
see Bill Gates go vegan as a solution. A lot
of people in this room would probably like to
see capitalism fall. But if if what we have to
do is convince Bill Gates to go vegan and capitalism
to fall in Order to be successful. I mean, I
guess you know sort of like what Leah just said
framed a slightly different way Why can't we
create clean meat and do whatever work we want
to do to convince Bill Gates to go vegan? And
to work against capitalism if this is successful
and John just said he thinks it'll be technically
successful Because it's so much more efficient
than the current method of making meat, it will
be extremely profitable. And it will take us
from nine billion animals per year, just land
animals per year in the United States, to very
close to zero. It'll take us from tens of billions
to very close to zero animals exploited because
all of the profit motive goes in this direction.
So I haven't heard anything from the other side.
I mean, I haven't heard them attempt to argue
that what we're doing now is working. Like we
need to crush capitalism and we need to convince
Bill Gates to go vegan. Both of those things
seem unlikely to me, but you can work for both
of those things while you also try to convince
Tyson and Cargill and the entire meat industry
to put its business acumen in this direction
instead of the other direction. On the precise
question that you asked, Tobias Leinhardt wrote
a book called How to Create a Vegan World. It's
a really good book. And in his book, How to Create
a Vegan World, one of the things he points out
is that it really is. I mean, if you look at
the faunalytics study, it's not 6 % vegetarian
in the US, it's 2 % vegetarian. It's probably
about a half a percent vegan in the United States.
And one of the things that he says is inhibiting
animal liberation is the fact that 98 % or 94
% or 96 % of people, when they sit down to eat,
they're literally dining on the corpses of tortured
animals. which makes the cognitive dissonance
over the moon. If we can remove the idea that
meat comes from an animal, if we can grow meat
directly from cells, much like insulin no longer
comes from animals, if we can do that, we can
open people up to the idea of animals as individuals.
They all feel pain in the same way and to the
same degree that we do. They're all made of flesh
and blood and bone, just like we are. The argument
is overwhelming for animal liberation, but because
people eat the tortured corpses of animals, a
lot of people aren't able to hear it. This is
the solution to that as well too. This gets us
closer to animal liberation. All right. Okay.
So if we do want to do five minute closing statements
per speaker, we'd need to start that now. Is
that what we want to do? How do your side feel?
okay well I okay I want we're gonna open up to
the to the audience questions when we bring the
other speakers on this was gonna be for I've
done a great deal of research on this and I was
I do I I did and I mean it's you know And it's
interesting because I got all of everyone's questions
that were written down. That's why I had people
write the questions. And almost every single
thing that people said, I had in my questions.
So I was going to get to everybody's stuff. But
anyway, let's go with one more question then.
And then maybe we'll see where we are. And John
can give a closing statement, but I feel that.
You guys should as well be able to if you want.
Anyway, we'll see what happens. Okay. Another
question that I had is, I could really see the
meat advertisers really just having a field day
with this, a backlash like, well, this is real
meat, the actual slaughtered animals. Because
right now, the tendency in the trend in food
production and food marketing is natural, is
know your farmer and farmers markets and non
-GMO and even Triscuit has the non -GMO commercials.
So that's very much what the trend is in branding
of food right now is natural. So I feel like
there's a possibility. Is there the possibility,
let me rephrase that, is there the possibility
that the meat industry could say, well, but this
is real meat. We slaughtered it. It's real meat.
And that could actually increase possibly. Could
it increase meat consumption? Because people
want the real thing. People I mean it really
is the case if you read the literature people
make their dining decisions on the basis of price
taste and convenience like everybody does This
is going to be less expensive. It's not going
to have the foodborne pathogens. It's not going
to have the drug residues And it's not going
to involve animal slaughter I mean 47 % of people
want to ban animal slaughter like people are
not eating meat because it's slaughtered when
you have a safer product that costs less I mean
it you know I think it's not inconceivable, but
it strikes me as horribly unlikely In vitro meat
absolutely will not prevent the CAFO system.
