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[ticking]
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[narrator] Every ten seconds, humans
kill roughly 24,000 animals for food.
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That adds up to 75 billion each year.
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And it's done with a speed and efficiency
previously unimaginable.
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While the global population has
more than doubled in the last 50 years,
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the amount of meat we produce
has more than quadrupled.
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There are now approximately
one billion pigs,
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one billion sheep,
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1.5 billion cows,
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and 23 billion chickens on the planet.
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Raising this many animals
is a marvel of modern technology,
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but it's reaching a breaking point.
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The land, water, and greenhouse gas
emissions involved in meat production
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are rapidly becoming unsustainable.
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The way we eat meat will go down
as a historical anomaly,
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one that began
in the mid-20th century
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and can't continue
for much more of the 21st.
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But demand for meat isn't going away.
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In fact, it's expected to hit
455 million tons by 2050.
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So...
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how will future generations
satisfy their craving for meat?
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[theme song playing]
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[man] Probably food was one of the first
uses to which animals were put.
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[man 2] It is free from disease
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and can be eaten
without fear of contamination.
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[man 3] The skins are dropped
to the fleshing machine.
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[woman] The excessive consumption of meat
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is what makes it
unsustainable for the planet.
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What else they wanna do?
Ban beef altogether?
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We're built to eat plants.
Animals are just a middle man.
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[man] Clean, safe, wholesome,
and truthfully labeled.
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It is a lovely pot roast.
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[narrator] It can be hard for meat eaters
to describe what makes meat taste so good.
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[boy] Like, it tastes... satisfying.
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Um, like, it makes me feel like, uh...
like I'm filled.
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It's really juicy.
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And it's yummy because...
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it's just really juicy.
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You can't compare it to anything,
because it's not the same as anything.
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[narrator] The indescribable sensation
we get from eating meat goes way back.
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This is a 3.4 million-year-old animal bone
found in Ethiopia.
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At the time,
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Australopithecus afarensis
roamed the plains of Eastern Africa.
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These early humans had large flat teeth
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adapted for a diet
of fruits, seeds, and leaves.
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But these cut marks are
the earliest evidence of a new behavior:
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butchering.
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Humans had started to eat meat.
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Three of the great omnivores of the world
are humans, rats, and cockroaches,
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because we're all over the place.
We can always find something to eat.
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[narrator] Meat is packed with calories,
proteins, fats, minerals, and vitamins
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including vitamin B12,
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which is hard to find in nature
outside of animal products.
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It also contains a lot of iron,
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which is crucial to the health
of our red blood cells.
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And while plants have iron,
most of it is a different kind
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that doesn't absorb well into the body.
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The iron in meat is special,
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because it's bound
with a compound called heme,
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and the only major source of heme iron
is animal blood and muscle.
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This influx of protein and nutrients
may be why our bodies changed.
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Smaller stomachs, shorter intestines,
and bigger brains.
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Some believe that hunting meat
is what led our ancestors
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to first develop tools,
complex language, and social structures.
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Meat eating is arguably
what made us human.
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It is natural, I would say,
for humans to like meat.
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It's part of our biology.
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I think humans have always wanted
more meat than they could get.
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[narrator] But 10,000 years ago,
something major happened.
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We learned how
to domesticate animals for food.
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We bred wild oxen into cows,
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wild boars into pigs
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and red junglefowls into chickens.
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It's one of the most important things
in human history:
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the domestication of plants and animals.
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It changed the world.
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[narrator]
Farming led to human settlements.
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Our population started to climb,
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and through selective breeding,
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we kept transforming animals
to fit our desire for more meat.
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And then, starting a century ago,
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modern science enabled us to transform
these animals like never before.
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[man] Farm research has led to
the control of disease,
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improvement of breeds,
advancement of production.
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[man 2] And like big business,
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there's a serious effort
to improve the product.
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[narrator] To understand what that
looks like, consider the chicken.
