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A review by mchester24
Clean Meat: How Growing Meat Without Animals Will Revolutionize Dinner and the World by Paul Shapiro
5.0
Scientists are much closer than you might think they are to creating actual meat products without having to raise and kill animals, thanks to developments in growing identical animal tissue in a process that's surprisingly similar to brewing beer. If that idea excites you as much as it does me, I'd recommend pickup up Clean Meat: How Growing Meat Without Animals Will Revolutionize Dinner and the World by Paul Shapiro.
In this thoroughly engrossing book, Shapiro travels to various labs working to create meat and other animal products (e.g., cowhide, eggs, and dairy) outside of a living animal. This dive into the culinary future of clean meat (one suggested name for such products, along with lab-grown meat and cultured meat-- each with their own pros and cons) captures the fervor of entrepreneurs working to be the first on the market and brings to life just how close consumers are to seeing such products in their local grocery store.
Earlier this year, I personally switched to a vegetarian diet, with the main reason for doing so being the benefits that plant-based diets offer in fighting climate change, promoting a more sustainable agricultural industry, and preserving the environment. Studies find that eating less meat is among the most impactful acts anyone can take towards reducing their personal carbon footprint.
I'd say such environmental considerations got me 75% of the way towards this decision, with the remaining 25% coming from the ethical issues with the factory farming industry. My wife, on the other hand, had committed to a vegetarian diet the year prior for primarily the latter moral reasons. Seeing how different motivations could lead people to the same endpoint reminded me of how multiple reasons could justify the push for a clean energy transition-- such as the morality of protecting the natural environment, the catastrophic consequences of climate change, the economic benefits of renewable energy, the national security benefits of relying less on foreign fossil fuels, and more. Such a parallel between the energy transition and the push for lower global meat consumption framed my mindset as I read Shapiro's book, and I quickly realized as I pored through it that many other parallels exist between these technological and cultural shifts. See my full review to read about those connections:
http://chesterenergyandpolicy.com/2018/11/13/clean-meat-how-lab-grown-meat-can-learn-from-the-renewable-energy-transition/
In this thoroughly engrossing book, Shapiro travels to various labs working to create meat and other animal products (e.g., cowhide, eggs, and dairy) outside of a living animal. This dive into the culinary future of clean meat (one suggested name for such products, along with lab-grown meat and cultured meat-- each with their own pros and cons) captures the fervor of entrepreneurs working to be the first on the market and brings to life just how close consumers are to seeing such products in their local grocery store.
Earlier this year, I personally switched to a vegetarian diet, with the main reason for doing so being the benefits that plant-based diets offer in fighting climate change, promoting a more sustainable agricultural industry, and preserving the environment. Studies find that eating less meat is among the most impactful acts anyone can take towards reducing their personal carbon footprint.
I'd say such environmental considerations got me 75% of the way towards this decision, with the remaining 25% coming from the ethical issues with the factory farming industry. My wife, on the other hand, had committed to a vegetarian diet the year prior for primarily the latter moral reasons. Seeing how different motivations could lead people to the same endpoint reminded me of how multiple reasons could justify the push for a clean energy transition-- such as the morality of protecting the natural environment, the catastrophic consequences of climate change, the economic benefits of renewable energy, the national security benefits of relying less on foreign fossil fuels, and more. Such a parallel between the energy transition and the push for lower global meat consumption framed my mindset as I read Shapiro's book, and I quickly realized as I pored through it that many other parallels exist between these technological and cultural shifts. See my full review to read about those connections:
http://chesterenergyandpolicy.com/2018/11/13/clean-meat-how-lab-grown-meat-can-learn-from-the-renewable-energy-transition/