Can this burger save the planet? : synthetic beef and the dream of an American animal-free diet

Abstract

Sustainable food movements are focused on reducing meat consumption for one simple reason: meat is extremely environmentally costly. This enormous resource use by one industry makes it an appealing target for those looking to reduce American resource use. As a result, many are looking at ways to make livestock more sustainable. And there are two main ways to do so. Clover Food Lab represents one idea: a return to local farming with an emphasis on a plant-based diet. Impossible Foods is the second: using biotechnology to provide a sacrifice free alternative, synthetic beef. These companies aren't solutions in of themselves, but proposals on the way solutions should be implemented. The partnership between these two opposing strategies reveals the promises and pitfalls of trying to reform the American diet and, most importantly, that above all else our food system is unsustainable as it is now.