Latest / INSPIRE STORY / #041_ What Is Clean Meat_ On The Future of Food

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#041_ What Is Clean Meat_ On The Future of Food · INSPIRE STORY

• 0:11
  Speaker 1: What's up, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the podcast,
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: The show where I go deep and long form with
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: some of the most interesting and compelling thought leaders across
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: all categories of health, wellness, diet, nutrition, entrepreneurship, spirituality. Got
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: a great episode for you guys today, my friend Paul
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Shapiro joins the podcast. Paul is the vice president of
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Policy Engagement for the Humane Society of the US. He's
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: also the founder of Compassion Over Killing and a member
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: of the Animal Rights Hall of Fame. Paul is also
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: the author of a brand new book, his first book.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: It's an amazing read. It's called Clean Meat. It's a
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Washington Post bestseller, and it is a look behind the
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: scenes at this crazy wild ride to create and ultimately
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: commercialize sustainable, real meat without the animals, so called lap
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: grown meat, which is essentially animal cells that are grown
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: or brewed to create not only food products, but commercial
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: products as well. It's an amazing story. This is a
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: fantastic conversation. Like I said, Paul and I go way back.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: We're good friends, and I think you guys are going
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: to really enjoy this discourse on the future of food.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: So without further ado, please enjoy my conversation with Paul
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Shapiro peace plants, because I know you're like, you're kind
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: of an astronomy star. Trek nerd also like that's a part.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: And there was also that kind of kerfuffle that occurred
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: when Neil deGrasse Tyson tweeted something about cows and Moby
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: reacted and it became a whole controversy that you then
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: wrote a Huffington Post article about. So tell me about that.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: I'm a big fan of Neil. I follow him, I
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: read his books, listen to his podcast. In twenty fifteen,
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: I noticed he kept talking about animals, not in the
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: sense of animals like that they ought to be protected.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: He just kept on having things about animals, like he
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: would say, Oh, I sometimes wonder when the cows look
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: at the moon what they think. I'm like, oh, that's interesting,
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: he's thinking about cow. So I emailed him and I
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: was like, dude, you totally I'll do a show about animals.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: I'd love to come on and talk with you about it.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: And to my great pleasure, he mo on me back
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: and said, when are you going to be in New
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: York next? I was like, it was like four hours
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: from now whatever is good for you man.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: So I went up there.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is back in twenty fifteen, and I did
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: an episode with him and it went very well.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: And then they asked me.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: They were like, hey, if you're going to be in
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: New York again a second day, because we would like
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: to do another taping with you. I said, yeah, of course,
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: I'll be in New York another day, which, calling the
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: boss up, I'm like, yeah, I gotta change my ticket.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: So I did too. Only one of them ended up airing,
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: but it was still fun to do. And so when
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: I maintained communication with him, and when the whole thing
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: blew up with Mobi where Mobi had caught him a
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: SYSI a path for this tweet that he issues, right,
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: we'll explain the tweet. Yeah, maybe was responding to Neil's
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: tweet in which he said that a cow is a
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: biological machine invented by humans to convert grass into meat.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: And you know, in Neil's mind, biological machine doesn't mean insentient,
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: it doesn't mean they don't feel pain. He views us
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: as biological machines too.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: It's more about our relationship as humans to that animal.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that you're right, Mobi. You know I
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: took it in a different way. Yeah, And I talked
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: with Mobe about it, and he, to his great credit,
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: apologized and thought he went overboard in his criticism. And
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: I wrote a piece for helping impost about it in
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: which I said, you know, look, humans invented cows in
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: the ways that we invented dogs. They didn't exist in nature,
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  Speaker 2: and we domesticated animals in this case the aroc which
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: is the animal now extinct because we exterminated them, but
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: that's the animal from and we descended.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: The product I say animal, Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: And we amended them in that sense that we domesticated
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: them and created a new species of animal like dogs
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: are to wolves. But we didn't cause them to turn
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  Speaker 2: grass into meat. That's what all ruminance do. Giraffes, cows, deer,
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  Speaker 2: you know, that's just the nature of what they do.
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  Speaker 2: And so I thought, I thought that was a little
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: bit off the wall to suggest that. Neil's response to
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: that was well, we got them to do it more efficiently.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: I was like, well, that may be true, but that
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: doesn't mean we invented them to do that. So anyway,
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  Speaker 2: it was an interesting argument. And Neil himself only eats
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: meat he says about two times per week, so nineteen
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: out of twenty one meals according to him or vegetarian,
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: which is pretty good. If everybody do that, I might
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: go find something else to do with my life.
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  Speaker 1: So when you were with him most recently to do
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: the show again, did you guys hash this out or
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: what was the subject of that conversation.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so he was interviewing me about the book Clean Meat,
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: but he also wanted to talk about that too, so
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: we went into it. And you know, I defend Neil
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: in the sense that I don't think his intent was
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: to suggest that cows are just machines. That's clearly not
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: what is in his head. In fact, he has done
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: videos for animal protection groups in the past talking about
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: the intelligence of animals and how often we underestimate the
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: mental lives of other animals. In the same way that
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: you know, we used to think that the Earth was flat,
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: or that the Earth was the center of the universe,
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: we're now starting to realize that well, even if the
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: Earth isn't the center of the physical universe, we still
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: really believe that humanity is the center of the moral universe,
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: and that notion is being challenged by people including Neil.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: Interesting, that's cool. Well we are here to talk about
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  Speaker 1: clean me. It's funny like when we were going back
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: and forth to like schedule the podcast, I was like, well,
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: shod me the book, you know, and You're like, well
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: digital or printed? And I was like, print it is
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: better because it'll sit on my desk, I'll see it.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: It will remind you that I need to read it.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: And you know what comes in the man? Yeah, like
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: you literally printed it out of your printer. I thought
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: you were going to send me like a galley and
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh man, then I felt bad.
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: I didn't mind it at all, but I just didn't
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: have any gays of the time, and I would love
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: to get you what you need.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: Man, right, Well, it's cool. Well, yeah I got here
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: right away. The book is amazing. We're going to dig
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: into it. But before we do that, perhaps we can
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: kind of contextualize this a little bit by speaking to
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: your background. So why didn't you talk a little bit
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: about HSUS, how you got there, what you do for them,
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: and kind of what led you to get interested in
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: this clean meat movement and write this book.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: Sure, I'm going to put it in a small nutshell
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: to avoid boring you with the whole biography, which I
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: know that you are already familiar with since we go back.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: But for see, we went to the same well, you
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: mainly went to Georgetown day, right, but you were at
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: Landon for a minute.
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  Speaker 2: I was there for grades three through six, so Landon
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: is where Rich went to school as well. And I
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: had a little bit of like a trigger moment when
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: I was reading finding all because when you were writing
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: about the painted white rocks that you know, you're driving
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: up that driveway to the school. He says, painted white rocks,
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: and you and I had similar experiences there, meaning not
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: the best, and to read about Landon and the tough
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: time that you had there and then just something about.
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  Speaker 1: This rocks, like oh yeah, God, I.
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: Don't want to go back there.
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  Speaker 1: I've never heard of it of those rocks being described
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: as triggers, but that's kind of what it is. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it's definitely a semi traumatic experience for me. You got out.
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  Speaker 2: Before high school. I knew, I knew by sixth grade.
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  Speaker 1: It wasn't for me.
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  Speaker 2: It was just very counter to my personality. And you know,
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: there's some people who really are into it, but I
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: was not one.
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  Speaker 1: Of them. Yeah. So wait, so if you were there
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: from third to six, we might have been there at
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: the same time you graduated eighty five.
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  Speaker 2: No, quite a bit younger. No, sadly we were not. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: I don't want to do the math for you, but yeah, I'm.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: Way older than you than I would like to believe anyway.
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  Speaker 2: So all right, so here here's the thing that's cool though.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: I just had Nathan Runkle on the show and he
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: was talking about how, you know, he got interested in
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: in animal rights very young and started Mercy for Animals
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: when he was like fifteen or something like that, and
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: you have a very similar story.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, And Nathan and I kind of led parallel lives
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: in that sense.
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  Speaker 1: And so.
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  Speaker 2: When I was thirteen years old, a friend of mine
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  Speaker 2: showed me this video of what happens to animals and
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: factory farms and in slaughter plants. And he wasn't showing
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: it to me like as a form of outreach. I mean,
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: you remember Faces of Death, Remember that video? Was like, yeah,
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: you never get passed around. Yeah, it was like the
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: cool thing to watch watch people and animals dying, right,
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  Speaker 2: And it wasn't like this was horrific. This was like
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: some cool thing that boys watch. And that's when my
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: friend showed He's like, dude, you got to watch this.
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  Speaker 1: It's sick.
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  Speaker 2: And I watched it and I didn't fland it like sick.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: I found it sickening. I mean I was like, holy shit,
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: like what if these were my dogs in this video?
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  Speaker 2: Like what if there were my dogs in that slaughter plant?
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: If they were my dogs in those cages? And so
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: I became a vegetarian. And then, you know, pretty quickly thereafter,
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  Speaker 2: I started reading like I sent letters. This is back
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety three, so I it was no Internet
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: or anything. I just wrote snail mail letters to these
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: groups and asked them to send me information on vegetarianism.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: So I got back these like things from animal groups,
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: and I started reading about yeah, Pamphot's booklets, and I'm like,
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: what are vagans? You know, like what is a vagan?
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: And I thought to myself, Oh, you know, actually I'm
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: reading what's happening in the egg and the dairy industries.
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  Speaker 1: It's really bad.
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: I'm like, but I think that you die, Like I thought,
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: like being one of these so called veagans, you would
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: like be like holding your breath like you can hold
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: your breath for a certain amount of time, but if
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: you do it too long, you die. And I thought,
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: if you can go maybe like a week or two,
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: but you can't go wife without eating them. So I
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: started volunteering for these groups as a kid, and I
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: met these people who I've warned were called vegans, and
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: I started talking to them about the I'm like, looking
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: at them, I want to see if they look pale.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: I want to see if they look like they're about
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: to wait away. I'm like, I couldn't believe. It's like
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: all these apparitions in front of him. And then one
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: of them told me that Carl Lewis was vegan, and
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: you know, back then, Carl Lewis was like, you know,
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: the Michael Phelps, so the Usain Bolta of today, like
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: the premier Olympian athlete who everybody knew.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: And I was like, are you kidding me? And so
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: I looked up this.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: They gave me like an interview with Carl Lewis and
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: how he attributed vegan eating to his success. I mean,
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: it's obviously many other factories, but he said that was
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: part of it. And I was like, well, if Carl
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: Lewis is a vegan. I'm a vegan, so became vegan.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: And then when I got to high school, there was
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: no animal protection club, so I started one called Compassion Overkilling.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: I quickly realized I didn't want it to be a
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: high school club anymore, and so I converted it into
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: at first to Washington, DC wide organization and then toward
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: the end of my high school career into a national organization.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah that to this day is now it's a huge organization.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: They're doing great things. Yeah, are you still involved?
