Meat: How the Next Agricultural Revolution Will Transform Humanity’s Favorite Food—and Our Future

Friedrich, founder of the Good Food Institute, debuts with a passionate case for plant-based and cultivated (aka lab-grown) meat. Positing that humans will never choose to eat less meat, yet something must be done to halt the inefficiencies and environmental devastation of farmed protein, he argues that alternative meats are critical for a flourishing future and will quickly gain widespread adoption once they reach taste and price parity with conventional meats. As an early player in the field, he shares the history of alternative meat, highlighting key breakthroughs like Impossible’s plant-based heme, or iron-containing compound, and Good Food’s first cultivated chicken. He points to the benefits of alternative meat, including significantly fewer calories spent on producing them, lower risks of the next pandemic emerging from factory-farmed herds, and the national security of self-sufficient food chains. Countering arguments against alternative meats, he asserts that recent declines in sales of plant-based meat could be related to price, that converting land from conventional farming will open up more than enough crops for alt meats, that funding has not yet reached the necessary levels for mass adoption, and that consumers are more open to cultivated meat than many people claim. He sometimes belabors his points and gets lost in personal anecdotes, but his enthusiasm sharpens his arguments. This packed account makes food science feel like an urgent and essential undertaking. (Feb.)