Enjoyed the episode? Want to listen later? Subscribe here, or anywhere you get podcasts:

Well, you can perfectly replicate it. You can do better. … If you are going to go the conventional meat-making way, you are constrained by the biology of the animal. If you want to use plant-based meat … you can do taste tests and find things that people like even more…

Bruce Friedrich

Before the US Civil War, it was easier for the North to morally oppose slavery. Why? Because unlike the South they weren’t profiting much from its existence. The fight for abolition was partly won because many no longer saw themselves as having a selfish stake in its continuation.

Bruce Friedrich, executive director of The Good Food Institute (GFI), thinks the same may be true in the fight against speciesism. 98% of people currently eat meat. But if eating meat stops being part of most people’s daily lives — it should be a lot easier to convince them that farming practices are just as cruel as they look, and that the suffering of these animals really matters.

That’s why GFI is “working with scientists, investors, and entrepreneurs” to create plant-based meat, dairy and eggs as well as clean meat alternatives to animal products. In 2016, Animal Charity Evaluators named GFI one of its recommended charities.

In this interview I’m joined by my colleague Natalie Cargill, and we ask Bruce about:

  • What’s the best meat replacement product out there right now?
  • How effective is meat substitute research for people who want to reduce animal suffering as much as possible?
  • When will we get our hands on clean meat? And why does Bruce call it clean meat, rather than in vitro meat or cultured meat?
  • What are the challenges of producing something structurally identical to meat?
  • Can clean meat be healthier than conventional meat?
  • Do plant-based alternatives have a better shot at success than clean meat?
  • Is there a concern that, even if the product is perfect, people still won’t eat it? Why might that happen?
  • What’s it like being a vegan in a family made up largely of hunters and meat-eaters?
  • What kind of pushback should be expected from the meat industry?

Keiran Harris helped produce today’s episode.

Highlights

There appears to be something in the human either psychology or physiology — I don’t know which, maybe it’s a combination of both — no matter how good plant-based meat gets, our hypothesis is that there are a significant number of human beings who are going to want to eat real meat, and we’ll be thrilled if that’s wrong. If it turns out that clean meat is unsuccessful because either plant-based meat or a whole foods plant-based diet or some combination of the two is so wildly successful, if that’s why clean meat is unsuccessful, nobody will be happier than we are.

30 years ago, about 2% of the population was either vegetarian or vegan. Twenty years ago, about 2% of the population was vegetarian or vegan. Ten years ago, about 2% of the population was vegetarian or vegan. Are you catching a theme? It hasn’t changed in 30 years. So a lot more people claim to be vegetarian or vegan now than claimed to be vegetarian or vegan 20 and 30 years ago. But if you look at the actual numbers, if you look at when you do the polling in the most accurate way and you say, “In the last month, which of these products have you not consumed,” it turns out that about 2% of the population is vegetarian or vegan.

I don’t think there is anybody who supports clean meat who still calls it in vitro or lab grown. And lab grown is just a misnomer. Lab grown is what the media often times likes to call it. It’s somewhat sensationalist. But lab grown is just wrong. At scale, once this stuff is commercialized, it’s not going to be grown in a lab — it’s going to be grown in essentially a meat brewery. That’s what it’s going to look like. So every processed food starts in a food lab but we don’t say lab grown Cheerios, or lab grown whatever else. It isn’t anymore. It started in a food lab, now it’s in a factory. And the factories for clean meat are going to look like breweries, so we’re calling it clean meat and we’re talking about meat breweries.

Related episodes

About the show

The 80,000 Hours Podcast features unusually in-depth conversations about the world's most pressing problems and how you can use your career to solve them. We invite guests pursuing a wide range of career paths — from academics and activists to entrepreneurs and policymakers — to analyse the case for and against working on different issues and which approaches are best for solving them.

The 80,000 Hours Podcast is produced and edited by Keiran Harris. Get in touch with feedback or guest suggestions by emailing [email protected].

What should I listen to first?

We've carefully selected 10 episodes we think it could make sense to listen to first, on a separate podcast feed:

Check out 'Effective Altruism: An Introduction'

Subscribe here, or anywhere you get podcasts:

If you're new, see the podcast homepage for ideas on where to start, or browse our full episode archive.