I spend most of my time Yeah Sorry, I will not
prevent the confined animal feeding operations
will not eat in the factory farm system So you
talked about not being in the vegan bubble. I
absolutely agree I spend most of my time in research,
not reading vegan blogs, but reading the write
-ups of the industry publications. You can register
for all of them. I think you should. Like Food
Link, you know, even going to the conferences.
There's one in Texas right now. And so the, what
you heard at the beginning is that the meat industry
is trying to stop it from being labeled as meat.
That isn't, well, that's half -flee correct.
So the people who produce the meat, We like to
think as vegans monolithically of the meat industry,
but there's two factors. So the people raising
the animals are like, hey, we want to not call
in vitro meat meat. But the people who process
the animals, Tyson, Cargill, Purdue, they definitely
want it to be labeled meat. And they're the ones
who are actively investing in the technology.
Now, as you can imagine, hey, Why are you investing
in something that's going to hurt our bottom
line is not an unasked question. My three points
of how the factory farm industry is going to
be helped from in vitro meat is not something
I came up with, but is in essence, in different
language, what they are telling their own suppliers.
And they are telling their own suppliers not
that we are disrupting the industry, but that
we are going to sell more meat than ever before.
What they are telling them is that we have this
huge demand. We can't meet all of the demand
globally because we're literally running out
of room. So we're going to keep the factory farms
and we're going to add in vitro meat. That's
not going to replace the factory farms. Remember
the earlier presentation that both of them did
about the growth? How is that getting rid of
factory farms? Can you think of one, take your
time, one industry that's gotten rid of itself?
So the second thing they're saying, That no one
has bothered to respond to is they respond to
it as a blended product That's their term not
my term a blended product There's something that
we call the Jensen paradox and what that means
is something you think will decrease supply or
demand actually increases it So let me give you
an example of the Jensen paradox in real life
Bottled water look at any bottle water product
and it will have some kind of label claiming
that it's like 50 % recycled or the one that
Coke uses, that they have plants blended in with
the plastic. The result of that has not been
to decrease the use of plastic or bottled water.
The result, because it's blended and can be marketed,
has been to increase the use of bottled water.
That's what's going to happen with in vitro meat.
when the companies that own it start blending
it together. 30 seconds. It's going to make your
activism, my activism that much harder. Okay.
So we have to wrap this up now. But hang on.
Rest assured. What I think I'm going to do now
is we're going to give five minutes for closing
statements and you can divide that any way you
want. Five minutes for closing statements. You
can divide that any way you want. And then we're
going to then bring a couple more chairs. We're
going to invite Renee, Joanne, and Karen up here.
And I'm going to run around there for an hour
and answer all your questions. And you are welcome
to continue asking about cell -based meat. And
in fact, I know that Joanne knows a great deal
about it. She is actually on the this side. And
Renee. as well supports cell -based meat. So
we'll put her over here. Maybe they have something
they'd like to say about it as well. So we could
continue this if we want, or we can go in a completely
different direction. But we're going to have
to wrap this part of it up. So five minutes over
here. I mean, I think probably Leah and I have
said most of what we want to say. I just want
to respond to the last point. And that is I read
all of the industry publications. They talk about
blended products. But when they're talking about
blended products, they're talking about plant
-based. with meat. I've certainly never seen
anybody talking about cell -based blend, I don't
think. And it really does defy capitalism. I
mean, if this works and you're producing the
exact same thing, and you can produce it in one
way that makes you more money, and another way
that makes you less money, why would you blend
those things together? You wouldn't. You would
go exclusively with the thing that makes you
more money. And that's cell -based meat. which
is the more efficient product, so it will be
the more profitable product, and it really will
be like insulin. I mean, I guess some people
still have landlines, but the vast majority of
communication is on cell phones and text message,
which are more efficient and didn't used to exist.
Some people may still have film -based cameras,
but the vast majority of photos are taken on
our cell phones because it's easier and it's
more efficient and it's just simpler. When we
shift from producing meat, in CAFOs to producing
meat in this other better way. The reason the
meat industry is investing is that it's going
to be more profitable and it will completely
replace the vast majority of animal product production,
just like 100 % of insulin is now synthetic.
