Slashdot Mirror
Meat the Food of the Future
Hugh Pickens writes writes "BBC reports that rising food prices, the growing population, and environmental concerns are just a few issues that have food futurologists thinking about what we will eat in the future and how we will eat it. In the UK, meat prices are anticipated to have a huge impact on our diets as some in the food industry prognosticate meat prices could double in the next five to seven years, making meat a luxury item. 'In the West many of us have grown up with cheap, abundant meat,' says Morgaine Gaye. 'Rising prices mean we are now starting to see the return of meat as a luxury. As a result we are looking for new ways to fill the meat gap.' Insects will become a staple of our diet. They cost less to raise than cattle, consume less water and do not have much of a carbon footprint. Plus, there are an estimated 1,400 species that are edible to man. 'Things like crickets and grasshoppers will be ground down and used as an ingredient in things like burgers.' But insects will need an image overhaul if they are to become more palatable to the squeamish Europeans and North Americans, says Gaye. 'They will become popular when we get away from the word insects and use something like mini-livestock (PDF).' Another alternative would be lab grown meat as a recent study by Oxford University found growing meat in a lab rather than slaughtering animals would significantly reduce greenhouse gases, energy consumption and water use. Prof Mark Post, who led the Dutch team of scientists at Maastricht University that grew strips of muscle tissue using stem cells taken from cows, says he wants to make lab meat "indistinguishable" from the real stuff, but it could potentially look very different. Finally algae could provide a solution to some the world's most complex problems, including food shortages as some in the sustainable food industry predict algae farming could become the world's biggest cropping industry. Like insects, algae could be worked into our diet without us really knowing by using seaweed granules to replace salt in bread and processed foods. 'The great thing about seaweed is it grows at a phenomenal rate,' says Dr Craig Rose, executive director of the Seaweed Health Foundation. 'It's the fastest growing plant on earth.'"
Land Lobsters.(They're both arthropods) Then you can charge a premium for them.
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
No lab grown meat or bugs for me. I'll just stick with good ol' Soylent Green!
Under-abundance of meat
Over-abundance of humans
If you convert the over-abundance into the under-abundance, they balance themselves out.
Our population just topped 7 billion; if you ask me, there is already too much meat.
Why stop there? Why not use human muscular stem cells? Then it could be branded as Ambrosia Plus.
--
BMO
'Things like crickets and grasshoppers will be ground down and used as an ingredient in things like burgers.'
Um, yeah, you just go on thinking thats a "future tense" activity. Maybe not intentionally, maybe a lower percentage...
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
...because a bunch of foolish politicians decided making fuel from corn would be a good idea. Once that stops we'll go back to raising beef on non-tillable rangeland and pasture and finishing it with a small amount of inexpensive corn.
Soylent Green
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green
"Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself." Mark Twain
The EU has a deliberate policy of remaining self sufficient for food. Euro haters love to rage about the huge grain mountains and heavy farm animal subsidies, but the whole point of them is to make sure the EU will always have enough farming capacity to feed itself should the need arise.
We will never allow ourselves to get to the stage where we don't have enough meat. Yeah, India's population will keep on increasing, but it won't matter much to us. The population of Europe is stabilising and even falling in some places. The third world will carry on starving until they have enough education to limit the number of children they have, but the EU will just keep transferring money from the rich to subsidy for farm animal meat for the rest of us.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
So long as we in the US continue to subsidize corn and raise livestock on it, meat will remain in easy reach of residents of the united states. That's not even considering how an entire huge segment of the population would take the news that they can't do big barbecues anymore. I'm not saying this is a good thing, I'm saying this is what I anticipate will happen.
You should turn signatures off.
Hungry? Get some grub.
Anybody want a peanut?
So, interestingly enough... I caught an episode of Morgan Spurloch's new docu/experiment.
In the episode I saw 2 people leave, and one essentially go crazy from lack of protein. What happened first was the smallest thinnest woman probed to be the most incapable of dealing with the extreme lack of meat protein and fat. She voluntarily left when the "tribe" failed twice to kill an elk. Strangely enough the supposed semi-pro hunter of the group voluntarily left second. He couldn't deal with the frustration of failing to kill an elk with a spear and atlatl. Morgan kept trying to kill a muskrat, but also couldn't remain patient enough to land a killing blow.
