Over the past century, the average human diet has shifted drastically. And no more so than in the industrialized world.
The foods more and more of us eat have become products of a globalized, industrial machine—a machine that gives us an abundance of calories at astonishingly low prices, all at the cost to the environment, to animals, to people on the other side of the planet, and to our health.
Raising livestock is environmentally problematic. In the US, ten percent of all greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture. In Brazil, deforestation of the Amazon has been driven in part by a desire for cattle-ranching land. Fertilizer and pesticide run-off is dangerous for natural ecosystems, leading to algal blooms and water contamination. And globalization has encouraged the mass shipment of foods across thousands of miles, increasing the energy needed to get products to consumers.
Moreover, animal cruelty and exploitative labour often underpin the cheap prices consumers get at supermarkets. Even the food itself is often less than wholesome: processed foods overflow with fats, salts, and sugars.
It’s clear something has changed.
To solve a problem
Much of the pushback so far has been people altering their dining habits. Indeed, the numbers of vegetarians, vegans, locavores, flexitarians, and so on have all grown in recent years.
It’s about detaching yourself from the modern food system, which does send the message that something is wrong with our industrial food production system.
However, this dietary protest does little to solve the problem at a basic level.
Animal maltreatment still exists. High-calorie, processed foods remain as cheap alternatives to healthier options. Agricultural expansion continues to eat away at natural environments. In short, the industrialized system of food isn’t going anywhere—and it’s still expanding around the world.
At least for now. Increasingly, a revolution in food production technologies has challenged the status quo.
From vertical farming to alternative sources of protein, these nascent technologies are spelling out a potential future for all of us—and our stomachs. There is still much further to go, but these are steps in the right direction.
Why not plants?
For a while now, “dairy-free milk” has found its customer base among vegans, the lactose intolerant, and conscious consumers alike. Whether it be almond, soy, rice, coconut, or some other type, they all provide an alternative to dairy milk, even simulating—to a certain extent—its texture.
A fairly recent—only within the last decade or so—development has applied this same principle to meat. By recombining basic macronutrients found in plants into structures similar to meat, an artificial version can be and has been created.
Brands like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods have expanded meteorically, appearing in grocery stores and fast-food chains.
This all sounds rather neat: the most environmentally-costly foods we eat are, after all, meats. However, plant-based meat substitutes are still in their early stages of widespread consumption.
One reason for this is simple: price. At present, costs are plainly too high for a cash-strapped consumer to choose a plant-based product over the real thing. As the technology becomes more prevalent—less “patented” and exclusive—and economies of scale take hold, this would likely change.
On the other hand, a more pressing issue could be in the actual nutrition of these products. Many plant-based meats are still highly processed and high in sodium, while having less protein per serving. Yet research has also found lower levels of saturated fat.
Whether a Beyond Meat burger is truly that much healthier for you is unclear for now, but it’s important to note one thing: these meat substitutes are constantly changing—and improving.
Growing meat
It’s one thing to create plant-based meat and point to its benefits; it’s an entirely other game to convince meat-eaters to give them a try—or even switch to a plant-based diet entirely.
So how about meat cultured in a laboratory?
The idea sounds strangely novel, yet it’s been around for years: extract a tiny sample of muscle cells from a living animal through a biopsy; allow it to grow in a specialized environment (a bioreactor); and a few weeks later, a piece of meat will have formed. (This is oversimplifying the process.)
The latest biotech startups have utilized this general process and customized it in myriad ways, adjusting protein to fat content, texture, and the final form of the piece of meat. All in all, with some even claiming a close to indistinguishable taste, these lab-grown meats are rather convincing substitutes to real meat.
And that shouldn’t be all that surprising. It is meat, after all—right?
Here is the first barrier we encounter: getting people to eat it. The idea of eating plants isn’t anything strange, but this is, and whether consumers would have scruples over trying meat seemingly out of a science fiction novel is still up in the air.
However, cultured meat has its benefits, one of the most important being the controlled environment in which it is grown. No contaminants or diseases can enter the process, meaning that chicken would never have salmonella, fish meat would never contain any mercury or microplastics, and pathogens would never spread between animals and humans.
Expanding outward
This technology is still in its very early stages, and government regulation reflects that novelty. With only a few small exceptions (for instance, in Singapore), cultured meat has yet to be approved on a large scale for consumers. In fact, even the details of a large-scale production process still need to be flushed out by companies.
Nevertheless, cultured meat arguably represents a promising avenue for the future.
Farming amid an urban landscape
Vertical farming is another technique increasingly found amid the concrete jungles that compose our cities. The point here is twofold: first, keep it local; second, minimize inefficiencies.
These mini-greenhouses can be located on exceedingly small plots of land, stacking layers of plants on each other and maximizing land use. By placing these inside bustling population centres, urban farmers can essentially produce vegetables and fruits locally, needing little energy to transport the produce to the consumer.
These farms often involve a completely controlled environment—temperature, humidity, water, light (from artificial sources)—which allows individuals to alter these conditions to perfectly suit a particular plant.
Detractors of vertical farming, on the other hand, frequently point out the high costs associated with running a completely artificial environment. And they may very well be in the right. It’s difficult to see how far this technology can go. Many places in the world just aren’t dense enough to warrant this type of “compressed farming.”
Do vertical farms look cool? Absolutely. Are they the future? It’s hard to say, but they may only be a small part of future agriculture.
Modern diets in the making
These have been only a few ways systems of food production are shifting today. Yet they only account for a small portion of a broader fight for global sustainability—both in food and elsewhere. How food systems in both developed and developing countries will change in the future is uncertain.
Perhaps future diets will consist more of insects (perhaps to the dismay of many). Maybe meal replacements like Soylent will take a stronger hold. Or perhaps we will see the sci-fi world of food engineers, lab-grown meat, and genetically-engineered foods.
Perhaps this will take another decade or two—or many more years than that.
What is certain, however, is that things are bound to change.