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Both of these are the same age,
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and this one has been on a diet
which included an antibiotic.
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You notice the difference in size.
It's much larger.
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Whereas the smaller one here
has been on just a normal diet.
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You can see a chicken from 1957
compared to a chicken from 2005.
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Huge chicken breasts,
it's just this monster,
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and it's the exact same age
as this chicken from 1957,
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which looks kind of like a pigeon.
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[narrator] Chickens today grow
four to five times bigger
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thanks to growth-promoting antibiotics,
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vitamins, and selective breeding.
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[Datar] When you look at that chicken,
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you understand that it must be slaughtered
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at five weeks of age
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because the legs can no longer
hold up the mass of its body.
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We've kind of reached biological limits
with what we can do with whole animals.
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[narrator] We're also reaching the limit
of how many farm animals can fit on Earth.
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If the whole world ate as much meat
as these top meat-eating countries,
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every square foot of habitable land
would have to be used to feed people.
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And it still wouldn't be enough space.
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And we're already packing most of those
animals together as tightly as possible.
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According to chicken industry lore,
that's all thanks to this woman,
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Cecile Steele.
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In 1923,
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she placed an order
for 50 hatchling chickens.
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But because of an accidental
extra zero on the order form,
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she wound up with 500.
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Steele decided to keep them.
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So she stuffed them into sheds
and tried to raise them all at once.
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At the time,
people didn't really eat chickens.
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They just used them for eggs.
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But because of that economy of scale,
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Steele was able to sell her chickens
more cheaply.
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The following year,
she expanded from 1,000 to 10,000.
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[man] Want something special
for Sunday dinner?
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Chicken, inspected and graded,
is now thrifty every day.
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Yes, in one generation,
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people of this country have
doubled their consumption of poultry.
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[narrator] Factory farming exploded,
and so did our appetite for chicken
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and every other kind of meat.
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And we invented new ways to eat it.
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The 1930s brought us Spam,
meat in a can.
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In the 1940s, hamburgers took off,
made from slaughterhouse scraps.
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And the 1980s saw the rise
of the chicken nugget.
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Eating animals no longer involved seeing
anything that looked like an animal.
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Animal agribusiness makes it easy for us
to distance ourselves
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from the reality of who we're eating
when we're eating animals.
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Many people are uncomfortable eating meat
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that actually resembles
the animal it once was.
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[narrator] Today, the majority
of farm animals are grown out of sight
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in concentrated feeding lots
like this one.
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The only reason animals don't get sick
from being packed so tightly together
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is that they're fed antibiotics.
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But decades of news reports show
that hasn't always worked.
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An estimated two million Americans are
affected by Salmonella poisoning annually.
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It could happen again.
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Another outbreak of deadly food poisoning
from tainted meat.
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Can't they buy cleaner meat?
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That would be the goal, but there's only
so clean that you can make the meat.
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[in Portuguese] I went to buy meat,
and I was scared to buy it.
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I even smelled the meat,
and I thought the smell was not good.
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[narrator] And antibiotics
don't work on viruses.
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And sometimes,
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those viruses jump
from factory farm animals to humans,
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like mad cow disease,
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and swine flu,
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and bird flu.
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I think people need to wake up
to the idea that... animals--
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[stutters] take a very heavy toll
on our lives in the environment.
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We're about to have ten billion people
living on a space
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that will require us to grow more food
in the next 30 years
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than we've grown in all of human history.
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[narrator] While meat consumption
is now steady in the wealthiest countries,
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it's exploding in emerging economies.
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[Rozin] What's happening is that
[stutters] the 20 percent of the world
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that are high meat eaters
are getting more and more concerned
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about the effect of their meat eating.
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And the 80 percent of the world
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which is concerned with just
getting enough good nutrition
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is um... rising.
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[Specter] As countries get richer,
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and China and India
are the most obvious examples,
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the middle classes tend to eat like we do.
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Meals with meat.
