Member-only story
Are You Ready to Eat “Cultivated” Meat?
A revolution in meat production is upon us.
We’ve got a problem.
By 2050, it’s estimated that there will be close to 10 billion people on this planet. That’s 2 billion more people than today. And to feed them all, we’re going to need to raise and slaughter 70%-100% more animals.
At any given moment, there are about 3 times more chickens, cows, pigs, and sheep than people. But, that number pales in comparison to the number of animals we eat. About 50 billion chickens alone are slaughtered for food each year.
So, what’s the problem? After all, we’ve always eaten meat. As a species, we’ve raised and slaughtered animals for thousands of years. What’s so important about right now that makes it worth our time and effort to reconsider our long-standing relationship with meat?
This is a complicated question with a multifaceted answer. Here are some brief considerations:
- Rearing animals to eat is not an efficient method of feeding ourselves. Livestock provides 18% of our daily calories but uses 83% of the total farmland on Earth, largely due to the need to grow crops to feed them.
- We have an ethical obligation to these animals to ensure they’re not living hellish lives. Unfortunately, to meet the growing…