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: Like, how do you what's your relationship with the organization
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: that you started.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: I rout them on, I cheer for their success. I
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: am not involved. They're doing wonderful things, and I basically,
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: you know, when I came to the Humane Society of
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: the United States after ten years of running Compassion Over Killing,
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: the workload involved in being at HSUS was such that
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: it wasn't possible for me to do both. And so
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: they're doing great things. They now have offices in DC
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: and in LA, and they just put out a new
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: undercover investigation of a chicken factory farm that has led
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: to really good outcomes and high amounts of media attention.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: So I love what they're doing, right, cool, So you
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: find your way to HSUS and you've been there for
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: a long time now, thirteen years. Yeah, I came on
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: when Wayne Piseli became president. So you know, back then,
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: you know, HSUS was not known as an advocacy organization
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: for the most part, A lot of people just thought
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: it was like dogs and cats, and I certainly did
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: advocacy for them, but mostly they weren't known for that.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: And Wayne became president. First he was the first vegan
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: president of the organization, and second he was this young guy,
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: he was thirty nine at the time, who had a
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: history of animal advocacy, of running political campaigns and other
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: types of efforts for animals, and many of us thought
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: to ourselves, I can't believe that this guy is president
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: of the largest animal protection group on Earth. And Wayne
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: had an interest in starting a farm animal protection campaign,
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: which the organization hadn't had at that point, and asked
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: those of us at Compassion Overkilling if we would come
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: on over to the new organization, this new HSUS under
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: him and try to do that. And thirteen years later,
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: still happening.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: Still there. So how do you distinguish the work of
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: HSUS versus the other animal rights organizations, the Petas, the
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: Mercies for Animals, Kabasha Overkilling, Like what is what's different
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: or what is the mission statement that distinguishes the work
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: that you guys do.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: Sure, so, one aspect that is different is that HSUS
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: is focused on all animals, whereas groups like Commassion Ember
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: Killing Emercy for Animals are focused solely on farm animals.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: At the same time, what really distinguishes HSUS is not
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: just that it's a rescue and direct care organization it's
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: got wildlife rehab centers and animal sanctuaries and so on,
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: but that it is also the premier organization when it
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: comes to public policy for animals. We want to create
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: the type of organization like what the NIRA is for
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: gun owners. For animals. We want politicians to know that
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: they'll be rewarded if they vote for animals and that
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: they'll be punished if they vote against animals. So HSUS
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: has a large presence in the Congress and in nearly
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: all fifty state legislatures, and in a lot of city
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: and county councils as well, working hard to both pass
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: legislation to move the ball forward for animals, including farm
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: animals and to fight back bad legislation that's harmful to
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: animals too, right, And.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: So what is your role role?
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: So I serve as the vice president of Policy Engagement,
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: and I work both at the federal and state level
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: to pass new laws to help protect animals, especially farm animals.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: We're working on a Bowot measure here in California right
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: now that would create the strongest farm animal protection law
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: both in the country and in the world. That would
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: require that any of the veal, eggs or pork that
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: are sold in California, regardless of where they were produced,
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: have to come from animals who are not confining cages
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: and are given space allotments that are higher legal requirements
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: than anywhere else on the planet.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: And that would be kind of that would be leading
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: legislation sort of nationwide, right, without a doubt. Yeah, And
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: what are the prospects for that passing.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: Well, we have a lot of opposition from the vo industry,
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: from the egg industry, from the pork industry, and that
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: time will come to fight them. But right now we
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: have to get on the BOWOT, which means that we
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: have to gather over half a million signatures. So that
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: requires a lot of volunteers. So for people who live
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: in California, they can go to Prevent crueltyca dot com
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: and sign up to volunteer. Because if we don't get
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: on the bowot, there's no chance of having that fight
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: against the factory farming industry. But if we do get
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: on the bout, California will become the central front in
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: the national debate over factory farming, and all eyes both
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: in the agribusiness industry and in the animal protection community
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: are going to be focused here on the Golden State,
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: So like the.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: Front line of where this battle is being waged.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: Without a doubt. But we have to get on the
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: ballot first, right, So.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: Let's let's take a step back and kind of canvass
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: the current sort of situate legislative regulatory situation with respect
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: to factory farming, you know, with poultry, beef, and pork,
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: Like where do we stand right now? Where where are
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: the other battles that need to be waged, Like what
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: are we up against and kind of what's going on?
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, let me just tell you a brief story then.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: So imagine that you're out late at dinner and under
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: the darkness of night, a burglar comes into your home
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: and breaks in, grabs a painting of a pig off
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: of your wall, and smashes that painting. The charge for
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: that act of vandalism will be criminal property destruction. But
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: now imagine that at a pork factory that a farmer
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: notices a pigot who isn't growing as fast as their
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: siblings and picks her up and smashes her head against
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: the concrete floor, killing her and throwing her body away.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: The charge for that active violence is nothing, because it's
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: standard operating practice in the pork industry. And what I'm
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: saying is that farm animals have so little legal protection
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: that you can get in greater legal trouble for smashing
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: a painting of a pig than an actual, living, feeling pig.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: That's how bad it is.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: Well, you can get in even more trouble if you're
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: somebody who's trying to pull covers on the situation to
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: be considered a domestic terrorist, right.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, you might get in more trouble for taking
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: a photo or a video of somebody smashing a pigot
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: against the concrete floor than the person committing the actual
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: active violence. So farm animals are in a dire position.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: They have so little legal protection that passing laws that
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: require them to have, for example, cage free living conditions.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: They certainly are modest, but they're enormously historic because they
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: get these animals protections that they don't have. And the
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: agribusiness industry has been so good at exempting themselves from
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: state anti cruelty laws and from preventing any federal legislation
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: that really these guys can do pretty much anything they
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: want to farm animals and get away with it. For
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: the most part.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: Why are they so good? Is it just money and
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: lobbying groups.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: Well there's a couple factors. Yes, money and their lobbying groups.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: But two, it's because the animal movement isn't politically organized,
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: especially not for farm animals. I mean, the fact is
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: that laws are created by people who show up. Most
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: animal advocates are not poetically engaged, and that is why
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: the agribusiness lobby has been able to do all this.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: Think about it, Less than one percent of the American
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: population is involved in farming any of any kind, not
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: just animal aag of any farming.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: Then think about it.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: Just a few percentages of us are vegetarians or vegans,
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: and then a huge majority of people consider themselves animal lovers.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: So the number of people who want to protect animals
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: is much greater than the number of people who want
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: to abuse animals. But the animal movement has not been
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: politically organized in the way that the agribusiness lobby or
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: the gun lobby, for example, has been.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: Well, as much as it is about organization, it's about
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: political will as well, because amongst those animal lovers are
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: just the average, you know, relatively compassionate consumer. They're just
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: not engaged because they don't know what's going on and
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: they're busy with their lives, right, Like, it's just it's
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: just sort of the.
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: Big food companies, the farming industry has done an amazing
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: job of insulating the public from the reality of the
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: production mechanism that puts that food into the grocery store. Yeah,
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: I think you're heading the nail on the head. Most
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: people are blister, really unfamiliar with how their food is produced.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: But I also think that it's got to be a
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: matter of greater priority. So look at the gun issue,
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: for example, Huge majorities of people think that we old
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: have like basic background checks and things like that on guns,
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: but they don't make it their number one priority issue
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: for voting, and so politicians know they're probably not going
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: to be penalized if they vote against these people's wishes.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: The same is so for animal issues. If you put
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: on in the boot and give people a chance to
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: vote on it independently, overwhelmingly they tend to vote for
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: it in the same way they would for the background
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: checks on guns. But if a politician votes against animals,
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: how many voters are going to punish them for that vote.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: That's what we need to make sure happens. And it
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: has happened in some cases, but there needs to be
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: more examples.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's interesting. And where do we currently stand with
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: respect to the AGGAG laws.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: Well, there are probably been about three dozen AGGAG bills
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: that have been introduced and virtually all of them have
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: been thwarted in the legislature by HSUS fighting them and
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: making sure they don't become AGGAG laws. A few have
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: gotten through, and groups like the Animal Legal Defense Fund
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: have had a lot of success fighting them in the
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: courts and nullifying them in states like Utah and in in.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: Idaho as well.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: Iowa's still is in effect and it's really important because
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: Iowa is the biggest egg and pork production state in
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: the country, and there has been a recent challenge to
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: it that's now pending. So aggag laws are a problem,
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: but they're in very few states. There's a lot of
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: attension on them because they are so suggestive. They show like,
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: this is not an industry that wants to prevent abuse.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: They want to prevent people from finding out about abuse.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: But it isn't the case that most states have them.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: It's a tiny minority of them that.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: Do, right, That's interesting. I mean, I would imagine the
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: constitutional challenge to this is pretty strong. Yeah.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: The problem is aggag laws come in various flavors. They
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: all have the same outcome, which is to prevent undercover investigations,
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: but they are different. So you have some that are
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: straight up bands on photography. They have others that make
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: it a crime to lie on a job application. If
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: you are applying an agricultural operation. They so you could
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: ask on the application like are you affiliated with an
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: animal welfare group? And normally if you lie on a
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: job application, and that's cause for being fired. If they
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: find out, they want to make it a crime to
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: do that, And I mean if embellishing your resume as
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: a crime. You know, there's gonna be you very invest
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: in prisons. I would have never gotten my job without it.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: The prison lobby is supportive.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: Right, yeah, exactly so, but they're so shady about it
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: that it's.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: Only at agricultural operations.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: If you want to allow on your resume to apply
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: to be a banker or investor, go right ahead. But
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: if you do it to become a farm laborer, then
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: you can go to jail. It's really insidious.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: And who are the people on the hill in Congress
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: in the Senate who are kind of championing this cause, Like,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: who are the friends of HSUS that are trying to
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: evoke change.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: There's really no better champion than animals have in the
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: Congress than somebody like Corey Booker, Democratic Senator from New Jersey.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: Get him on the podcast.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: Oh he would come on.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I'm going back and forth with this. It's
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: going to happen.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: Okay, cool, Well, I would love to listen to that.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean, you know, Senator Booker is a
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: champion for animals. He's a true believer, he's a vegan himself,
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: and he's the real deal.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: But it goes across the IO.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: Also, I mean, look in Arizona, for example, there's a
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: Republican lawmaker, a congresswoman named Martha McSally who is vegan
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: herself and is the sponsor of legislation to ban the
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: sale of cosmetics that were tested on animals in the
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: United States. So it's not necessarily a partisan issue, but
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: there are some people who are just real champions on
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: animal issues, like well.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: I would imagine it's partisan. Well, it's really geographic.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: That often tends to be the case that urban and
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: suburban lawmakers are often friendlier to animals, but not always,
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: but it is often. Yeah, all right, So right now,
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: it's twenty seventeen. We're mired in this institution of factory
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: farming that is slaughtering a billion animals a year.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: What is the number?
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: It's so staggeringly high, Like I don't even know what
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: it is, sadly much more than that. Yeah, in the US,
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: it's about nine billion land animals a year.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: Bye billion land animals.
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: But the human mind just doesn't comprehendellion nine billion to
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: the mind, It doesn't. We didn't evolve to understand this
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: type of astronomical figures.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: And it's a system that has created tremendous economies of scale.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: But the flip side to that is all of the
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: environmental havoc that is reeked as a result of this,
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: everything from ocean acidification to water table pollution, ocean dead zones,
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: species extinction, rainforest decimation. I mean, it just goes on
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: and on and on right Like it's you can't even
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: quantify the amount of environmental wreckage as a result of
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: this system that we've created to be as efficient as possible. Meanwhile,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: slaughtering all of these animals, many of which are tortured
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: in the most inhumane way you can possibly conceptualize. Meanwhile,
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: we're continuing to propagate the planet with humans, and we're
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: quickly escalating towards ten billion people by what like twenty
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: fifty or something like that, And that leaves us with
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: this huge question like, how are we going to feed
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: all these people? How are we going to do it
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: in a way that will ensure that this planet and
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: its precious resources are still around to be able to
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: even provide in the first place. Yeah, which brings us
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: to what we're here to talk about today, this whole
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: new emerging world of clean meat.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so yeah, I think you're heading the nail on
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: the head man. The problem is that we're going to
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: have about ten billion of us by twenty fifty most likely,
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: and many of those people want to eat like Americans do.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: That is a diet that's very heavy in meat, eggs,
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: and dairy. While those products are actually inhumane, but they're
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: also among the most resource intensive products to bring forth
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: into the world. So how do we feed all these people?