Okay. Again, I think, like Bruce, I've said most
of what I want to say. I think my main... Thought
I want you to go away with is what works. What
will work. And that's what really matters. And
sometimes we have to put aside our comfort zone
for that. And that's a big theme for me, is us
moving into our discomfort zone. And I've had
to do that, where I've had to sit down with a
factory farmer and understand, how did he get
there? Why is he doing that? Or Renee. is a rancher
who used to slaughter animals and she had to
move into her discomfort zone, confront her husband.
We have to think about it from the other perspective
because in my view, it's not about winning over
them, it's about winning them over. How do we
win the world over? And we have to keep that
at the forefront of our minds because we're up
against it. We're up against 10 billion people
wanting more and more and more and more and more
and that has to be at the forefront of our mind
So I ask you to think about that. What will work
what will work? All right five minutes on the
other side Wow so We we have a lot to talk about
still right there. There's I do want to say one
thing which is there's a there's a flavor to
this of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory
To some extent which is to say I and I understand
that veganism is hardly taking off However, according
to the Good Food Institute itself Plant -based
alternatives alternatives to animal based foods
grew 17 % over the previous year Overall sales
of vegan items in the U .S. rose 20 % from 2017
to the middle of 2018. And although, yes, there's
a flaw in the study, between 2014 and 2017, the
number of U .S. consumers identifying as vegan
grew 600 % from 1 % to 6%. Now, whatever the
flaws are, you know, there's everything. Pretty
much everything that you folks have said about
shifting to an alternative to the system could
be applied to promoting, marketing plant -based
things. If you want to emphasize, as you have,
Bruce, price, taste, and convenience, you say
that's the reason why consumers buy things. Well,
there is a big assumption here that this new
technology, first of all, is going to be exactly
the same in taste, or better, or maybe it won't
be, whether the pricing is going to be the same.
But I would caution you all, look at what happened
to humane meat, right? This is basically a boutique
product that yuppies buy in the cities mostly.
It's been the most explosively profitable sector
of the meat industry, humane meat. It's just
gone through the roof. And has it improved the
welfare of animals? No. cut down on the number
of animals being killed? No. I just want to say
that we are not, this is not a contradiction
between the moral purists over here and the pragmatists
over there. We are arguing, at least I think
we're arguing, that it isn't going to work. It
isn't going to work for the reasons we've said,
that it's by strengthening meat, the idea of
meat is something we must always have, it is
going to keep this whole system going. And yes,
millions of people will buy these new products.
But the same people who you know own the the
animal Commodities living ones will continue
to do that too, and we aren't in charge of that
so basically we're going to have to entrust The
fate of the animals to this I want to read a
poem briefly by it's very short by Langston Hughes
It's called dreams because I think we can all
agree on this hold fast to dreams For if dreams
die life is a broken winged bird that cannot
fly Hold fast to dreams for when dreams go life
is a barren field frozen with snow When Bruce
was interviewed by Ezra Klein Ezra Klein the
interviewer said there's a tendency to make this
a moral crusade But increasingly it seems to
me that if there's going to be an answer to this
it'll be Technological and I think that sums
up what we're hearing here, and I I just don't
believe it And I think even if you find this
a very attractive glittering new thing, please
be very skeptical of how it's going to end up
and consider the fact that it isn't going to
be in our hands. It's going to be in the hands
of these incredibly powerful billion dollar corporations.
And so whether we end up with, because there's
been some equivocation here, zero. animals being
used or as Bruce just said, a substantially reduced
number of animals being used or maybe because
of Jensen's paradox, meat consumption with population
growth will go up and then the clean meat will
replace a certain percentage of the live animals
and maybe in 10 years we'll still have 50 billion
land animals being killed. It's just that there'll
be much more meat and people will also be eating
the so -called clean meat. One minute. Sorry.
Can I take up all your time? I'll be, I'll be,
I think I love what you said. I'll be very quick.
I want to leave you with one final simple truth.
We are not going to defeat speciesism with speciesism.
We are not going to convince people that animals
should not be treated like machines by trying
to align with their biases and try to make animals
more like machines. I can't think of a single
social justice movement that has ever worked
by abandoning its principles. And I don't think
we should start now. Thank you. Again, thank
you so much for caring, and I will see you next
Tuesday for a new episode.