They want lots of protein.
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[narrator] But meat is one of
the least efficient ways to feed people.
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Every 100 grams of plant protein
fed to a cow
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ends up as just four grams of protein
in the resulting beef.
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For calories, it's even less.
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So you have giant swathes of land
in the Midwest, in Brazil, in China
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that's just devoted to feeding animals,
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and it would be nice
if they could be devoted to feeding us.
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[narrator] The problem, of course,
is that we like meat,
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and plants don't taste like meat.
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But what if they could?
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Meat lovers love meat not because it comes
from the cadaver of an animal,
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but in spite of the fact that it comes
from the cadaver of an animal.
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[narrator] This is the Impossible Burger.
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And this is the Beyond Burger.
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They're both plant-based patties
trying to compete with meat.
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[Brown] The key is very simple.
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You have to create...
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meat that is uncompromisingly delicious,
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delivers as much or better protein
and iron and the other nutrients
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that people like from meat,
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performs in the kitchen,
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and is accessible and affordable.
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And if you do those things,
it's game over.
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[narrator] Since the 1980s,
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plant-based meat alternatives mostly used
soybeans and wheat gluten to mimic meat.
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And advertisements,
like this one for Quorn,
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suggested it could replace meat
in consumers' diets,
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but they never claimed
they tasted the same as meat.
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[man] Quorn burgers
are a tasty alternative to meat
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and very healthy.
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And just like other burgers,
you can eat them any way you want to.
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[narrator] Even the people
selling those products
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weren't sure how to advertise the taste.
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[man] It looks like a turkey.
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-It looks like a turkey--
-Will it taste like a turkey?
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It should taste a little like a turkey.
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The psychological barrier is
that most meat lovers expect
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any plant-based replacement for meat
to suck as meat.
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[narrator] And that's still
the biggest challenge for these companies,
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making something
that tastes, smells, and feels like meat.
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By far, the most important scientific
question in the world right now:
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what makes meat delicious?
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[narrator]
It's a lot harder than you might think.
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[Brown] There's not, like,
one beefy flavor aroma molecule.
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[narrator] To figure out the recipe,
food scientists heated up pieces of meat
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and collected air samples
right above them as they cooked.
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[Brown] On the other end of that tube
is a little funnel
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with someone's nose stuck in it.
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And that person, for 45 minutes, is
sitting there, sniffing. You know, like...
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[sniffs]
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[narrator] What they're smelling are
the components of what makes meat meaty.
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[Brown] The molecules that
come out of it smell like
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maple syrup, burnt rubber,
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freshly struck match...
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-dirty diaper,
-[baby coos]
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mint, lilacs,
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sweat, sulfur...
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[narrator] But one of the major things
that gives red meat its distinct flavor?
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It's that special compound
found in animals: heme iron.
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And in 2015, Impossible Foods patented
a way to synthesize heme iron in a lab.
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The result is a new generation
of plant-based alternatives
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that taste, feel, and bleed like meat.
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But while their ingredients look wholesome
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and they have zero cholesterol,
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they have around the same number
of calories as an unseasoned beef patty,
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similar levels of saturated fat,
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00:12:19,530 --> 00:12:22,366
and more than five times as much sodium.
239
00:12:22,450 --> 00:12:24,160
These aren't health foods.
240
00:12:24,243 --> 00:12:25,578
They're burgers.
241
00:12:25,661 --> 00:12:27,580
And investors are betting big on them,
242
00:12:27,663 --> 00:12:29,749
from Bill Gates and Richard Branson
243
00:12:29,832 --> 00:12:31,709
to Jay-Z and Katy Perry,
244
00:12:31,792 --> 00:12:33,878
who even dressed up
as an Impossible Burger
245
00:12:33,961 --> 00:12:35,671
for the Met Gala after-party.
246
00:12:35,755 --> 00:12:38,507
In May 2019, Beyond Meat celebrated
247
00:12:38,591 --> 00:12:41,385
as it became the first meat alternative
company to go public.