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: How do we feed ourselves? Meat consumption globally is projected
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: to continue rising, not fall. Chinese meat consumption is quintupled
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: over the last few decades, and it's continuing to rise.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: Right the rise of the middle class there, that's right.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: As people come out of the developing world and into
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: the developed world, one of the very first things they
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: do is start eating more animal products. And diets high
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: on animal products are the diet of the wealthier nations.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: So this is the diet of affluence. And as soon
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: as countries are no longer mined in poverty, they want
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: to eat more animal products, and so countries like Brazil, Mexico, China, India,
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: their rates of meat consumption are going up, not down.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: In the United States, right now, meat consumption is going up,
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: and even though we have the highest per capita rate
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: of meat consumption pretty much in world history. So the
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: trends aren't looking good. There are great things that are
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: happening with the proliferation of plant based foods in the marketplace.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: Plant based milk is a great standout example of a
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: product that has gained a lot of market share, and
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: the dairy industry has contracted because of it. But when
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: it comes to meat, which is what most animals are
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: raised for, you know, things aren't looking good right now,
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: and there needs to be solution to this. And I'm
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: very bullish on plant based meats. I think companies like
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: Beyond Meat and Guardian and Tofurkey, I love them. They're
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: great companies. I eat their products myself. But just in
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: the way that fossil fuels are so bad. They present
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: so many problems that we want multiple alternatives to them,
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: wind sol or geothermal and so on. We need multiple
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: alternatives to factory farms, and clean meat is one such
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: alternative that looks very promising. And so I wrote this
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: book Clean Meat because I wanted to chronicle the pioneers
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: who are devoting their lives to making this into a
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: commercial reality. These people, many of them, came out of
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: the animal welfare and environmental communities to try a new
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: tactic and see if we can produce real meat from
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: animal cells rather than animal slaughter and have people switch
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: from factory farmed meat to a much cleaner, more humane,
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: more sustainable type of meat. Yeah.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: I think it's it's a very interesting time as we
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: it's it's it's almost like it's a race, right, it
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: is like we're in this arms race, Like are we
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: going to be able to prevail as a species before
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: we destroy ourselves? Well, that's a very open ended question.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: And I think that as as amazing as it is
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: to see the ascendancy of this vegan plant based movement
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: go mainstream, I think you're ignorant to believe that it
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: will reach a tipping point significant enough to really impact
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: this crisis that we're in in a meaningful way before
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: it's too late. Yeah.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: I mean, let's just keep it real. Less than one
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: percent of meat that is sold in the United States
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: comes from plant based sources like the Impossible Burgers Beyond
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: Meat Guardian added all up, it's less than one percent
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: of all meat. Even if it was at ten percent,
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: and plant based milks are now ten percent of the
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: fluid milk market in the US. Even that means ninety
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: percent of all the milk that is sold is coming
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: from cows, virtually all of him are farmed. So if
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: we want to actually address this problem and save animals
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: from factory farms and slaughter plants and start reducing the
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: amount of greenhouse gas emissions that agriculture is producing, why
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: wouldn't we do this? This is such a promising alternative
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: to the current system, and the benefits are manifold. Obviously
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: to animals, the benefits are great, but it's much cleaner
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: for the planet. Like queen energy, queen meat is just
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: better for the planet, and it's also literally cleaner. So
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: think about it right now. You're warn to treat raw
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: meat in your kitchen almost like toxic waste. Why because
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: it's riddled with Peces e. Co i Salmonoa campelobacter. These
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: are intestinal pathogens that can sicken you if you don't
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: cook the crap out of your meat. Literally literally have.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: To cook the crap out of it.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: But with queen meat, you aren't actually growing intestines, which
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: is those are intestinal pathogens. E. Co i Salmonoa camplobacter.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: You're just growing meat.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: You take a cell from an animal and make that
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: cell believe that it is still in the animal's body
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: by putting in a type of cultivator that tricks the
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: cell into thinking that, and the cell grows into muscle
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: tissue just exactly as it would in the animal's body,
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: except outside of the animal's body, with far fewer resources,
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: because rather than creating an entire animal, you only have
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: to grow the meat you actually want. So it is
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: truly cruelty free, humane meat, but it's also much cleaner
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: again for the planet and for food safety.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and without the hormones and the antibiotics and everything
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: else that gets put into this, and also a lifetime,
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: however short that life may be of eating GMO grain.
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: That's one of the more interesting things about this, because
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: you know, obviously this is the application of biotechnology to food,
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: and some people get nervous about that, and the same
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: people who are concerned about GMOs might have that concern.
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: But Mackay Jenkins, who wrote a very good book called
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: Food Fight about the GMO debate looking at it, has
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: a very good point. Jenkins asserts that if you really
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: are concerned about GMOs and you want to reduce the
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: amount of GMO crops planted. The number one thing you
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: should be reading for is clean meat because of GMO
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: crops are fed to farm animals. Now, clean meat doesn't
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: require genetic modification. You don't need to use GMO technology
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: to produce clean meat. But you could, but none of
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: the companies are doing that. Who are producing the meat
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: right now, they're not using GMO technology. But if they succeed,
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: they will certainly be displacing a huge portion of farm
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: animals who would otherwise be eating GMO feed.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: I get that, but there also is there is engineering here.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: We're embarking into this new terrain that's very strange and
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: very new because the world is changing very rapidly, and
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: so there is a logical rational argument to say, hey,
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: wait a minute, like, all right, before we just dive
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: into this, what are the long term implications on human health?
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: Has anybody really looked at that in a meaningful way? So,
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: I mean that question needs to be asked explored.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: Oh, I totally agree it must be And the answer
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: is no, of course not. I mean many will argue
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: these are functionally the same exact thing. There's no difference.
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: It is just growing the same exact sales, producing the
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: same exact meat just outside of their body. But you're right,
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's not possible for there to have been
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: long term studies on this because the first company devoted
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: to commercializing clean meat, Memphis Meats, was founded in twenty sixteen.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: So you're one of the few people on the planet,
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: maybe one hundred people or something like that, that I've
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: actually tried this.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's probably a little bit more than that now,
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: but I was one of the first, maybe maybe a
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: hundred or so to eat it, and I starting in
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: twenty fourteen, I started eating some clean meat. I've now
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: eaten clean beef, duck, fish, liver, cheriso, yogurt, all lab grin.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: And two things about that. First of all, like after
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: whatever twenty years, that had to be weird, Yeah, And secondarily,
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: if you can recall, like what is the taste comparison
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: and the texture comparison and all of that.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: Sure, So again, I went vegan in nineteen ninety three,
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: So for me, it's not maybe not the best judge
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: to say whether it tastes like meat, but to me,
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: it tasted a lot like meat.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: Because it is meat.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: You know, when you eat a Beyond burger and you're thinking, oh,
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: does this taste like meat, Well, that's an alternative to
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: meat that tastes very meat like. This isn't an alternative
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: to meat. It is meat, and that's why it tastes
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: like meat, because that's exactly what it is.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: And yeah, it was weird for me.
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: I mean, as a long time vegan, I felt like
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: I didn't have any ethical concerns about it.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: You had no ethical quandary about it.
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: No ethical quandary, but it was an identity quandary because
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: when you've been this meat, Yeah, who am I am?
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: I still a vegetarian even and frankly, I have less
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: concern about the personal identity issues, although I do think
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: a lot of people will be concerned about them. But
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: clean meat isn't for vegans. You know, this is intended
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: to displace factory farms, not plant based bretean. So the
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: goal wasn't to get vegans.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: To eat this.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: It's to get people who right now are buying meat
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: from fast food companies and supermarkets to switch to this
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: when it's commercially available, which.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: Is the real issue. So were there people though, who
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: want to kick you off the team. I'm sure there
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: are creatures of wanting to be you know, have this
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: identity and be part of a group, whatever that group
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: may be. There's all kinds of weirdness around that. Yeah.
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: I think for some people it's like they would rather
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: have a social club than a social movement, and that's
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: the reality. And for them, there's like orthodoxy litmus tests
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: that if you do X, you're at it, you're excommunicated
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: from the group.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: I have a feeling for those people.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: Clean meat is a violation of that test.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: Well, but what is the point of the group to
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: begin with? Yes, stimulate and advocate change and and you know,
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: and hopefully, you know, create a mainstream shift in our
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: relationship with these products that are you know, raised in
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: a in a horrible way and are creating all these
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: problems for the planet.
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: That's what you and I want, and I think that's
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: what a lot of vegans want. But I think some
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: vegans really do want to be countercultural. For them, if
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: it became mainstream, it would be less attractive.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: It's like when your band makes it big.
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, he sign and then it's a sellout and
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: you're not a fan.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: Anymore. That's exactly right. So had I had your friend
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: and your colleague and my friend Bruce friedrich on, it's
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: probably a year ago and we explored clean meat, but
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: it's been a year. There's a lot of new listeners,
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: so you know.
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: It probably would be a good idea to at least
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: define our terms and and you know, specifically address what
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: we're talking about when we're talking about clean meat. Sure,
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: So right now, we have the capacity to take a
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: tiny biopsy, think about like a sesame seed sized biopsy
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: from an animal, and in that biopsy, from muscle tissue,
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: there are what are known as satellite cells, and these
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: are the cells that create muscle. When your muscle is injured,
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: either from a workout or you get bruised, those cells
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: go to work and produce new muscle. We can isolate
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: those cells and make them think that they're in the
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: body and have them produce muscle. It's the same exact
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: skeletal muscle that people eat when they eat meat. It's
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: not a different type of muscle, but it is literally
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: the same muscle, and we can grow that outside of
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: the animal's body and produce meat that is the same
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: as regular meat, except much more sanitary, much eco friendlier,
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: and of course much more humane. And some companies are
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: producing meat that way. Other companies are ditching the initial
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: animal starter cells altogether, and they can produce some meats,
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: excuse me, not meats. They can produce some products like leather, milk,
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: egg whites, gelatin that don't use any animal starter cells
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: at all. So, for example, there's a company called gel
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: Tour which is producing gelatin and collagen that they already
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: are selling on the market. They've already commercialized their products,
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: or the first of these cellular agriculture companies to commercialize,
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: and they're not using any initial animal starter cells at all.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: How do you create this leather without an animal starter cell?
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: Oh, it's pretty cool. So in the same way that
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: you can have let's say brewers yeast and you feed
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: it sugar and it produces alcohol. Or you get a
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: baker's YaST and you feed it sugar and it pre
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: co two to weven bread. They take special designer yeasts
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: and feed it the sugar and it produces the proteins
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: that you want. So in the case of leather, which
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: is primarily collagen, a protein in your skin, it produces
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: that actual cattle collagen, and you can produce real weather
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: without any cow. You have held it in my hand
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: many times. In fact, you can do the same thing milk.
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: Cow's milk is about half a dozen key proteins caseine
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: and whey and so on, and you can coax yeast
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: to produce those milk proteins, and you add water in
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: some minerals and sugar to it, and it is the
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: same as cow's milk without any milk at all.
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: That's insane. Yeah, in fact, without the hormonal component, that's right,
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: that's right.
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: And you can tinker with it so you can have
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: no cholesterol, you can make it lactose free. You are
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: in complete control because you're building it from the molecule up.
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: Really interestingly, though, people who hear this like, oh man,
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: that's like so science fiction. In reality, every bite of
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: hard cheese that people are taking in America today is
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: made through the same process because cheese has rent in it.
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: Rent it is an enzyme that used to come from
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: calves intestinal lining and it makes milk kerdle into cheese.
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: And now they don't really use calf intestines in cheese anymore.
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: What they do is they have done with the same
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: exact process getting little microorganisms to produce chymosine, which is
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: the enzyme in rent that's functionally active, and they produce
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: it through what's called synthetic biology, which is the same
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: process that we're talking about here, and then they add
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: that synthetically produced cheymasin to the cheese and you get
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: actual hard cheese. Same exact thing, except now making milk
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: or egg whites or leather or gelatin and.
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: So on that is bananas. Yeah, So, like it's just
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: it's crazy.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: It's crazy. It's crazy.
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: The acceleration with which we're seeing changes like this in
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: the world, from self driving cars and elon mosk and veiling,
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: you know, the semi.
