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Tyson Foods CEO: The Future of Food Might Be Meatless

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Re: Tyson Foods CEO: The Future of Food Might Be Meatless

#141
post #120
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Animal agriculture seems to me like one of those things that in 50 to 100 years people will look back on with bewilderment. Really? It's not like we've been doing that for 5,000 years or something. But in 50 years they'll be like "What were you doing for the last 5,000 years?" Animal agriculture is not going to be one of those things. In fact I can guarantee you that even if we figure out a meat replacement people…

> As evidence look at how many people want to "go back to the farm", and raise their own animals. On the surface, why? It's harder and more expensive. Yet, people want that anyway. No one is "going back to the farm" to raise their own cattle, which they slaughter themselves, for a steak. It also doesn't scale to the "buy cheap steaks and grill a steak for lunch every day" level that some people do. Just the reduction…

"Do you think that the majority of people 100 years go could afford the variety and quantity of meats available to them today?"

If we go back to our origins the savannah was probably occasionally full of delicious four legged protein just waiting for us to run it down and eat it.

Re: Tyson Foods CEO: The Future of Food Might Be Meatless

#142
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough. It may be worth empathizing that animals probably don't enjoy being farmed and slaughtered by the billions

I doubt corn wants to be farmed and eaten either. Should we stop the use of antibiotics to preserve the lives of billions of bacteria? You see its not a matter of caring about life when you boil it down. The majority of vegans are pro choice for example. This is a matter of where you draw the line. You may move that line a little bit further down the food chain than I but all mammals must kill to survive.

Neither bacteria or corn are animals, and bacteria isn't even part of the Eukarya domain, it's something else entirely.

I was pretty specific about saying animals in my post. Why animals? Because we are known to mourn the death of other animals.

Re: Tyson Foods CEO: The Future of Food Might Be Meatless

#143

Animal agriculture seems to me like one of those things that in 50 to 100 years people will look back on with bewilderment. "You mean you birthed whole animals, let them grow for two years, fed them all the while, just to kill them, chop up their remains, and ship that to people?" Plant based protein and maybe even more so cultured/clean meat (e.g. http://www.memphismeats.com/ ) seem likely to totally replace how we…

This is the perfect example of Silicon Valley hubris: farming animals is bewildering and barbaric, so obviously this New Thing™ that didn't even exist two years ago will totally replace what humans have been doing for the past ten thousand years.

Re: Tyson Foods CEO: The Future of Food Might Be Meatless

#144
post #143

Animal agriculture seems to me like one of those things that in 50 to 100 years people will look back on with bewilderment. "You mean you birthed whole animals, let them grow for two years, fed them all the while, just to kill them, chop up their remains, and ship that to people?" Plant based protein and maybe even more so cultured/clean meat (e.g. http://www.memphismeats.com/ ) seem likely to totally replace how we…

This is the perfect example of Silicon Valley hubris: farming animals is bewildering and barbaric, so obviously this New Thing™ that didn't even exist two years ago will totally replace what humans have been doing for the past ten thousand years.

It's 2017, weren't we all supposed to be living on soylent by now?

Re: Tyson Foods CEO: The Future of Food Might Be Meatless

#145

I'm particularly interested in vat grown meat. As a consumer, I do care about the footprint of my meat based protein, although I don't want to give up eating meat. As a chef, if they can get marbling in, I'm excited for the different styles we could create. Note: a plant based reactor (sorry I couldn't remember the term, the seed for the meat to grow with), has been mentioned a few times as becoming close to ready, w…

Price competition from vat grown meat will crater public support government subsidies for farming and ranching. Much like solar etc tanks coal. Ranching, in particular, will become niche / artisan endeavors.