248
00:12:41,469 --> 00:12:42,762
And by the end of that day,
249
00:12:42,845 --> 00:12:46,348
the stock price had jumped 163 percent,
250
00:12:46,432 --> 00:12:49,518
something that hadn't happened
since the height of the dot com boom.
251
00:12:49,602 --> 00:12:51,020
The plant-meat movement
252
00:12:51,103 --> 00:12:54,982
has the virtue that it's not asking you
to make a compromise.
253
00:12:55,065 --> 00:12:59,236
It's able to give you the same experience
and you can serve your moral goals.
254
00:12:59,320 --> 00:13:01,363
Now, that's a really good deal...
255
00:13:02,031 --> 00:13:03,199
if you can do it.
256
00:13:04,241 --> 00:13:07,161
[narrator] So if this could be the meat
the next generation is eating,
257
00:13:07,953 --> 00:13:08,996
do they like it?
258
00:13:09,955 --> 00:13:11,540
[woman] Do you like veggie burgers?
259
00:13:12,041 --> 00:13:13,167
They're okay.
260
00:13:13,250 --> 00:13:14,794
Never had a veggie burger.
261
00:13:15,294 --> 00:13:16,962
I don't like vegetables.
262
00:13:22,051 --> 00:13:24,887
This one is munchy. I kind of like it.
263
00:13:28,307 --> 00:13:29,433
You like this one?
264
00:13:31,018 --> 00:13:32,061
I like this one.
265
00:13:32,937 --> 00:13:34,313
It has a good taste.
266
00:13:34,897 --> 00:13:37,566
My favorite would probably be this one.
267
00:13:42,154 --> 00:13:45,366
That one tastes to me like... beef.
268
00:13:45,449 --> 00:13:48,327
I would have never really guessed
that was a veggie burger
269
00:13:48,410 --> 00:13:50,496
because it tasted
just like a real burger.
270
00:13:51,330 --> 00:13:53,165
That does not taste like a hamburger.
271
00:13:55,125 --> 00:13:56,710
[woman] What does it taste like?
272
00:13:58,587 --> 00:13:59,547
Carrots.
273
00:13:59,630 --> 00:14:02,258
I'm so used to eating regular burgers
274
00:14:02,341 --> 00:14:05,427
that it's gonna be kind of hard
to adjust to veggie burgers.
275
00:14:06,136 --> 00:14:09,473
[man] What if I told you
that your favorite burger,
276
00:14:09,557 --> 00:14:10,766
the one in the middle,
277
00:14:11,433 --> 00:14:13,477
is made entirely of plants?
278
00:14:15,145 --> 00:14:16,480
Uh...
279
00:14:16,564 --> 00:14:19,066
I would never eat this thing
in my life again.
280
00:14:20,943 --> 00:14:22,611
[narrator] Changing behavior is hard.
281
00:14:22,695 --> 00:14:25,948
A lot of people just aren't going
to give up meat that easily.
282
00:14:26,031 --> 00:14:30,870
[Joy] We have been so deeply habituated
to eating animal foods
283
00:14:30,953 --> 00:14:35,749
that for many people, we're not just
going to simply lose that craving
284
00:14:35,833 --> 00:14:40,296
because we wake up and recognize
that these foods are problematic.
285
00:14:40,379 --> 00:14:41,213
[cow mooing]
286
00:14:41,297 --> 00:14:43,757
[narrator] So some companies
are trying a different approach:
287
00:14:43,841 --> 00:14:46,677
making animal meat
without killing the animal.
288
00:14:49,930 --> 00:14:52,099
You're looking at chicken cells.
289
00:14:52,683 --> 00:14:53,851
In a few weeks,
290
00:14:53,934 --> 00:14:57,104
they'll be breaded and fried
into a nugget like this one.