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: Supercar and like.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: And the idea you know that we're slowly acclimating to
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: this idea that that driving our own car is going
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: to be an antiquated total or actually drove a car
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: like that's but that's weird, right, and very dangerous.
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and now we're just being introduced to this idea
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: of clean meat, and there is of course, you know
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: some you know, the hairs on the back of your
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: neck kind of go up and go.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: Well, that's weird, and and perhaps that's icky. We have
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: this acclamation period that I think we're going to undergo
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: that we're going to go through when we're trying to
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: kind of become socialized to this idea for lack of
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: a better phrase. But I don't see any way around
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: it becoming the thing that we're all going to be doing.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: Like I, you know, and it's going to take. In
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: your book, did a good job of like sort of
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: you know, taking us through the history of this and
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: being very kind of conservative about the time frame here,
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: like we're not looking at tomorrow, Like most likely these
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: products aren't even going to be on the market until
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: at the earliest, like twenty twenty.
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, they'll be on the market in some limited
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: senses I think before then, but in order for like
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: really commercially available in the same way that you can
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: go to the supermarket and buy Guardian or something like that. Yeah,
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: you're talking a few years out. But yeah, I tried
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: to be conservative in the book about looking at the potential.
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: I'm enthusiastic about what these companies are doing, but I
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: think we also should be cautiously and cautious in that optimism.
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: But I may just tell a quick story because I
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: think people have that sense like, oh, this seems unnatural,
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: and then future generations may think, oh, it was so
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: unnatural the way you did it before. Think about this
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: so in the way Eric's like, in the mid nineteenth century,
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: everybody who was using ice was using natural ice. Big
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: natural ice industry industry is formed around harvesting ice from
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: lakes and northern latitudes and shipping that ice around the
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: world for people to have. Well, enter the advent of
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: industrial of the Industrial Revolution, and all of a sudden,
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: you have refrigeration, and now you have a way to
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: produce ice much more efficiently, just by cooling the water
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: right in front of you down to make ice.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: Well.
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: The natural ice industry was livid over this advancement in technology,
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: and they railed against it, calling it artificial ice, saying
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: it was dangerous, it was unnatural. You had no idea
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: if that could sicken you because nobody had been doing
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: it for so long. They worried that the ammonia and
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: the coolant might leak out and poison you, when in
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: reality the natural ice was actually far less safe. You
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: had contaminants from the Industrial Revolution in the wakes the
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: horses who were being used to draw out the ice
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: were of course going to the bathroom in the wake
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: while they're dragging it out, Whereas so called artificial ice
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: was being produced from water that had been boiled or
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: otherwise filtered before they had cooled it down, so the
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: artificial ice was way safer. And now you fast forward
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: more than a century to today, and every single one
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: of us has an artificial ice maker in our homes.
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: We'd call them freezers, and we don't think there's anything
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: unnatural about it at all. Is it possible that clean
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: meat will have the same thing that we're going to
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: think now, oh, that's unnatural to have meat without animals,
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: to divorce meat production from livestock raising. Where in the future,
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: maybe they're going to think about slaughtering animals for food
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: as some type of a relic of a primitive society.
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: I mean, we used to have all of our homes
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: lit by whale oil, and kerosene came along and decimated
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: the whaling industry. What if clean meat makes a factory
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: farm seem as antiquated as a whaling ship.
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you did that Ted talk, one of your two
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: hundred Ted talks that you've given where you actually brought
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: the harpoon onto the stage to demonstrate this point.
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: That's very nice of you. I don't recommend trying to
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: fly on an airplane with a harpin.
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: And you transport that.
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: I end up having to just ship it via upes.
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: It was like a real six foot long harpin.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: No, it was like a legit yeah poom yeah.
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: This is not like a decoration for your basement wall.
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: This was like a vantage real harpin that I bought
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: for this purpose.
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: Well, on a very academic, practical kind of you know,
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: intellectual plane. When you break it down, it doesn't make
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: sense how we're producing. We're so acclimated to it. This
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: is the way we do It's the only way we've
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: ever known how to do it. But when you really
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: evaluate the inputs required to, you know, create that hamburger
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: patty or that chicken breast, it's insane. Like if an
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: alien came down to the planet and said, like, how
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: are you creating food for everybody and looked at you know,
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: how much how many resources have to go into creating
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: these products. This is unsustainable. You can't keep doing this.
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: They would think we were insane. And interestingly about aliens,
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: the very first research ever funded into queen meat was
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: actually funded by NASA because they recognized that if we
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: are ever to leave our planet and start doing long
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: distance cosmic tourism for astronauts, they're not gonna be caring.
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: Noah's ar can tell. I mean, if they won't meat,
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: they're gonna have to grow it. And in fact that's
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: what they did on Star Trek right centerprise, yeah, a
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: little slider.
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: And the right.
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: I mean, Queen meat has been the purview of science
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: fiction for a long time, including Star Trek, and NASA
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: at the turn of the century thought well, what's fun
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: to this, and they funded these researchers in New York
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: to row real fish flesh outside of a fish, and
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: they succeeded in doing it, and these dudes fried it up.
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: They couldn't get permission from the FDA to eat it,
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: but they fried it up.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: They had it smelled just like.
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: Fish, and then they unfortunately threw the meat they had
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: grown out. But that was the first breakthrough that cause
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: it was in two thousand and two and this paper
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: was published that showed that this is actually possible. And
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: there were some people like Jason Matheni, who was an
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: early pioneer in the clean meat movement who when he
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: read that study back in two thought to himself, why
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: would we do this in space. We need to do
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: this here on earth. This is a technology that could
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: save us from ourselves here on earth, rather than just
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: thinking about how to feed astronauts in space. Meanwhile, we're
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: able to cultivate human tissue in peatree dishes, right, Oh yeah,
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: for burn victims and things like that. So it's like
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: we're doing it on ourselves. Oh yeah, there are companies now.
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: If you get a burn, they can take a sample
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: like a biopsy from your skin somewhere else on your
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: body and grow not just human flesh, but grow human
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: skin that is your skin, like literally your skin, and
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: they put it in the wound, and your body accepts
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: it thinking that it's the natural skin because it is
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: your actual skin. It's amazing. It's really cool when you
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: think about that. You can do it for medical purposes certainly,
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: certainly we can do it for fashion purposes too. Not
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: the human skin. I'm not saying I really need a
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: human skin cut, but you can easily make leather coats
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: and so on out of these types of technologies.
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: Well, the fashion implications, the implications on consumer products and garments.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: That was a super fascinating aspect of your book and
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: something I knew much less about. It didn't come up
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: in my conversation with Bruce and your thesis supported by
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: you know, speaking with all of these you know, entrepreneurs
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: in the space, is that that's going to really be
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: the first mover. It's going to be the leather products
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: and you know, perhaps egg whites and things like that
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: that follow. But food isn't really the tip of the
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: spear the harpoon.
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: It's possible there's this race of who's going to be first,
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: But yeah, Modern Meadow is a company that's really pioneering
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: the weather space in terms of cellular agriculture, and the
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: CEO und Us Foregox has a theory that he thinks
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: that it's easier to get people to wear novel materials
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: than to eat novel foods. That's a very smart correct point, right,
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: So think about things like you know, carbon fiber, gore tex,
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: like those are people didn't have any concerns about wearing
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: these brand new novel materials that are the product of
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: new technologies. We welcome them, we love them. Lightweight things
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: that keep us really warm and wick away our sweat.
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's awesome. And so if you can get
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: people accustomed to the idea of wearing leather that was
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: grown without the cow, might it ease them into the
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: idea of eating meat that was grown without a cow also?
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: And is that on the same sort of time horizon
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty is that further out or is that where
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: are we in terms of being able to create products
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: for the marketplace.
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: It's probably sooner, so you might have mass production by then,
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: but you'll probably have some products on the market in
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: a high end fashion type of way before then.
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that it's much needed to sort of
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: my experience with the faux leather, like trying to sort of,
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: you know, be ethical in my purchasing and sort of
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: disappoint it and what's available there, especially with like shoes
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: and things like that. It's like it's just it's not
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: there yet. Yeah.
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: I mean the secret is like vegans delude ourselves into
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: thinking that these products are all exactly identical. We think
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: the vegan meats taste exactly like meat. We think the
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: weather is indistinguishable. And I mean I like them, I
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: use them. I'm a fan, but oftentimes people aren't fooled
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: and being able to have the actual so called real
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: thing while divorcing it from the problems of factory farming
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: and animal agribusiness in general, I think is going to
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: be a major breakthrough that is going to lead to real.
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: Gains for animals in the planet. Yeah. I think what's
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: a differentiating thing here is the true sustainability. I mean,
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: the footprint of these products is so low compared to
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: not just animal based products, but even synthetic products like okay,
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: faux leather, Like okay, your vegans or you're gonna buy
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: your foux leather shoes or whatever. But let's take a
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: look at how that was produced and what is the
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: you know, environmental impact of creating that, and what were
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: the dyes that were used, and you know where was
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: it created? And almost always from petrochemicals, right, So there's
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of damage. Just because it perhaps didn't
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: involve an animal doesn't mean that it's it's you know,
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: free of impact. Yeah.
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: I often wonder about the term cruelty free because we
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: tend to mean it as a synonym to animal free.
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: But it's pretty queer that there are lots of ways
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: to promote cruelty even when you're not using animals.
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: If you're being artificial dyes into some waterway and it's
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: killing a bunch of fish, you can probably still label
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: that product as cruelty free, when in fact it truly isn't.
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: I remember my very first job.
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: I worked on this organic family farm back in Maryland,
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: and I went around and I was so psyched this like,
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: you know, really romantic image of what it was going
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: to be like to work on this bucawic farm. And
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: one of the tasks they gave me was to fertilize
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: all of these plants with fish blood. And so I'm
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: like walking around and these are you know, just for vegetables.
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: You know, you think what could be non vegan about vegetables.
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: And it was just a good reminder to me that,
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: you know, life is not black and white. That we
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: find shades of gray and so many things that we do,
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: and we shouldn't pretend that there is some notion of
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: personal purity that we're going to achieve, because we're not.
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: I think the name of the game is to try
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: to do as much good as we can, try to
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: reduce the amount of suffering that we're causing and to
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: try to increase the amount of good we're doing in
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: the world. But we shouldn't delude ourselves into thinking that
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: we can be one hundred percent impact free or cruelty
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: free or whatever you want to call it, because all
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: of us are causing some harm and we should just
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: try to do enough good to outweigh that harm as
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: much as possible.
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a really important point, and I think about
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: that a lot, especially when I hear people getting super righteous.
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: It's like, listen, you know, we're we're all we all
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: have an impact, We're all creating some damage, you know.
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: As Gene Bauer would say, it's like it's an aspiration,
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: like you're doing the best that you can. But I
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: think it is important to telescope out and really try
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: to understand as best you can the implications of all
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: of these choices that we make with respective whatever companies we're.
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: Patronizing in products that we're buying. Yeah, for me, it's progress,
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: not perfection. I love Gene's line that being vegan is
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: more aspirational. It's not all or nothing. It's just trying
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: to aspire to do the best that you can and
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: I think there's a tendency of some people to become
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: self righteous over it, but most of us are living
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: in glasshouses and it's not a good idea to start
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: throwing stents.
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: So this whole clean meat thing was preconceived, that's probably
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: the wrong word, was sort of conceptualized by Winston Churchill. Yeah, yeah,
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: what is the quote exactly that he said that was amazing.