The weirdest thing was how the sanity of the vegetarian played out. She consistently tried to brainwash the other tribe members by constantly complaining about animal meat. IIRC she successfully swayed the tiny girl that left to not eat any of the fish they caught because none of the other tribe members would remove the head... Yes. She refused dire nutrients because it had a face on it and the vegetarian brain-washed here into essentially starving until she volunteered to leave from lack of food and partial dehydration.
The next morning after the semi-pro hunter left, a few of the tribe members (including the woman that got her feet wet and complained about being cold while intentionally avoiding huddling around the campfire) set out early to stalk the elk herd. Back at camp, the vegetarian did literally nothing for the tribe; however she made herself a nice salad of grass and leaves... ROFL. The other members at camp started building a drying rack in the hopes the hunters brought back some meat to preserve.
The first atlatl strike missed the target and almost startled the herd into fleeing, however the second guy landed a beautiful shot to the neck of a large buck. They waited a few moments until it collapsed then went in for the kill. I was proud to see the woman (I think her name was Manu) make the kill shot by puncturing the elk's lung. All 4 members of the hunting party became extremely emotional about killing the large majestic mammal.
They performed a small ritual, thanking the animal for its sacrifice, then proceeded to draw and quarter it. They hauled over 200lbs of fresh elk meat back to camp for all of the tribe to share... except the vegetarian.
The vegetarian immediately began complaining that they had murdered an animal to consume. She began gagging in what I believe was an attempt at spreading a mass hysteric type social reflex (think of a yawn and how it seems to spread). Then came the complaints about how gross it was to butcher it in the field, and she wasn't going to eat any it because it was against her beliefs.
Here is where they pan to the actual scientists running the show. They began to discuss the ramifications of tribe members that refuse to contribute to the tribe, and how in ancient times there were rules to compensate for the lazy and belligerent. Next they began to discuss how if the "experiment" continued how she would rapidly become emaciated and essentially starve to death from lack of edible plant proteins in the wild.
So, the moral is that animals need to die for homo sapien sapiens to survive in our modern bodies as they evolved. Over the last 3 years I have been cutting out plant protein/sugar as my staple and replacing it with animal protein/fat. I feel 100x healthier and happier than I have in over a decade. As long as there are ungulates I will never return to plants as my staple diet. If that means poaching, so be it. Humans require animal protein/fat to be healthy. It's scientifically proven.
There already is more than enough food produced to make everyone on the planet fat. The problems are distribution and cost.
Is the BBC turning into The Onion? Or is the author just plain daft to start with?
Substituting the words "mini-livestock" in place of "dead insects"? What the fuck are these Brits smoking?
I know crushed-up insects may pass for a semi-decent gourmet meal by British culinary standards, but here in America I'll stick to my 97% lean ground beef and REAL pork chops, thanks.
Meat is easy.
If you dump animal proteins then you actually have to know what you are doing. Otherwise you can do permanent damage to yourselves. If you're going to be a vegetarian then you need the tribal knowledge to back it up and most Westerners simply don't have that.
Also, if we let all of corn fields go fallow, the cows could live off of that. We can't. That's an important detail that's missed here.
Cattle used to be semi-wild animals that just wandered around and mostly fended for themslves. It's the same for grazing animals in general.
A lot of effort and fossil fuel goes into turning grasslands into something that a human might be able to eat. Even if we repurpose the American midwest to direct human feed crops, a lot of high tech effort has to go into it.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
"The human body does not require meat."
Yes it does. At most I could accept that due to our technology we can (hardly) substitute meat with something else.
"For example, we could just be eating more carrots."
If you thing you can exchange the protein needs of a growing human being out of carrots, you are beyond salvation.
"If less meat gets consumed, there will be more food available to humans overall"
Fat American standard is not "humans overall". About 90% of human population eats meat in quite a reasonable proportion.
Companies hire ethicists when they want to do something unethical, and people call in futurists, to come up with ideas that have no future.
Fugue for Aaron Swartz
We will find a way to continue to produce food efficiently, mostly for the reason that it is very profitable to do so.
I've always wondered why we use cows to generate milk. Given that most of milk is relatively simple (water, sugars, chalk, oil), why can't we have bioreactor into which we put grass-clippings, and get out something roughly similar to milk?