291
00:14:57,730 --> 00:15:00,608
But these cells
aren't growing inside of a chicken.
292
00:15:00,691 --> 00:15:03,569
Cultured meat isn't any different
than conventional meat
293
00:15:03,652 --> 00:15:06,864
that we've been eating
for tens of thousands of years.
294
00:15:06,947 --> 00:15:08,616
Uh, it's made from an animal.
295
00:15:08,699 --> 00:15:11,118
The only difference is
you don't need to kill the animal.
296
00:15:11,201 --> 00:15:13,704
The recipe is a pretty easy one.
It's meat.
297
00:15:13,787 --> 00:15:16,457
[narrator]
Actually, the recipe's pretty hard.
298
00:15:16,540 --> 00:15:18,542
There are four main components involved.
299
00:15:19,460 --> 00:15:20,961
The first is a cell culture,
300
00:15:21,045 --> 00:15:24,214
a tiny tissue sample taken
from the body of a live animal.
301
00:15:25,049 --> 00:15:26,550
Then there's the scaffold.
302
00:15:26,634 --> 00:15:30,346
That's the surface that
the replicating muscle cells stick to.
303
00:15:30,429 --> 00:15:33,724
To grow, the cells
also need a growth medium,
304
00:15:33,807 --> 00:15:37,311
the soup that provides proteins,
vitamins, sugars, and hormones
305
00:15:37,394 --> 00:15:39,688
to feed the cells as they grow and divide.
306
00:15:40,356 --> 00:15:42,232
And finally, a bioreactor,
307
00:15:42,316 --> 00:15:46,070
the temperature-controlled environment
that intakes fresh nutrients
308
00:15:46,153 --> 00:15:47,655
and outputs waste.
309
00:15:47,738 --> 00:15:51,408
You can think of it like an artificial
body for the meat to grow in.
310
00:15:51,492 --> 00:15:52,618
In about nine weeks,
311
00:15:52,701 --> 00:15:57,122
this goes from a tiny group of cells
to an edible chunk of meat.
312
00:15:57,957 --> 00:15:59,416
Early research suggests
313
00:15:59,500 --> 00:16:02,628
that this process could use about
half the energy of beef production,
314
00:16:02,711 --> 00:16:04,630
a tiny fraction of the land and water,
315
00:16:04,713 --> 00:16:05,714
and greatly reduce
316
00:16:05,798 --> 00:16:07,424
greenhouse-gas emissions.
317
00:16:07,508 --> 00:16:08,926
But the key question:
318
00:16:09,510 --> 00:16:10,844
does it taste any good?
319
00:16:11,762 --> 00:16:16,600
In 2013, the world got to watch
the first lab-grown meat taste test,
320
00:16:16,684 --> 00:16:18,394
televised on BBC.
321
00:16:18,477 --> 00:16:21,689
They said it kind of tasted like meat.
322
00:16:21,772 --> 00:16:23,774
There's quite some intense taste.
323
00:16:23,857 --> 00:16:25,943
It's close to meat.
324
00:16:26,026 --> 00:16:27,695
It's not that juicy.
325
00:16:28,195 --> 00:16:30,781
[narrator] And another big difference
is that hamburger
326
00:16:30,864 --> 00:16:33,826
cost $330,000 to make,
327
00:16:33,909 --> 00:16:35,452
engineered by this guy,
328
00:16:35,577 --> 00:16:37,830
Dutch pharmacologist Mark Post.
329
00:16:37,913 --> 00:16:41,583
Only six years later,
Post's meat start-up, Mosameat,
330
00:16:41,667 --> 00:16:47,047
says it cut production costs
by 99.997 percent
331
00:16:47,131 --> 00:16:49,174
to just ten dollars a burger.
332
00:16:49,258 --> 00:16:51,552
Right now, dozens
of cell-based meat start-ups
333
00:16:51,635 --> 00:16:53,971
are racing to be the
first ones to go to market
334
00:16:54,054 --> 00:16:56,390
from the Netherlands
to Israel to Singapore,
335
00:16:56,473 --> 00:16:59,685
but none of them
have perfected the recipe... yet.