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, in nineteen thirty one, Churchill, before becoming Prime Minister
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: of the UK, wrote this essay fifty years hence it's
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: the name of the essay, and he said that we
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: so escape the absurdity of growing an entire animal when
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: you could simply grow the parts that you just wanted
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: to eat. And he was foreshadowing this idea of growing
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: meat without animals, and he was a few decades off, admittedly,
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: but the revolution that he foresaw is now in full swing,
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: and you have these startups like Memphis Meats and Hampton
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: Creek and gel Tour and Perfect Day and Clara Foods
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: and so many others who are now working to make
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: real that vision, and not just in a proof of
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: concept type of way, which they've all already done, but
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: actually to start commercializing the companies I just named have
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: already raised millions of dollars each with Memphis Meats, Cargill,
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: the big agribusiness giant, invested in them, showing that even
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: the meat industry thinks this is promising. And so I
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: think for that reason, you know, what Churchill envisioned might
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: have seen very science fiction back then, but now it's
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: pretty much science fact.
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: The most science fiction thing that I read in your
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: book was this idea that one day we wouldn't be
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: purchasing these products created by these clean meat organizations, but
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: that we would actually have our own, like in home
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: brewe or whatever. It is like a toaster where we're
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: actually like in Star Trek, where we're able to just
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: make it at home.
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: Which is like insane. Yeah, I mean it's certainly not
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: possible today. You would need to know what you're going
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: to eat many weeks in advance. But think about it,
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: like Moore's law.
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: You can see that happening.
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: One would hope, I mean, we'll see. I would say
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: this right now, nobody thinks of it as remarkable to
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: have a bread maker in their home or an ice
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: cream maker in their home. It's a cool gadget to
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: have Maybe we will one day have meat makers in
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: our homes and you can order a little tea bags
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: of stem cells and you drop them in and you
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: can make your meat right there. I mean, that's not
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: in the foreseeable future, but it doesn't seem that crazy
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: that it would be completely physically impossible.
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: To envision it, right, that's so wild On this subject of,
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: you know, talking about how active this space is. We
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: have all these billionaires that are investing, everyone from Bill
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: Gates to Richard Branson and you know, Sergey Brinn, you know,
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: plays a large role in the kind of early stages
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: of conceptualizing, you know, this industry. It's kind of painted
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: in this Silicon Valley picture because these are these are
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: tech companies that this is the latest in tech, and
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: that's very exciting. But another thing that was interesting about
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: your book is, in addition to the fact that perhaps
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: garments like leather goods are going to be the first
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: mover in this space, the United States isn't necessarily the
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: first market or audience for these products. It's really China
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: and Brazil and Mexico, right, I think was the third
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: one that you mentioned.
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, nobody knows what will happen. But I do
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: think that it's very plausible that those countries that you named,
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: and maybe India as well, are going to be some
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: of the first early adopters of these products, because these
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: our countries that have food security concerns, really rapidly growing populations,
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: food safety concerns, especially in China, and to the extent
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: that you have a technology that can address all of those,
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: I suspect that it would be welcomed. And already a
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: lot of Chinese meat companies are talking about this. China
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: just anc to deal with Israel for three hundred million
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: dollars on clean tech, and the hope is that the
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: clean meat companies in Israel, and there are a couple
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: of them now already, will be part of that and
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: get to hopefully sell queen meat in China. But other
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: companies like Hampton Creek certainly have their eyes on China.
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: Lee Kashing, who's the one of the wealthiest billionaires in
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: all of Asia and a major investor in companies like
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: Hampton Creek and in others like Modern Meadow, the weather
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: producers people like him, certainly want to see this in China,
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: and so I think as possible that's that is what
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: happens that those countries come first and will do you
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: what is the regulatory landscape going to look like?
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: Like?
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: Where? Where do you know? When and where and how.
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: Do the FDA and the USDA begin to insert themselves
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: into this and try to exert a little control over
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: what's happening.
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, right now, these companies are meeting with the agencies.
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: I mean, as we speak, these companies are already in
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: communication with the agencies about this because nobody really even
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: knows who will regulate them right now. USDA regulates meat production,
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: whereas FDA does fish. However, the USDA's regulatory framework assumes
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: that there is going to be an USDA inspector in
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: a slaughter plant, monitor in the slaughter and seeing what
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: happens in the butchering process. Let's just say none of
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: that is relevant, including me. That's very different from walking
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: into what is essentially a biotech firm right right where
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: there's going to be clean rooms and things that have
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: nothing bears zero resemblance to what they're sort of trained
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: to understand and regulate. Yeah, so that's why a lot
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: of people think it's going to be FDA, and that's
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: probably what will happen. I will say though right now
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: it certainly is produced in clean rooms and people in
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: white lab coats. But what will happen is that when
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: it's time for commercialization, clean meat will be produced in breweries.
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: I mean it's going to look like a Sam Adams brewery,
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: not like a factory. Excuse me, not like a lab.
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: It'll look more like a fact a food factory than
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: a lab. And then what do these folks do. I
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: guess they can ensure there's not contamination in the actual brewery.
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: But it's completely relevant to the current system of meat
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: inspection that you have with USDA inspectors looking at how
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: animals are slaughtered and if their intestines are being spilled
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: out under the meat and so on.
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: Getting over the kind of quote unquote ick factor for
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: the general public, I would imagine it's going to be
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: a hurdle. And you know some interesting stuff in your
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: book about you know, how it's being presented and marketed
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: to the public, and there's this whole thing about like
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: what are we calling it, you know, cultured meat. And
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: it was Bruce who came up with the phrase clean meat.
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: Right well, Britain, you did all these studies like, how
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: does that land with people? And how you know, how
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: what are people thinking about this? How are we going
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: to get them to acclimate to you know, the idea
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: of this as a palatable alternative.
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I had good pun palatable alternatives. So Bruce popularized
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: the term clean meat. He did not invent it, but
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: he did.
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: He did.
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: He did popularize it with the Good Food Institute, and
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: with good reason. They did consumer surveys and they found
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: that clean meat performed the best. But as far back
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: as two thousand and eight, this dude, a professor, wrote
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: a letter to the editor to the New York Times
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: that they published in which he bristled at a New
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: York Times article that had called this fake meat, and
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: he said, this is not fake meat any more than
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: how you cloning a sheep would create a fake sheep.
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: It's a real sheep, DOLLI was a real sheep. And
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: so he suggested that because of the food safety benefits,
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: if you want to call it anything, you should call
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: it clean meat. And that idea really didn't go that
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: far until Bruce resurrected it. And he's done a very
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: good job. And admittedly I was a little bit of
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: a skeptic. At first, I was one of the users
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: of cultured meat, and Bruce persuaded me through the evidence
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: that he and GFI and eventually other organizations and researchers
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: found as well that clean meat really is the best
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: in terms of names to call it now. Admittedly, the
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: best name to call it is just meat, because that's
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: exactly what it is. It really doesn't need a specific
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: descript but in order to have a conversation that is intelligible,
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: you need to have some descriptor for it. Right now
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: at least, maybe in the future it will just be meat.
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: But for right now, at least have all the options
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: that have been pulled, clean meat seems to do the best.
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: My understanding is that we touch on this a minute ago,
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: that it can be, you know, pretty robustly manipulated in
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: terms of what you wanted to you know, the composition
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: of these meats, like how many you know, like what
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: is the amount of saturated fat that we want to
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: have in here? Right? We want it lean? Do we
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: want it more marble? Do we want it this? And
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: you can sort of dial these things up and down
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: as desire. Is the future of what this is going
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: to look like so you could specifically get exactly, you know,
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: the healthiest version or the tastiest version. Yeah.
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: So there's a little bit of a divide in the
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: clean meat community over this. So there are some people
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: who argue, we ought to just be producing meat that
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: is identical to the meat that we have now and
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: have because that's what people want, that's what people are eating.
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: Others argue, well, it should be identical but better now.
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: Of course it's better for all the reasons we've already noted,
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: but they want it to. For example, have instead of
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: saturated fat. You can imagine putting in Omega three fatty acids,
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: so you could have a hamburger that, instead of causing
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: heart attacks.
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: Prevent saturate no saturated fat.
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: Right now, saturated fat probably has a mouth feel that
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: is important for the burger. That's why, for example, the
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: Impossible Burger has a lot of saturated fat as one example.
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: But we'll see what they do.
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: I think at first we're probably going to be looking
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: at products that are nutritionally equivalent to conventional meat but
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: safer from a food safety perspective. But in the future, yeah,
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: I suspect that you will have meats that are marketed
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: as healthier or have some type of some type of
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: claim that they're going to be made of foods that
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: would be healthier than just a regular slab of meat.
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: Well, certainly healthier from the just from the gate, because
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: it's not going to have the antibiotics, right, it's not
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: going to have you know, it's not going to be
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: have been ingesting pesticides and GMO grain and all these
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: other things that are you know, it's not going to
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: have bird flu things like that.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: Ye know, that's one of the big one of the
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: big reasons I think to support this is to reduce
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: the limit of the chance of a big flu pandemic.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: A lot of us don't think about it. We're not
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: that concerned about things like bird flu or s fine flu.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: But keep in mind the Spanish flu of nineteen eighteen,
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: which decimated tens of millions of people at a time
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: when there were only a billion humans on the planet
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: with far less global travel. That was that was from
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: that type of a mix from bird flu. Imagine if
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: that happened today, where we have seven point four billion
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: of us on the planet with people flying around the
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: globe all the time. You could imagine it could be
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: civilizationally threatening, and in fact, the American Public Health Association
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: even editorialized on this issue, saying that the biggest way
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: that we could reduce the risk of such a pandemic
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: again would be to dramatically reduce the number of animals
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: who were raising for food. They envisioned it as a
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: way for people to eat less meat because they published
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: that several years ago. That would obviously be a great thing,
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: But with the advent of clean meat, perhaps we can
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: accomplish the same thing without having to change so many
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: people's diets in the process. Most of us have heard
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: of Hampton Creek, we know about beyond Meat. We're hearing
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: more and more about Impossible Burger and Memphis Meats. But
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: who are the other players who are the movers and
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: shakers in this space, Because it's not just burgers and
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: chicken breasts. We're talking about duck and foie gras and
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: the leather products, etc.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: There's a whole plethora of companies, and you kind of
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: do these case histories of how they came into being
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: throughout the book. Super interesting, Thank you. I agree, it
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: is really interesting.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: So a lot of these people are just young idealists
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: who solve the problem a factory farming, and they wanted
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: to address it in a way that they thought would
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: actually be effective and efficient.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: Keep in mind, let's just back up and think about
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: even in the anti slavery days, the anti slavery activists,
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: many of them, if not most of them, were still
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: purchasing slave produced cotton, sugar, and tea. Even though they
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: were for the abolition of slavery, they still felt like they,
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: for whatever reason, had a hard time buying freely produced products.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: In California, ten years ago, we passed Proposition two to
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: ban battery cages. Two thirds of Californians voted to ban
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: battery cages, yet at that time, ninety percent of eggs
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: or battery eggs being sold in the state. So it's
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: very difficult for us often to align our values with
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: our actions. Many times we act differently as consumers as
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: we would as citizens. And so there's a theory that
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: if you are going to address this problem, what's the
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: best way to do it to try to persuade millions
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: of people to individually change their diets voluntarily, or to
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: create a new system that renders the old system obsolete,
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: and that appeals to people on the factors that they're
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: actually making their purchasing decisions are price, taste, and convenience.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: So these companies like, for example, let's take Clara Foods
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: as one example. Arturo Elesondo is the CEO, and he
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: founded the company as a guy straight out of college
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: in his early twenties, and he founded it with two
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: other folks and they basically realized that egg whites are
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: just a few key egg proteins and they could in
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: the same way early we were talking about creating leather
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: and milk from this process of synthetic biology, that they
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: could create those types of egg white proteins and add
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: water to it and you basically have egg whites. And
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: they had this idea so crazy, and they went and
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: they pitched it to an accelerator called indie Bio run
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: by a great guy by the name of Ryan Bethancourt.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: And they talked to Ryan and he was very interested
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 2: in it, and he gave them some free lab space
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 2: and some startup money.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: I don't think it was much.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 2: It was like fifty thousand dollars, which of course is
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: a lot of money in the real world, but for
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: starting a company, it's not that much. Money, and they
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: proved that they could do it, and now they've attracted
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: millions of dollars of investment and they want to be
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: producing clean egg whites, perhaps starting for the egg protein
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: market at first, like for protein bars and shakes and
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: so on. And they haven't yet commercialized, but they hope
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: to be commercialized in the near future. And these are
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: just these people again who are in their twenties, who
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: were thinking to themselves, how can I make a positive
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 2: impact on the world. I think about how horrible the
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: egg industry is to chicken so often and for the
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: environment and so on. And they have come up with
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: a promising solution that doesn't rely on millions of individuals
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: to voluntarily change their diets. They've come up with a
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: solution that, if they could succeed, would solve the problem
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: without people having to make consciously different decisions. Yeah, change
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: the environment, you know, Yeah, that's right. I mean think
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: about like, most people don't have any idea what source
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: of energy they use. They don't know if it comes
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: from coal or gas, or wind or solar. But if
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 2: you create a situation where your energy for renewables costs
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 2: less than energy from fossil fuels, lots of people or
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: the company, the power companies themselves will just switch to that,
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: and people will just go for that option.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: It's not that different than the idea that if you
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: grew up in Amsterdam, you're probably going to ride your
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: bike around all over the place. That's what they do there,
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean, as opposed to living out
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: here in the middle of the country where that would
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: be not feasible, like you know, just updating the environment.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: And you know, that's a good point. The idea that
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: this is supplanting outdated tech, you know, back to the
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: harpoon example, that we're going to look back on this
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: and consider past practices as barbaric. But we're in the
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: you know, we're in the midst of this shift, and
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: with that comes resistance because there's always resistance, right, and
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: the idea that this is going to be literally replacing
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: something that is part and parcel of our history, like
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: farming is America the heart point, Like what does that
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: say about who we are as a country and this
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: kind of you know, pastoral perspective we have on that
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: occupation and all the people that are involved in that.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that we've had a situation in the
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 2: country where the number of people involved in farming has
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 2: declined basically every year for the most part, because it's
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: just consolidating and consolidating. Yeah, food production has gone a
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 2: lot more efficient. You need far fewer people to grow
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 2: the food. That's just the reality of it. And clean
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: meat will make it even more efficient. You still have
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: to farm, I mean, you still need farmed ingredients to
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 2: feed the cells, but you need fewer.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: It's one of the big benefits is that it's less recent.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: Are you feeding them well right now? It is like
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: a cocktail of various plant based ingredients and sometimes even
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 2: animal based ingredients that would never be used in the
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: commercial sense because both for ethical and financial reasons.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: It's just really expensive. But we've been culturing cells.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 2: For over a century and a lot of the time
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: they're cultured with animal ingredients. So many of the companies
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: have already moved beyond that. In fact, the companies are
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: doing egg whites and milk and leather and gelatin aren't
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 2: doing that at all. But the other companies are basically
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 2: trying to find plant based ingredients that are really cheap
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: that will help the cells grow. And that's the real
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 2: race is to figure out what are the best plant
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: based nutrients for these cells that causes them to grow
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 2: quickly and cheaply.