I don't see the problem with this, considering the methane output and grain requirements. (Note my family use to run a large cattle fa in Australia, I can see how this would effect them. )

Re: Tyson Foods CEO: The Future of Food Might Be Meatless

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not clear to me that humans are going to think of a more efficient way to turn energy and matter into food in the next century. We could potentially alter the animals into something that would be hard to recognize, but that'll be an evolution of animal husbandry, not something that will leave us bewildered at animals. What do you see that indicates we're going to make massive leaps beyond what animal life has al…

Animals are an extremely inefficient way of producing food: http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/1997/08/us-could-feed-80...

Did you read that article? Do you understand the context it's coming from? This article is a call to grass-feed cows, not stop having cows.

Humans can process grains just fine. Humans can't process grass, cows can. Cows have four stomachs. Do you? It's way more efficient (perhaps counter-intuitively) for livestock to eat the grass, then turn it into meat, then be killed and have us eat the meat, than it is for us to eat the grass directly. When you eat a salad, and you poop, you'll find a lot of the salad in your poop. That's because you don't have four stomachs. If you had four stomachs, you'd be better at eating grass.

Re: Tyson Foods CEO: The Future of Food Might Be Meatless

#147
post #63
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replicating the taste is the wrong way to go about it. Vegan food can taste just as good as meat and cheese, but it will never taste like meat and cheese because it's not meat and cheese.

Agreed. People should stop going for a veggie burger that tastes like a beef burger. Instead, compare a beef burger to completely different, high quality, vegan meal like a veggie green curry, tikka masala, or burrito.

(note: I'm a chef of a fine dining restaurant, so take this how you will).

Telling people to change won't work. But at the same time, people in my position(available to influence flavours of a region), should do our part in not restricting ourselves to animal products.

This I have seen happen over the past 10 years, the amount of reduced meat or no meat items on my menus has increased, as well as doing more to use sustainable products.

On a side note about these types of foods: don't look at the bottom of the restaurant chains to see the future trends. They will only cater to the safe bets(huge cheap steaks and battery style farming practices), due to their low margins.

It took me a long time to get to a position where - as the head chef - I could experiment with a large portion of my menu being more land friendly(which for me is reduced meat based portions, higher quality locally sourced ingredients and more renewable products).

Re: Tyson Foods CEO: The Future of Food Might Be Meatless

#148
post #136
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Something that's been done for 5,000 years doesn't get stopped that quickly. Doesn't this prove too much?[1] Plenty of things were common for millennia before they suddenly weren't. Eg: Monarchies, slavery, beasts of burden, and diseases such as smallpox. 1. https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/13/proving-too-much/

> they suddenly weren't. Eg: Monarchies, slavery, beasts of burden, and diseases such as smallpox. Except that every one of those things still exists! Smallpox doesn't exist, but other diseases such as syphilis do. So that actually demonstrates exactly the opposite of the point you were trying to make. Monarchies is an especially bad example because they still exist precisely because people are unwilling to stop a tr…

Slavery does exist but in 1st world countries people do look at it with bewilderment even though it is still around in some places.

Re: Tyson Foods CEO: The Future of Food Might Be Meatless

#149

There's of course the other "meat": insects. "Because they are cold-blooded, insects are very efficient at converting feed into protein (crickets, for example, need 12 times less feed than cattle, four times less feed than sheep, and half as much feed as pigs and broiler chickens to produce the same amount of protein)."[0] I'm plenty squeamish but might just be willing to try mealworm flour. Other ideas: http://news.…

I have tried Crickets and while insects are efficient to raise - their feet are like small toothpicks.

Re: Tyson Foods CEO: The Future of Food Might Be Meatless

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You mean you planted that whole acreage with seed, let them grow, watered and fertilized them all the while, just to cut them down, chop them up and ship that to people?"

This would work better if we didn't have to grow more plant material to feed the meat than just feeding ourselves directly.

That's a very American thing to grow crops and ship them off to other farmers to feed their animals.

Most meat animals (or at least goats, sheep, and cows) worldwide feed on whatever grows on the ground (whether that be turnips, grass, or something else).

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