336
00:16:59,768 --> 00:17:02,938
The first problem is
sourcing the growth medium.
337
00:17:03,022 --> 00:17:06,358
Right now, the liquid used
is fetal bovine serum.
338
00:17:06,442 --> 00:17:08,694
And that's a nicer way of saying
blood taken
339
00:17:08,777 --> 00:17:11,905
from the heart of an unborn cow,
immediately killing it.
340
00:17:12,531 --> 00:17:16,535
Cell-based meat companies are working
toward a plant-based replacement,
341
00:17:16,618 --> 00:17:20,080
but experts aren't sure when
or even if that could happen.
342
00:17:20,622 --> 00:17:22,374
Another problem is structure.
343
00:17:22,458 --> 00:17:26,378
So, ground meat is that hamburger,
that ground chicken nugget,
344
00:17:26,462 --> 00:17:28,213
and the structured meat is that steak
345
00:17:28,297 --> 00:17:31,550
and that nice, fatty piece
of bluefin tuna.
346
00:17:31,633 --> 00:17:34,595
The ground stuff is a lot easier.
The structured stuff is a lot harder.
347
00:17:35,179 --> 00:17:36,847
[narrator]
That requires delivering nutrients
348
00:17:36,930 --> 00:17:39,016
to cells at the center of the meat
349
00:17:39,099 --> 00:17:41,852
like blood vessels do
in an animal's body.
350
00:17:41,935 --> 00:17:45,439
Researchers are experimenting
with different techniques to do that,
351
00:17:45,522 --> 00:17:48,400
like using the vein structure
of a spinach leaf,
352
00:17:48,484 --> 00:17:50,986
but experts think
we're at least a decade away
353
00:17:51,070 --> 00:17:54,531
from pulling off something
that resembles a big juicy steak.
354
00:17:55,240 --> 00:17:57,618
And then there's the yuck factor.
355
00:17:58,452 --> 00:18:00,370
In a 2016 survey,
356
00:18:00,454 --> 00:18:02,581
many Americans said
they weren't interested
357
00:18:02,664 --> 00:18:05,209
in regularly eating meat grown in a lab.
358
00:18:06,126 --> 00:18:07,836
And some people won't even try it.
359
00:18:07,920 --> 00:18:11,340
So you still like the idea of
a piece of meat grown in a lab?
360
00:18:11,423 --> 00:18:14,218
-No, it-- It almost makes me vomit.
-[host laughs]
361
00:18:14,301 --> 00:18:15,636
[man in Italian]
Why not try a new experience?
362
00:18:15,719 --> 00:18:16,929
[man 2] No, no, no.
363
00:18:17,012 --> 00:18:19,264
-If I paid you 200 euros?
-No, not if you paid me.
364
00:18:19,348 --> 00:18:20,808
-1,000 euros?
-No, no.
365
00:18:20,891 --> 00:18:25,771
[in English] It doesn't sound appealing
anyway, man-made test-tube burger. No.
366
00:18:25,854 --> 00:18:29,608
[narrator] A lot of people find the idea
of cell-based meat disgusting,
367
00:18:29,691 --> 00:18:32,736
but a lot of people find
different meats disgusting too.
368
00:18:32,820 --> 00:18:35,030
Disgust is very cultural. It's not innate.
369
00:18:35,114 --> 00:18:38,200
Every culture has selected
some animal things to eat.
370
00:18:38,283 --> 00:18:41,578
There are a lot of cultural differences
in what's disgusting.
371
00:18:42,246 --> 00:18:43,747
[narrator] In many languages,
372
00:18:43,831 --> 00:18:45,833
the names used
to describe different meats
373
00:18:45,916 --> 00:18:47,876
can make eating
those animals easier.
