Just a few data. According to the UN, livestock emits alone the 14.5% of GHGs and occupies the 30% of icefree landmass. Furthermore in order to produce a kilogram of beef it takes 10 of feed, the other components of the ordinary cattle follow with modesty, still accounting for less than what received.
Yet we all know population is going to hit, according to The Economist’s forecasts , 9 billions humans by 2050. What to carve out of this messy perspective? Economic opportunity according to some California- based visionnaires.
The Unbearable Light of Meat
If scrolled along sustainability guides and advices, it is clear, the interested reader will find at first eliminating meat as a necessary step. This is one of the reasons why in the United States 2% of the population is, according to the eminent The Economist, at least vegetarian or vegan. And more and more are required to respond the call if the world we want is a more populated and a sustainable and greener one. The issues is that not everyone is willing to separate eating into utility versus pleasure. And here comes the role of Startuppers: choosing will not be necessary in the near future.
Good…Ideas
Groceries by now already offer quite an amount of solutions for veggies to have a ready-to-go solution for hamburgers. Those, however, may meet the tastes and utility of part of that 2%, but for sure not the other 98% of general population. That is why the new start ups in the food industry aim at people who love meat and dairies by achieving to create plant-based products which taste even better than the item they want to emulate.
Impossible Foods has been working on plant imitations of cheese and meat for 4 years long, its team numbering biotech and physics experts. The biggest challenge is the one to recreate muscle and fat tissues typical of meat consistency; as a matter of fact they were able to isolate a heme protein from the roots of legumes , in order to recreate at least the meaty tastes.
Beyond Meat is already marketing its chicken strips and burgers, claiming that they have been often mistaken for its real alter egos.
The most revolutionary idea belongs, however to Soylent. Soylent is proposing actually a new no-lifestyle: on the occurrence, the powder sold is to be mixed in water. The outcoming beverage is the meal, providing all the nutrients needed and no recreational break.
Eat and meat
These ideas are probably not becoming the revolution they promise. A meat lover, after all, would have few reasons to abandon its custom on the basis of what is right; however these entrepreneurs do have quite a merit: the one to try to challenge a cultural barrier, which represents the real wall. Not only: science and intuition have already created cheap and nutrient solutions to fight the hunger in the world. And not only the future one.