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: Right, So there will be farming for that, and perhaps
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: the farming that exists can go towards feeding humans as
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: opposed to feeding livestock. Yeah, and a lot of it.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 2: The land will hopefully be rewilded, so you could have
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 2: a return to forests or to wetlands or other types
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: of conservation purposes that you can capture carbon from the
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 2: atmosphere in the way that these lands did prior to deforestation.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 2: On that note, right now, there's an interesting movement afoot.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: I think it's called the ethical omnivore movement, and perhaps
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 2: it's an outgrowth of the paleo movement. But the idea
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 2: behind it, as I understand it, and you probably know more,
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 2: is that as opposed to kind of the conspiracy what
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 2: the health approach of look, we need to just transcend
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 2: animal agriculture because it's destroying the planet. It's this argument
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 2: that actually the way forward is to conceptualize new ways
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 2: of raising animals for food in a way that is
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 2: actually improving the planet.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't know if I got that right, but
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: maybe you can speak to this a little bit because
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of people who are interested in this
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: as a counterpoint to conspiracy. For example, what is your
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: sense of the truth behind this. Well, let's just keep
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: it real.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 2: More than probably about ninety nine percent of farm animals
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 2: in our country don't go outside. I mean, they're in
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 2: factory farms. They don't see the sudden light, they don't
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 2: step foot in a void of grass. The first time
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 2: they smell fresh airs when they're in the back of
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 2: a truck to slaughter. And clean meat is the antidote
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 2: to that type of meat. To the extent that we
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 2: give farm animals better lives and let them live outdoors
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 2: and a type of what you're referring to as regenerative agriculture,
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 2: I think it's a big step in the right direction.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 2: I would welcome animals being treated better, no doubt about it.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 2: I don't think that that's a competitor of clean meat,
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: and I just think that there are certain limitations to that.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: Just scaling it up, You're not gonna have nine billion
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 2: animals all walking around on aster. You just don't have
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 2: enough land to write.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: My big yeah, my big question is like if we
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: do hit ten billion people or at seven point five
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: wherever we are right now, is it Is it even
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: a possibility that you can achieve that?
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think that you can scale it up
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 2: to the point where you could have current levels of
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 2: meat consumption being adopted. And the proponents of regenda of
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 2: agriculture usually would say, yeah, we already eat less meat,
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 2: which is great. However, my own experience is that many
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: of the people who like this idea in theory are
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 2: still just eating meat, you know, just conventional meat, and
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 2: so do they say that somebody is only eating that
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 2: type of meat. Of course, I think that's a better
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 2: option than what most people do, but I don't think
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 2: that it enables the trends that we see continuing in China, India,
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 2: Brazil and so on. We're meat consumption is skyrocketing. I
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 2: don't think that you satiate that demand for meat without
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: factory farms, or with something like plant based meats or
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 2: queen meats or some combination thereof.
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: What about the ethical conundrum, or perhaps it's more accurately
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: described as a thought experiment, the idea that, as things
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: currently stand, we have all of these billions of animals
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: walking around. If we fast forward to a time where
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: clean meat is what everybody's doing and we've reduced these animals.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: Have we deprived these animals the right to a life.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: It's a serious argument. I mean, there's an interesting question.
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: I don't know there's an answer to it, but it's
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: interesting to kind of think about that. Like, Okay, as
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: bad as the system is right now, we're providing lives
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: to these animals. If we create a system that's more
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: ethically balanced, is it better to have those animals have
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: a life that then gets ended as opposed to them
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: not having a life at all.
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 2: Well, I certainly would prefer for them to have lives
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 2: that are not miserable, which is what they have for
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 2: the most part.
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: Now.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: At the same time, we have to remember that these
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 2: animals don't live in a vacuum. Every domesticated animal like
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 2: a chicken or a pig or a cow, displaces wildlife.
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 2: Feed is raised, is grown for them to feed them
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 2: that was once wild land. And if you want more wild,
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 2: free living animals and fewer owned animals who are raising
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 2: for food, then that's not necessarily the right trade off. If, however,
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 2: you want more farm animals who have good lives, and
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 2: you want them to displace wild animals. Then yeah, actually
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 2: that would be your solution. You would want something like
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 2: pasture based systems where excuse me, where farm animals are
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 2: outdoors and you don't have a lot of wildlife space around,
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 2: but you have farmed animals there. And you know, it
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 2: just depends on whether you want more wild animals or
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 2: you want more domesticated animals.
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, that's interesting.
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 2: I will say I'm not persuaded by the argument that
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 2: we're depriving anybody from coming into existence. I mean, you know,
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 2: think about it, like, so you have four kids, presumab
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 2: you could have had a fifth, Like, did you commit
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 2: some more?
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: None?
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 2: Right, I mean, did you commit some more?
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: I really wanted to be.
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 2: More sustainable, right, I would have had no children. Well
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 2: that's a separate argument. But let's just say that you
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 2: think that more is merrier, right, So the argument that
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 2: more farm animals have good lives because your kids, I
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 2: presume of great lives.
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: So you know if you have a.
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right, yeah, we'll see what they say about you
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 2: when they're adults. But you know, did you commit some
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 2: moral crime by not having a fifth kid?
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: I don't think so.
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 2: You didn't deprive some you know, potential person. Very few
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 2: people would make that argument that you're somehow obligated to
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 2: multiply as much as you possibly can. As Peter Singer
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 2: spoken to this, Yeah, I think what Peter would say
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 2: is that right now, farm animals don't have lives worth living,
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 2: that their life is a curse to them, that bring
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 2: them into existence is just sentencing them to misery. But
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 2: I don't think Peter would have as much of a
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 2: concern if they had a very good life, were killed
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 2: painlessly and had lives that were overall better than the
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 2: way that wild animals would live, because they are displacing them.
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: But I don't want to speak for him.
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 2: I'd want to ask him that, but at my knowing Peter,
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 2: that's what I said, That's what I think he would.
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: Say, right. Interesting, So Uma Valletti was on the cover.
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: Was it fortune or Ink? Yeah? Ink, founder of Memphis
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: meets a lot of attention like this is part of
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: the public discourse now in a in a very large
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: and prominent way, Like this is happening, right, It's amazing.
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: What would be alive? Yeah, I mean it's I keep
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: thinking like, well, am I going to be old enough
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: to see something you know, like like, yeah, I'll get
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: to see some of this stuff, but like the lives
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: that our kids are going to be, you know that
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: my kids are going to be leading Like I just
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: I can't even imagine it. I don't think that we
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: can conceptualize it. We couldn't have conceptualized the iPhone and
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: seeing Captain Kirk, you know, using the using their version
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: of it. When do you think do you think it's
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: going to be twenty twenty before we're going to be
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: able to have a Memphis meat burger at the grocery
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: store that we can pick up?
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I doubt that it'll be that soon where you're
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 2: just going to have like burgers on the shelves because
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 2: they won't be cost competitive by them most likely. But
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 2: I do think that we're talking about years, not decades,
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 2: and it just as a matter of how much money
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 2: will go into the R and D. The biggest hope
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 2: is that the meat industry will get involved. Cargio's investment
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 2: in Memphis Meats is a really positive sign.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: The fact that these big food companies are they know
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: this is the future. So rather than be like the
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: music industry and cast a blind eye to what's coming,
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: they're investing and they're getting involved. Now yeah, good analogy
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: is the music industry or even the film industry. You know,
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: look at the difference in the way that Canon and
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: Kodak responded to the digital revolution. They're both big.
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 2: Gelatin film manufacturers, and Canon adopted it and Kodak didn't,
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 2: and Kodak went bankrupt, and now Canon is the biggest
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 2: digital camera maker on Earth. And I think that there
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 2: will be meat companies that recognize clean and plant based
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 2: meats as the future, and they will invest in them
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 2: and they will slowly become non animal meat and other
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 2: animal product purveyors, whereas others will stick to the old,
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 2: antiquated model and they will suffer the consequences and they
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 2: will go the way of a whaling ship or of
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 2: gelatine film. I mean, I remember when I was in
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 2: high school, I stand in college. You know, you would
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 2: take your film to like CBS and drop it off
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 2: and come back later to get photo map huts. Yeah right, yeah,
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 2: and you come back later to get your your your
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 2: prints and hope that they came out. Well yeah, I mean,
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's so archaic to think about it, and
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 2: when we when one hour photo became available. We thought
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 2: it was amazing, like one hour, Oh my god. And
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 2: now I mean imagine if you had to wait one minute,
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 2: I mean you would be outraged, right.
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's like you'd be throwing your iPhone into the
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: you know, into the toilet, right exactly if it was
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: making you wait that long. Yeah, It's it's crazy how
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: that how that is, and how we so quickly acclimate
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: to that. Yeah, though, like, I don't think our DNA
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: or our genetic wiring is really suited for the rapidity
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: with which we're undergoing these kinds of changes. Which is
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: a whole different podcast, but and one with n I
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: thought with which I totally agree. Yeah, So, what are
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: the current biggest barriers that these industries are facing, whether
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: it's technological or or legal regulatory.