374
00:18:47,960 --> 00:18:52,756
Language can bring us closer to
or disconnect us from a reality.
375
00:18:52,840 --> 00:18:55,634
When we look at the language
that we use around meat,
376
00:18:55,717 --> 00:18:57,469
for example, it's very interesting.
377
00:18:57,553 --> 00:19:02,266
We camouflage
the actual source of the meat.
378
00:19:02,349 --> 00:19:05,769
[Rozin] So we don't say cow.
We say we're eating beef.
379
00:19:05,853 --> 00:19:08,397
And we don't say we're eating pig.
We're eating pork.
380
00:19:08,480 --> 00:19:11,525
When you start thinking about a pig
when you eat a pork chop,
381
00:19:11,608 --> 00:19:13,318
you're on the way to being a vegetarian.
382
00:19:13,735 --> 00:19:16,613
[narrator] And cell-based meat
might just have a naming problem.
383
00:19:16,697 --> 00:19:20,868
Lab-grown, test-tube, and in vitro
don't sound especially appetizing.
384
00:19:20,951 --> 00:19:23,662
That's why these companies
have been fighting for names like
385
00:19:23,745 --> 00:19:27,082
cultured, clean, or cell-based meat.
386
00:19:27,833 --> 00:19:29,918
But some people are fighting back.
387
00:19:30,419 --> 00:19:33,881
In 2018, Missouri became
the first state in the US
388
00:19:33,964 --> 00:19:37,301
to ban food products from being sold
under the name meat
389
00:19:37,384 --> 00:19:39,511
unless they came
from a slaughtered animal,
390
00:19:39,595 --> 00:19:42,097
punishable by up to a year in prison.
391
00:19:42,723 --> 00:19:43,807
That same year,
392
00:19:43,891 --> 00:19:46,727
the European Union proposed
banning meat alternatives
393
00:19:46,810 --> 00:19:49,188
from advertising themselves
with words like
394
00:19:49,271 --> 00:19:51,773
steak, sausage, or burger.
395
00:19:52,441 --> 00:19:54,985
And many people who do
the work of raising farm animals
396
00:19:55,068 --> 00:19:58,614
feel passionately
that cell-based meat isn't the same thing.
397
00:19:58,697 --> 00:20:01,658
Consumers, when I travel,
tell me all the time
398
00:20:01,742 --> 00:20:04,411
that when they purchase product
at the grocery store,
399
00:20:04,494 --> 00:20:06,997
they think of what
we're doing as families,
400
00:20:07,080 --> 00:20:09,082
on the land,
taking care of the land,
401
00:20:09,166 --> 00:20:11,126
taking care of those cattle every day.
402
00:20:11,210 --> 00:20:13,837
They don't think about... um...
403
00:20:13,921 --> 00:20:17,633
somebody putting a group of cells together
and growing a new product.
404
00:20:17,716 --> 00:20:18,800
That's not beef.
405
00:20:19,301 --> 00:20:21,178
[narrator] But today, most of our food
406
00:20:21,261 --> 00:20:23,388
isn't going straight
from the land to the table.
407
00:20:23,972 --> 00:20:27,267
In fact, much of what we eat
started in a lab.
408
00:20:27,935 --> 00:20:29,061
Like anything...
409
00:20:29,436 --> 00:20:31,271
yogurt, cereal...
410
00:20:31,355 --> 00:20:32,189
Gatorade...
411
00:20:32,731 --> 00:20:33,690
applesauce.
412
00:20:34,191 --> 00:20:37,486
All that stuff for commercial use
started off in a lab.
413
00:20:38,153 --> 00:20:40,322
But where something starts
isn't where it ends.
414
00:20:40,405 --> 00:20:43,325
It's not gonna be made in a lab. It's
gonna be made in a manufacturing facility.