The need for adding protein, and some kinds of vitamins might be moderately tricky, but I should think that this wouldn't matter for many applications. The only thing that would require the full complexity of real milk would be in making (good quality) cheese. This would also appeal to vegans, some vegetarians, and many people with lactose intolerance.
A delicacy among Oaxacans:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapulines
Though I would note the following:
If your children ever found out how lame you are, they'd murder you in your sleep
There is no global overpopulation. Some places (such as Japan) are already experiencing population aging and decline, which is bad in many ways. Other places (such as the USA and specially Europe) already have sub-replacement fertility rates, and their population only grows because of demographic lag and immigration. It is predicted the the European Union population (now at 503M) will reach zero natural population increase by 2015 and zero total population increase in 2035 (at 520M), then start declining.
The USA will grow from 310M in 2010 to 403M in 2050. [1]
Asia will increase from 4.2B in 2010 to 5.1B in 2050, then start declining. [2]
The only region that is really growing is Africa. It will increase from 1B in 2010 to 2.2B in 2050. [2] Then its population density will be 73/km2. [3] Compare that to the current population density in Portugal (115/km2), in South Korea (487/km2) and in Taiwan (641/km2). [4]
Global population is predicted to grow from 7B in 2011 to 9B in 2050 and 10B in 2100 [5] and start falling soon after [6].
And according to [7], 40-50% of America-produced food is thrown away. According to [8], 1/3 of the world food is thrown away.
And this does not take into account that people eat, just for pleasure, excessive quantities of resource-intensive food (such as meat). If Americans/Europeans want to help the poor, an easy way would be to decrease (say, by 30%) their diet of meat. This will immediately reduce food demand and, for double bonus, the saved money can be donated to charity. And much arable land is wasted on subsidized inefficient corn-based ethanol. You can lobby your government to stop that.
Plus, there does not seem to be a negative correlation between population density and GDP per capita. [9]
African hunger is not caused by overpopulation. It is caused by corrupt and authoritarian governments, and by guerrillas/terrorists motivated by Marxism, theocractic Islamism, ethnic hate or simply greed.
Overpopulation fear-mongering is very old - at least as old as Malthus. One of its more recent incarnations was the 1968 book "The Population Bomb", which predicted mass starvation to occur in the 1970s.
Anyway, for better or for worse, there is already strong action taken by individuals, foundations, and Western governments, to restrict fertility in Africa.
1 : http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Analytical-Figures/htm/fig_11.htm
2 : http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Analytical-Figures/htm/fig_2.htm
3 : According to [2], Africa will have 2.2B people in 2050, and according to Google[10] and Wikipedia [11], the area of Africa is 30,221,532 km2
4 : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_population_density
5 : http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Analytical-Figures/htm/fig_1.htm
6 : http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Analytical-Figures/htm/fig_6.htm
7 : http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/news/ng.asp?id=56376-us-wastes-half
8 : http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/74192/icode/
9 : http://sanamagan.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/population-population-density-gdp-per-capita-ppp/
10 : https://www.google.com.br/search?q=africa+area
11 :
Thing that concerns me would be allergies.
Far fewer people are allergic to fish, chicken, beef than they are to shrimp, crab, lobsters. Or even dust mites. So I wouldn't be surprised if many are also allergic to these "popular" arthropods.
http://www.hollowtop.com/finl_html/allergies.htm
That said, my parents raise grass-fed cattle so I could get beef for cheap if I cared to.
So what? That doesn't (and couldn't) apply to most people on the planet, so adds nothing to the discussion beyond "Cool story, bro" pointlessness.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Land Lobsters.(They're both arthropods) Then you can charge a premium for them.
I think that would complete the circle. Lobsters used to be called the cockroaches of the sea. They were considered just barely good enough to give to your slaves.
IIRC ...
There were actually laws in the Massachusetts Bay colony limiting how often you could feed your servants lobster. Are they still on the books?
Lobsters were heavily harvested but were often used as fertilizer for the fields.
At some point someone applied butter heavily, served it to the queen, she said she liked it and things changed virtually overnight. The trash food of the lowest "class" became gourmet.