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 2: You know, they don't face too many regulatory problems yet
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 2: because they're just not getting ready to commercialize yet. The
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 2: biggest barrier is bringing the cost down. They already know
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 2: how to make these products, they just have to make
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 2: them much cheaper. So the first burger that was producing
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 2: twenty thirteen, which have had the funding from Sergey Brand,
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 2: the co founder of Google, that costs three hundred and
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 2: thirty thousand dollars, right, I mean maybe the most expensive
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 2: burger ever consumed. You fast forward just four years and
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 2: Uma Veletti's meatball was a comparative bargain of twelve hundred dollars.
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 2: Now that's still a very expensive dish to have, you know,
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 2: spaghetti with meatballs, where it's a twelve hundred dollars per meatball,
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 2: but it's a huge drop in the cost. And to
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 2: use your iPhone example, I mean, the first iPhone costs
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 2: billions of dollars to produce, and now we're all walking
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 2: around with one in our pocket. In fact, I read
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 2: recently that if ten years ago you would wanted the
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 2: photo editing functions that Instagram has, it would cost over
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 2: two million dollars. Now it's just a free download. So
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 2: everybody who is involved in these companies believes they will
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 2: bring the cost down. They just don't know how they're
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 2: going to do it yet. But they need more money
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 2: for R and D to figure that out. These companies
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 2: are attracting millions or in the case of some tens
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 2: of millions of dollars, but they need more than that.
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 2: I mean, we need a type of like a Manhattan
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 2: project to figure out how to quickly scale these up,
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 2: and there are some companies that are really serious about
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 2: doing just that.
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: Well, there is, there is a bit of a Manhattan project, right,
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: There's a whole chapter in your book, Jake. It is
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: all about this not really a pivot, but a redirective
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: focus that the guys at Hampton Creek are undergoing right now.
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So, Hampton Creek for a long time was just
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 2: known as a plant based food technology company, and now
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 2: they have a queen meat division called Project Jake, named
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 2: after Jake, the sadly late dog. But Josh Tetric, the
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 2: CEO and co founder of Hampton Creek, really envisions queen
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 2: meat as a major part of the company's future, not
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 2: just a plant based food maker with a queen meat division,
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 2: but really a queen meat company. That's a huge change
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 2: from even just a couple of years ago. Definitely, definitely.
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 2: I mean they became famous for making plant based mayo
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 2: and soaddressing and.
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: Now a big Unilever lawsuit. Yeah, yeahsco. Well, there's been
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: a lot of interesting changes over there, wasn't There some
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: big board shake up and Josh got rid of everyone.
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, you probably know more about that than Ideo.
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: I just remember reading something about some significant executive cheff
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: happening there. They did have such a shuffle.
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 2: And the company seems to be doing pretty well now.
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 2: They just released their new just Scramble, which I actually
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 2: ate in San Francisco yesterday at a restaurant. It was
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 2: really excellent tastes just like scrambled eggs. And they have
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 2: new board members and new executives, and I think the
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 2: company is on the right track. But they have had
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 2: some bad media attention that has shined a light in
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 2: a way on them that most companies I don't think
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 2: generally are treated with. I think a lot of companies
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 2: that aren't so in the spotlight just they don't they're
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 2: not subjected to that type of media scrutiny. Because Hampton
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 2: Creek has been so successful, I mean, it was founded
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 2: in twenty eleven and it already has evaluation today of
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 2: over a billion dollars, and because people like Josh Tetric
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 2: are so high profile there, there's been more media scrutiny
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 2: on them than on other startups which maybe have similar
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 2: problems in the startup life, but just escape media scrutiny.
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: So they're making huge push, huge investment into clean meat.
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so Josh Chatrick basically decided that you look at
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 2: the Unilever lawsuit and it was all over whether you
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 2: can call this product mayonnaise or not. They're calling it
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 2: just mayo, and you know, whether you can call it mayonnaise,
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 2: and if you can't call it even mayo, it's very
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 2: difficult if you have to do what Unuver had wanted,
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 2: which for them to call it like a spread or
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 2: a dressing. You know, that's not what people are buying.
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 2: They're buying mayo. And the same is so there are
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 2: standards of identity for these other.
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: Products like chicken.
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 2: So if you look at what all of the plant
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 2: based meat purveyors making chicken call it, it's never chicken.
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: It's like some weird bastardization of the word.
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like chick apostrophe in there's like chicken with
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 2: an I instead of an E. There's always something like chicken, free, chicken,
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 2: all these words that they have to use because they're
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 2: not legally allowed to call it chicken, and that creates
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 2: a barrier in the mind. This is the same reason
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 2: why the dairy industry doesn't want the plant based milk
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 2: companies to call it milk.
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: Because same thing with cheese.
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 2: That's exactly right. If you make cheese from nuts like
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 2: Julie's cookbook, they don't want you to call that cheese.
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 2: They want to call it a nutspread. You think of
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 2: something more repulsive than nutspread. So the dairy industry, well,
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 2: nut cheese, it sounds so good either. Yeah, they need
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 2: better marketing in that field. Yeah, But with queen meat,
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 2: the hope is that you will be able just to
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 2: call it meat. It is meat differentiate that's exactly right.
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 2: It is real, actual meat. And that's what Josh's theory
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 2: is that plant based chicken could do a lot. It
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 2: could take over a large portion of the market. Hopefully
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 2: right now it's a manuscule portion, but hopefully it could
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 2: go to a large portion. But unless you can actually
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 2: call it chicken, there does seem to be some type
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 2: of a natural limitation as to how much consumer acceptance
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 2: you have. The other interesting thing about Hampton Creek, and
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 2: this is in your book, is is akin to the
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 2: way that Elon Musk has sort of approached his technological
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 2: breakthroughs with battery, He's in the sense that he's making
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 2: this information available. Hampton Creek is saying, look, we're going
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 2: to crack the code on this clean meat stuff and
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 2: then we'll just license you how to do it, like
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 2: we want everybody to do it, rather than protecting that
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 2: IP and locking it down and trying to control the market. Yeah,
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 2: that's exactly right. Josh Tetric has zero interest in being
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 2: the only clean meat purveyor. He wants to help really
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 2: solve this problem of factory farming, and so their goal
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 2: is to become a licenser of clean meat technologies to
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 2: big meat companies rather than just being a clean meat
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 2: producer themselves. And I think that goal is shared by
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 2: a lot of other people in this space too, because
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 2: nearly everybody who's involved as an entrepreneur in this sure
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 2: they want to make money, but their goal is to
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 2: solve a problem. It's to get into the game and
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 2: provide an alternative that renders the current system of animal
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 2: agriculture obsolete so that we can move beyond these problems
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 2: that are plaguing humanity in the I mean, right now,
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 2: we're sitting just miles away from raging wildfires that are
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 2: almost certainly, if not caused by exacerbated by climate change.
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 2: And we all know always listeners with this podcast. Probably know,
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 2: animal agriculture is a leading cause of climate change, a
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 2: leading cause of greenhouse gas emissions. And at what point
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 2: do we say we need an alternative. We cannot just
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 2: rely on people just to do the right thing because
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 2: it's the right thing. I wish that we did that,
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 2: but sadly we're humans, and humans are very fallible, certainly
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 2: myself included. And if we don't have an alternative that
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 2: is convenient, that is better than the current system, that
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 2: is cost competitive with it, I don't see how we win.
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, on the greenhouse gas emissions, just so we're super clear,
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: it's something like fifteen percent attributable to animal agriculture, more
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: than the transportation sector combined. And you do a great
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: job in the book of kind of ca emvassing all
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: of the environmental implications and all of the resources that
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: need to be marshaled to create these animal products, especially water, right, Like,
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: what is it with you even broke it down by
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: egg whites. I think how much water is required to
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: just create an egg? Yeah?
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 2: Well, first, dude, I'm honored that you read the book
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 2: so closely. I can tell from the interview that you
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 2: really read it. You know, sometimes you do an interview
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 2: and people they really haven't. So my hat is off
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 2: to you. I'm grateful. But second, yeah, I mean it
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 2: takes about fifty gallons of water to produce one egg.
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 2: Just one egg, fifty gallons of water. Think about that.
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 2: I mean, think about if you were, for example, to
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 2: every time that you ate one egg, you had to
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 2: open up fifty one gallon jugs of water and dump
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 2: them out on the ground first.
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: Nobody would ever do that.
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that is what that is what it takes.
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 2: And you know, it's important to mean Matt, like Bruce has.
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: This example that you have in the book too, Like
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: if you're going to eat a p a plate of pasta,
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: you throw out nine plates of pasta, you know, and
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: that that kind of is a, you know, a demonstrative
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 1: way of showing you how much how much has to
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: go into these products to create them, and how much
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: waste and buy products there are.
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, huge amounts. I mean water is just one of
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 2: the inputs. But feed land, oil, I mean, it goes
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 2: on and on and on. It's such an inefficient way
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 2: to produce protein for us, and we need a better alternative.
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: So are you going to be a consumer of these products.
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 2: Ah, I don't know. I mean I don't have a
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 2: great desire myself to eat it.
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: Honestly.
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 2: I ate it for the book, I think, and I
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 2: kind of thought it was cool too, Like I thought
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 2: like it would be an interesting story, But I don't
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 2: you couldn't write the book without trying it. Yeah, I agree,
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 2: I totally agree with you. But I don't have a
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 2: big desire to eat meat. So I do like plant
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 2: based meats, but I don't eat them that often. And
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 2: I like eating them if somebody offers me some eat
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 2: it if it's a howiday.
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: But I don't like go to.
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 2: The supermarket and just buy them on a regular basis
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 2: because I just don't have a big desire to eat meat.
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm with you, Like it's I'll have a Beyond
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: Burger every once in a while, like if we're at
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: Veggie Grill or something like that with the kids. But
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: I'm like past it, Like I'm not the consumer. I'm
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: not the market yeah for this product. But I recognize
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: that there's a massive market and a massive need for this.
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: I'm just not going to be the person who's going
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: to be lining up to eat it. Yeah.
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 2: Well, interestingly enough, the consumer surveys show that there is
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 2: an inverse relationship between how much meat you eat now
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 2: and whether you're interested in eating clean meat. So the
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 2: west meat you eat now, the west interest you have
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 2: in eating clean meat. The more meat you eat now,
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 2: the more interest you have. And so what is that about.
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: It just shows vegetarians don't want to eat meat.
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's not that radical of a notion, but
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 2: I mean I find that even vegetarians tend to be
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 2: really thrilled about products like Beyond meat and so on.
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 2: I mean, I was at the giving a talk at
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 2: the Kansas City Vegfest recently, and you know, this is
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 2: a vegetarian festival, and the longest line was for the
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 2: Beyond burgers. You know, like even coming there, people are
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 2: I'm getting keen one and lentils, They're They're getting Beyond burgers.
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 2: But for the most part, I think vegetarians are not
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 2: that thrilled about the idea of eating actual animal meat,
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 2: and so they're not the target. You and I are
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 2: not the target for the clean meat companies. The shoppers
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 2: who are buying conventional meat from fast food companies and
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 2: from big box grocers, those are the target.
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I actually have tried the Impossible burger now three times,
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: and all three times I was like, this is not
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: for me. Freaked me out, Like I didn't like it.
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: It was just it just it was weird. Yeah, And
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: and God blessed them, Like I'm glad that company exists
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: and the good in the world, and I'm you know,
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: I'm hopeful and that you know, a lot of people
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: will discover and love their products and switch accordingly. But like, yeah,
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 1: I was like, nah.
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 2: I think I like the idea of being able to
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 2: walk into a restaurant and order a burger as if
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 2: I were like a normal person.
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: Well, from a social perspective, that's a big deal.
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 2: Like when Ben and Jerry's came out with vegan ice cream.