415
00:20:43,408 --> 00:20:46,787
[narrator] And the animals we eat
have been engineered over millennia
416
00:20:46,870 --> 00:20:50,540
through selective breeding,
artificial insemination, growth hormones,
417
00:20:50,624 --> 00:20:52,668
24-hour climate-controlled warehouses,
418
00:20:52,751 --> 00:20:55,462
fortified feed, and drugs.
419
00:20:56,338 --> 00:21:00,801
In the US, more than 70 percent
of all antibiotics sold each year
420
00:21:00,884 --> 00:21:02,552
now go to farm animals.
421
00:21:03,220 --> 00:21:07,307
Now, people think
of corn or beef as natural.
422
00:21:07,391 --> 00:21:11,144
They're not natural, of course.
They're highly domesticated products.
423
00:21:11,228 --> 00:21:14,398
An enormous amount of human processing
is going in there.
424
00:21:15,148 --> 00:21:18,860
[narrator] Technology enabled us to eat
animals the way we do today,
425
00:21:18,944 --> 00:21:21,071
and new technology
might be the only thing
426
00:21:21,154 --> 00:21:24,324
that can help us satisfy
our craving for meat in the future.
427
00:21:26,994 --> 00:21:30,664
The reason why we're here today is
because animal products are so awesome.
428
00:21:30,789 --> 00:21:33,417
But they change the surface of our Earth.
429
00:21:33,917 --> 00:21:35,919
It's creating epidemic viruses.
430
00:21:36,003 --> 00:21:38,547
It's threatening how useful
our antibiotics are.
431
00:21:38,630 --> 00:21:41,425
What's going to change the market
is what always changes the market:
432
00:21:41,508 --> 00:21:43,885
money and a product that people like.
433
00:21:44,636 --> 00:21:46,388
This is just the story of technology,
434
00:21:46,471 --> 00:21:49,433
and I know people don't like to think
of food as technology, but it is.
435
00:21:50,058 --> 00:21:53,103
The idea of meat is a lot more...
436
00:21:53,186 --> 00:21:57,399
emotionally fraught
than the idea of a smartphone.
437
00:21:57,816 --> 00:22:00,444
Right? Meat is more
than just a taste of the animal.
438
00:22:00,527 --> 00:22:05,198
Right? Meat is identity, it is culture,
it is the stories we tell ourselves.
439
00:22:05,282 --> 00:22:06,366
[narrator] For decades,
440
00:22:06,450 --> 00:22:09,703
we've dreamed of a future
when we could have meat without animals.
441
00:22:09,786 --> 00:22:12,664
[man in Italian] No head... no wings.
442
00:22:12,748 --> 00:22:14,750
It's all meat!
443
00:22:16,001 --> 00:22:17,294
[machine buzzes]
444
00:22:18,003 --> 00:22:19,046
Oh!
445
00:22:19,129 --> 00:22:21,465
[man in English] We no longer enslave
animals for food purposes.
446
00:22:21,548 --> 00:22:24,634
You've seen something
as fresh and tasty as meat,
447
00:22:24,718 --> 00:22:26,345
but inorganically materialized,
448
00:22:26,428 --> 00:22:28,847
out of patterns
used by our transporters.
449
00:22:29,556 --> 00:22:33,185
[narrator] Back in 1932,
even Winston Churchill predicted...
450
00:22:33,727 --> 00:22:36,563
"We shall escape the absurdity
of growing a whole chicken
451
00:22:36,646 --> 00:22:38,690
in order to eat the breast or wing,
452
00:22:38,774 --> 00:22:42,235
by growing these parts separately
under a suitable medium."
453
00:22:42,319 --> 00:22:44,237
Just think about the modern world.
454
00:22:44,321 --> 00:22:47,741
How we've conquered problems
in water purification.
455
00:22:47,824 --> 00:22:49,743
We have satellites.
456
00:22:49,826 --> 00:22:53,372
Why can't we do this?
And the answer is we probably can.
457
00:22:56,083 --> 00:22:58,085
[theme music playing]