This still happens today. My grandfather grew up in Italy poor and hungry. He laughs a little when looking at the menu in Italian restaurants in the U.S. today. Some of the featured and expensive dishes offered are quite literally the meals he was mocked for eating as a child by the kids from wealthier families.
Yet, veggie meals are more environmental friendly, more healthy, easier to digest, cheaper, more energy efficient.
Veggies may be more efficient to grow but they are less efficient as fuel for the human body and mind. It was meat that enabled our brains to grow and to become the species we are today.
Eating habits need to change but lets not pretend that meat is not a very important food source for our species.
Been there. Done that. Luckily the damage wasn't permanent.
The simple fact of the matter is that WE ARE NOT HERBIVORES. We simply don't have the enzymes for it. This is why cows and sheep can survive on stuff we can't.
Mass starvation has occured with people trying to eat like herbivores and dying anyways.
You don't need a "special diet", but you need to exploit a regional food culture that accounts for the lack of meat. Vegans that try to claim otherwise are going to hurt people and their own "cause".
The fact is that it does take some work. This turns off lazy people. So people with an agenda try to deny the facts.
Animal protein is an easy shortcut.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
What is this meat gap?
The human body does not require meat.
It doesn't need vegetables either. Inuits are remarkably healthy - more so than your typical pasty health food fanatic.
And the human body sure as hell doesn't need the poisonous crops like soya, which can't even be safely eaten unless cooked or chemically processed to break down the serpins.
Suckling long pig seems to me to be a near ideal food source, but too expensive. I think we need more rapid gestation research to provide cheap, nutritional meats.
The vegetarian/vegan forums are all full of people who go on a fad vegan diet and end up not feeling well or having other issues because they did not adjust their diet properly
I have a vegetarian friend who goes that path for health reasons, not religion, politics nor philosophy. Once every month or two he "surprises" us (coworkers) by eating meat at lunch. He explained that when he feels his body is a little off he understands that there may be a nutritional imbalance. He understands that a meat free lifestyle is not natural for our species, its not the environment we evolved in. So he does the practical and natural thing. On extremely rare occasions he may try a meat dish out of curiosity. For example when working in the US Gulf Coast region he tried alligator with the rest of us.
Another friend is purely vegetarian. However he comes from a society that has a long history of vegetarianism and as another poster mentioned, such "tribal wisdom" is of great benefit when planning/implementing a vegetarian diet. This friend is strong and healthy, healthy as in he is a marathon runner.
Careful and well informed planning seems to be absolutely necessary for a purely vegetarian lifestyle.
Non-militant vegetarians that I know say otherwise. They occasionally eat meat when their bodies feel a little "off", they expect a nutritional imbalance. A steak every month or two gets them feeling "right". As others have pointed out a vegetarian lifestyle requires a very carefully researched and planned diet. This is because it is not the lifestyle we evolved under.
It's not bullshit. If you ate nothing but salad every day, you're not going to get the same nutrition that you would from eating a lot of meats.
False dichotomy. If you ate nothing but steak every day then you'd also be dead in short order. If you eat a moderately balanced diet then you'll be fine. For a vegetarian, the big issue is making sure that you get the full set of amino acids. If you eat cheese, that's done. If you're a vegan it's a bit harder, but eating both rice and lentils will give you them all, as will several other well-known pairs. You have to have a pretty monotonous diet as a vegetarian to avoid getting all of the nutrients that you need.
Mind you, the same is true for omnivores, and in the USA a lot of them seem to manage to suffer from malnutrition (and obesity at the same time), so perhaps it is too much to expect...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Some time around 1998, why do you ask?
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
it's mostly the gov't that allows you to have meat, specifically farm subsidies that a) make grain cheaper than the market would normally allow and b) stabilize the market so that people don't just grow one really profitable crop and fsck up the soil. You owe most of your stable food supply to the government programs. This isn't to say a sufficiently corrupt gov't can't screw it up, but it usually takes a dictatorship (e.g. China), which at that point isn't so much government as it is everyone doing what a one mad man says because they're expecting the be the ones that profit by it. I think we're calling it Kleptocracy these days.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
That is my whole point! We shouldn't be looking to what is "natural" we should do what makes us happy. I am not saying you shouldn't eat meat if that is what you want, but don't tell people that it is necessary to be healthy then deride them for their personal choices.