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 2: There's plenty of vegan ice creams on the market, but
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 2: the idea of being able to just go to a safe
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 2: way and buy Ben and Jerry's, it was a very
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 2: attractive idea to me because I could feel like I
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 2: was just like a normal person rather than this vegan
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 2: who doesn't eat most of the things that you find
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 2: in there. So I like it for that reason for myself,
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 2: But I wouldn't really care if I never ate it.
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 2: Again honestly, so.
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: What's the biggest takeaway that you want people to have
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: from this book.
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 2: This is a nascent industry, this field of cellular agriculture
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 2: that has the potential to address many of the most
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 2: pressing sustainability problems that we face as a species.
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: We ought to.
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 2: Welcome it with open arms. We ought to encourage it,
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 2: we ought to tout it, and we ought to encourage
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 2: those who have the capital to invest in it to
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 2: help bring it to commercial reality. It's still too early
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 2: to predict what's going to happen with the clean meat industry,
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 2: but it's one of the most hopeful solutions we have
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 2: to one of the worst problems that we are enduring.
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 2: And so my hope is that anyone who is concerned
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 2: about addressing climate change or animal cruelty, or environmental degradation
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 2: or food safety problems, we'll look at this with an
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 2: open mind and think this is a cool, promising solution
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 2: that deserves my support. Beyond your book, where are the
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 2: other places people can go to learn more about clean
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 2: meat and these issues. So clean meat dot com is
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 2: the website with lots of information about it where you
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 2: can not only see more about the book, but you
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 2: can also if you're interested in working for one of
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 2: these companies, they all have lots of job openings right
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 2: you put the job postings. Yeah, I saw that for
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 2: all the companies on on that website. Dozens of job
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 2: openings right now in this field. You can learn a
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 2: lot more also at clean meat dot org, which is
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 2: the Good Food Institute's website about clean meat. So there's
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 2: clean meat dot com and clean meat dot org, both
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 2: of which are great websites. And I would encourage folks
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 2: to not only read the book, of course by copies
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 2: for all your friends and your family, but to when
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 2: you're engaging with people on social media, because it's gonna
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 2: be a lot more news attention on this as these
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 2: companies get closer and closer to commercialization. To get active
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 2: in the conversation. A lot of people have what you
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 2: are calling the ick factor, and they think just instinctially, oh,
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 2: that's griss. But when they start considering just how unnatural
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 2: current meat production is, all of a sudden, clean meats
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 2: it's like a much naturally preferable option. And when we
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 2: talk about it in those type of terms, I think
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 2: it opens people's eyes and their hearts up to these
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 2: products in a way that it doesn't otherwise. Yeah, I
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 2: think education will solve that. I mean, I think that
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 2: the biggest thing is, you know, we're kind of in
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 2: the in the midst of this debate or discourse around
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 2: the implications of GMOs in our plant foods, right that
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 2: kind of what doesn't get discussed is the fact that
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 2: we're eating meat that has been eating all of those GMOs.
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 2: But at the same time, like, that's an important conversation
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 2: to have, and I don't know that we really have
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 2: the answers that we need at this point. So, like
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 2: I said earlier, I think it is good to be
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 2: asking these questions about the implications.
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: Of these new products on human health. But from what
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: I understand reading your book and the more research that
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: I do into this, I'm more and more comfortable with
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: the idea of it.
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 2: That's cool. And I think that if you look at GMOs,
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 2: they were introduced into the market in a quiet way
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 2: where they just took over the food supply and people
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 2: didn't really think nobody goes out and buys gmocorn, they
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 2: just buy corn because it became all of the corn basically,
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 2: And the reality is that the companies involved in the
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 2: clean meat world don't want that. They don't want to
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 2: go stealth under the radar. They are into radical transparency.
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 2: They want people to know how they are producing their foods.
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 2: They're putting videos of their production processes up, they want
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 2: to have public tours of their facilities. They're basically taking
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 2: the exact opposite tactics as the GMO purveyors did when
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 2: they started introducing these products a couple decades ago. And
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 2: I think that type of radical transparency will go a
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 2: long way and showing that there's nothing to hide. I mean,
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 2: if anything, what's to hide is the current way of producing.
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: Meat, not the new way. Yeah.
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 2: And I think that millennials and the generation beneath that
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 2: these these are people that demand that kind of transparency.
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: They expect it, you know. And the idea that a
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: company is not going to be telling you exactly how
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: things are being done, it just doesn't work anymore, you know.
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 1: And so I think that's really.
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 2: Cool that that is that sort of industry wide, all
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 2: of these companies agree that that's the path forward.
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, unanimous agreement. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, all right, man,
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: Well we got to lock this down. But the book
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: is clean meat, and it doesn't look like this binder clips.
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 2: Job.
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 1: It's a really nice cover on it.
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 2: It's available at bookstores everywhere, and.
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: It's a it's a gift to humanity. Man. I really
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: enjoy reading it, and I think it does a fantastic
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 1: job of explaining exactly what's going on in a way
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: where people can really not only understand all the sort
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: of intricacies and aspects of what this is about, like
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: you track the history of how it came into being,
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: and we get to learn these personalities behind these companies
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 1: and these scientists, and you know, I think it's going
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: to really serve people in this acclamation process, which is cool.
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 2: I appreciate it, man, It's a real honor to be
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 2: on the show with you, as you know. But I
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 2: wanted to declare to all listeners when I read Finding Ultra,
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 2: I had never thought of myself as being capable of
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 2: doing something like a marathon. I always thought that was
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 2: for other people. And when I read it, I declared
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 2: to my friends and my family after reading it, I
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 2: was like, you know, if rich Roll could do this
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 2: at age forty, you know, I was in my thirties,
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 2: I can run a marathon too. Now I wasn't doing
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 2: Iron Men or anything like that, but I thought it
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 2: was for me. It felt like the equivalent to thereof
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 2: And I went out and did run the Marine Corps
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 2: Marathon and it was The causal relationship was very direct
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 2: from reading Finding Ultra to that.
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 1: So I'm grateful for you. Thanks man, Well you do
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: the work. But that's very cool to hear. I had
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: a good fortune of meeting your parents too. Yeah, pretty
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: proud of you. First mad in Washington at the DC
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: bedge Fest a couple of years ago. Yeah.
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 2: They were psyched to meet you, especially my father. You
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 2: were a big celebrity to him, and he was. He
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 2: was adamant about making sure that you knew that he
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 2: ran the Marine Corps Marathon in nineteen eighty three faster
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 2: than I ran it in twenty thirteen.
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: He made that point abundantly clear. How is it running going?
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 1: Are you still running?
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 2: I'm running shorter distances because I wanted to put on
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 2: more muscle mass, so I did a I looko Buck.
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 2: I appreciate that, man, Thank you.
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: I did.
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 2: I did run a five k recently. I was psyched
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 2: that I was able to keep it under seven minutes.
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 2: I finished in a six fifty six average pace. So
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 2: for me that was pretty good. Good. It's only for
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 2: a five K, but I'll take it nice.
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: And what else is going on with you here in California?
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 2: Well, one, my girlfriend, Tony Okamoto lives here, so I'm
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 2: very grateful to be out here to be able to
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 2: hang out with Tony.
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: Are you coming out here all the time? I'm out
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 1: here quite often. Yeah, Like call me next time.
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 2: All right, man, just on living that way, But I
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 2: would love you know, it's on my bucket list to
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 2: go running with you.
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 1: Well, we can do it next time. Okay, I'm in
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: so you know.
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 2: I'm also though, in addition to having the personal interest
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 2: of being out here, there's a ballot initiative that would
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 2: improve conditions for farm animals that keeps me out here
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 2: pretty frequently as well.
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 1: Cool now, and are you doing any like talks or
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 1: are there any if people want to come out and
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: hear you talk about this stuff, or you have any
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: events coming up or anything like that.
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 2: There are some book related events that I'm doing and
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 2: they'll be on clean meat dot Com and people can
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 2: go check that out and get the details on them.
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I'll put up in the show links you know,
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 1: some of your your past appearances. Oh cool, thank you,
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: and the two hundred thousand to talk that you give
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: it given.
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 2: So these are these are ted x talks. Okay, ted
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 2: I did four of them in a period of two months,
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 2: which really dramatically reduced the welfare of my clothes.
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: I try to circle it. I only could find I
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: found Sun Valley, and I found I found South Lake Tahoe.
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so they're not online yet because they were all
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 2: recent and they are just two of them are just
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 2: getting online right now. But I loved doing them, and
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 2: they're all on different topics.
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 1: They're come up with like a new top like rehearse
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 1: it and get it done, and execute.
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 2: By by torturing my quest friends by forcing them to
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 2: listen to me create these materials. But yeah, one of
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 2: them is on the abuse of power that humans have
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 2: over other animals. Another one is on clean meat, another
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 2: one is on what future generations will think about our
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 2: treatment of animals, and then the final one, which is
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 2: I think one of the most crazy ones is whether
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 2: we're doing more to protect aliens on other planets than
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 2: we are animals on our planet. So you know, you
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 2: think about it like we take great precautions to avoid
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 2: contaminating other celestial bodies. We bake our equipment and all
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 2: types of really serious, expensive precautions because we don't want
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 2: to cause some type of extinction event on Mars or
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 2: elsewhere in the same way that for example, European colonists
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 2: did in the Americas.
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: And we don't seem to.
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 2: Be that concerned about preventing extinctions here on Earth. We
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 2: don't even know that these aliens exist up there. They
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 2: maybe don't, but we seem pretty concerned about it. So
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 2: that's the fourth line. Maybe we should start here. Yeah,
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 2: I mean I'm all forward that taking the precautions elsewhere.
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 1: I think it's very noble.
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 2: I just would use that mentality here on Earth as well. Yeah,
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 2: this idea that we're just well this is disposable, like
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 2: we got to find a new place now, let's just
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 2: like burn it down.
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd get to Mars as quickly as possible. That's
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well there is the question of you know, is
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 2: the Solar system better off with us on Mars. I
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 2: don't know, we haven't done that great.
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 1: Of a job, right, Yeah, our track record would indicate
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 1: that the Earth would be much better off without us.
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 1: So maybe the biggest extinction event of humankind might be
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 1: in the best interest of the galaxy.
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's hard to tell. The optimism of
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 2: certain people like Elon Musk is that, yeah, we have
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 2: a bad track record, but if you look at the future,
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 2: that maybe we're going to be able to abolish suffering
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 2: and be able to create these intensely blissful beings through
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 2: AI and so on. And so if you accept those premises,
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 2: you can see how you might be able to say, oh,
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 2: all of this past suffering we've caused has been worth
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 2: it because it sets up for this great utopian heaven
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 2: in the future. I don't know so much about that,
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 2: but human nature is still human nature, though, But I
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 2: appreciate his optimism.
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 1: And things are getting crazy, that's for sure. Yeah, you
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 1: better weave it. So all right, cool man, We got
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 1: to jump here. But people can find you multiple places
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: on the internet clean meat dot com, clean meat dot org,
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 1: at Paul H. Shapiro on Twitter.
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 2: Thank you for your website is just Paul Shapiro dot com,
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 2: Paul dash Shapiro dot com. But you just go to
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 2: Queen meat dot com. You'll get everything there there you go. Cool.
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 1: Thanks Rich, Thanks so much. It's awesome to talk with you. You
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 1: want to take me out, and you want to take
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 1: us out. You know what I say at the end
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: of these things, listen to the podcast at one point
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 1: five speed.
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 2: I do listen at one point five speeds, So doing
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 2: the interview with you, I had to make sure I'm
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 2: talking at one point oh speed because I listened to
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 2: you at one point five. But there's always ads at
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 2: the end, so I am not so inclined always to listen.
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 1: I always end it with saying peace.
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 2: Oh yes, I do know that.
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 3: I say it peace and plants, and plants and clean meat.
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 3: I guess yeah, peace, plants and a future filled with
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 3: breweries of queen meat.
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 1: Right, all right? Cool that the ID