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We are on the cusp of a disruption in food and agricultural production

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Re: We are on the cusp of a disruption in food and agricultural production

#81

Post by pharrington »

thrower123 wrote: post #34
zaroth wrote: post #32

Looking around I see examples like this everwhere, where the science seems to be rapidly advancing new approaches and techniques which will feed, cloth, transport, teach, and entertain billions of people in ways that are more economical and ecological . Examples like these are why I'm convinced that environmental impact reduction and ultimately rejuvenation is possible without massively disrupting life as we know it.…

Life... finds a way. Someday, we'll hit a Malthusian bottleneck that we can't innovate our way out of, presumably. However, to date, every time disaster looms, something occurs that kicks the can down the road. It makes it very difficult to take seriously the endlessly repeatedly claims that the world as we know it is coming to an end in the short term - the result of such hysteria seems to be to induce a lot of self…

Addressing `marcus_holmes`'s initial prompt in the sibling comment - Malthus simply had no clue what he was talking about.

Re: We are on the cusp of a disruption in food and agricultural production

#82

Post by scotch_drinker »

I guess we'll never learn from things like margarine and other lab invented foods. Beyond Meat is heavily dependent on seed oils which are terrible for us (expeller pressed canola oil is ingredient #2). Red Meat actually isn't unhealthy at the levels most people currently eat it. While it wouldn't surprise me if more people ate Beyond meat and its ilk in the future, it doesn't make it better for us and will likely just make us sicker.

https://annals.org/aim/fullarticle/2752326/effect-lower-vers...

Re: We are on the cusp of a disruption in food and agricultural production

#83

Post by sten »

varjag wrote: post #66
worik wrote: post #30

Meh. The hippies were right. Eat food your grandmother would recognise. Eat it as unprocessed as practical. Eat a lot of it raw. But I bet where people have no choice (in prison, public hospitals, schools, on food stamps...) it will become compulsory.

My grandmother didn't live to 70.

Yes, but isn't it predicted that the average life expectancy of the current generation will be less than that of the prior generations?

Re: We are on the cusp of a disruption in food and agricultural production

#84

Post by mark_l_watson »

rcpt wrote: post #17
mark_l_watson wrote: post #2

While I think it is good to create inexpensive healthy high protein foods, I also think we should have a fair free market for people who want to continue buying real meat, organic foods, non GMO foods, cheap foods produced with GMO and petrochemicals. Free choice and a free market, with strict accurate labeling laws is what I want.

> fair free market If we had that there wouldn't be so much meat in the first place. Currently, each year, American taxpayers subsidize the animal food system to the tune of $38 billion.

Good point, and it is probably even more than $38B in subsidies.

Re: We are on the cusp of a disruption in food and agricultural production

#85

Post by alwayslearning0 »

mikro2nd wrote: post #75
hirundo wrote: post #12

> By 2030, the number of cows in the U.S. will have fallen by 50% and the cattle farming industry will be all but bankrupt. There's an impressive lack of humility here. Predictions are hard, particularly about the future. I challenge the authors to construct a longbets.org wager on the above. I wonder if spelling out verifiable details and putting a significant amount of cash on the line would soften their certainty…

I saw lots of talk about the meat industry, not a word about dairy. (Admittedly only read the executive summary.) I've seen quite a lot of this over the past year or two: Lots of "we're going to end cattle farming" when all they're really talking about is beef. Industrial dairy operations are horrible: carbon intensive, noisy smelly and cruel, but I don't see anyone claiming to have synthesized dairy replacements, an…

If anything, the large and fairly mature market of dairy replacement (soy almond milk etc) shows how crazy this article is on meat. I've been vegan myself, but to think just because the market now has an alternative to an animal product that everyone will stop using the animal product is crazy.

Re: We are on the cusp of a disruption in food and agricultural production

#86

Post by TeMPOraL »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #77
thrower123 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Life... finds a way. Someday, we'll hit a Malthusian bottleneck that we can't innovate our way out of, presumably. However, to date, every time disaster looms, something occurs that kicks the can down the road. It makes it very difficult to take seriously the endlessly repeatedly claims that the world as we know it is coming to an end in the short term - the result of such hysteria seems to be to induce a lot of self…

No idea why you're getting downvoted - this is perfectly true. I guess because people secretly long for the world to end. Rapture, Climate Change, nuclear armageddon, AIDS, Y2K, Peak Oil, take your pick. It's been a constant of life in Western civilisation for the last 50 years at least. There has never been a period in my life when there hasn't been some impending catastrophe that was going to destroy life as we kno…

Maybe it's the function of development levels we've reached? It's only in the last 60 years that we've reached a level at which we can cause a man-made Armageddon. In the "boy crying wolf" story, the wolf eventually came.

> Peak Oil, Climate Change

Makes more sense if you consider this (and other related scares) as symptoms of the same phenomenon, which shows no sign of stopping.

Let's talk about how we're going to innovate ourselves off the exponentially growing resources -> consumption -> trash pipeline we're running. I don't see much happening that would address it.

Re: We are on the cusp of a disruption in food and agricultural production

#87

Post by whamlastxmas »

scotch_drinker wrote: post #82

I guess we'll never learn from things like margarine and other lab invented foods. Beyond Meat is heavily dependent on seed oils which are terrible for us (expeller pressed canola oil is ingredient #2). Red Meat actually isn't unhealthy at the levels most people currently eat it. While it wouldn't surprise me if more people ate Beyond meat and its ilk in the future, it doesn't make it better for us and will likely ju…

Beyond Meat has never claimed to be a healthier alternative to meat and it's a bit of a straw man to comment like they did. I also don't see many margarine induced illnesses or deaths. Everything is fine in moderation.

Re: We are on the cusp of a disruption in food and agricultural production

#88

Post by randomdata »

carapace wrote: post #41
thetopher wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is where I stopped reading. How can somebody claim to be on the cusp of disrupting a market when they evidently don't understand the consumer? Nutritional equivalence will not bankrupt the cattle industry.

I'm too lazy at the moment to look up a link but fast food restaurants are already adopting these faux-beef burgers and people love them.

The thing is that the faux-beef burgers are good, but different. I don't see them as being a beef replacement as much as another choice of food available. Many fast food restaurants offer other options beyond beef, like chicken, pork, and fish burgers. People also love those options, but beef remains a viable industry regardless. The faux-meat industry has a lot of potential to be viable, but it is not clear why that it is at the cost of another industry. There is room for both.

Re: We are on the cusp of a disruption in food and agricultural production

#89

Post by TeMPOraL »

afarrell wrote: post #60
teumesios wrote: post #58

We already have the resources to feed the hungry. A third of all the food produced is thrown out. The problem is how we distribute it. Systemic change is the only thing that can address this problem in a meaningful way. Efficiency is great but producing more when we already have enough is completely missing the issue at hand.

Keep in mind: logistics and product-market fit are both hard problems.

Sometimes they sound like smart words used to deflect people from the issue that some products and services shouldn't be on the market if they waste so much of their inputs. There needs to be extra pressure applied to reduction of waste all across the supply chain.

Re: We are on the cusp of a disruption in food and agricultural production

#90

Post by mrfusion »

scotch_drinker wrote: post #82

I guess we'll never learn from things like margarine and other lab invented foods. Beyond Meat is heavily dependent on seed oils which are terrible for us (expeller pressed canola oil is ingredient #2). Red Meat actually isn't unhealthy at the levels most people currently eat it. While it wouldn't surprise me if more people ate Beyond meat and its ilk in the future, it doesn't make it better for us and will likely ju…

What’s wrong with oils though? And if canola is bad why can’t they switch it out for olive oil?
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