> If cultured protein is going to be even 10 percent of the world’s meat supply by 2030
Why do we need protein from meat? The money to engineer cultivated protein could be directed to educating simple americans on the fact that they're consuming way too much protein already. Most americans consume twice the daily protein they need.[1][2]
Cutting out something you don't actually need rather than inventing lab grown meat is an elegant answer to a complex problem.
It isn't like asking people to be vegan or something extreme like that. Just be aware of what your body actually needs and don't go overboard or be wasteful.
Why would that be some kind of controversial message or idea?
Inventing lab grown meat is a good way to make the problems of scaling the raw inputs for custom grown human organs to be sufficiently cheap that everyone can have them.
Building a factory to make aluminium foil is extremely expensive if that's all you're trying to do: it's a lot cheaper if there's already a global mining industry producing aluminium in many near-finished states.
I loathe the idea that everyone getting replacement organs is some kind of good thing to be shooting for.
I have a condition where organ replacement is fairly common. I very much wish the world invested more effort in keeping people like me actually healthy rather than celebrating the macabre prospect of giving more of us replacement organs.
So this is a problem space I've thought about a fair amount and I have zero sympathy for an argument for engineering organ replacement for everyone.
You seem unaware of the many and myriad reasons organ transplants are performed. Like you get that by the time doctors are considering it, it's because the alternative is they think you're either (1) going to die soon when it becomes necessary or (2) is necessary right now.
Did you know there are people who survive COVID and wind up in kidney failure from the stress on their body? What's your answer to them? Oh right: hope you can get a kidney and then enjoy life on immunosuppressant drugs.
But you know, go tell those dialysis patients on the waiting list that actually they're not that important.
You seem unaware of the many and myriad reasons organ transplants are performed.
I'm not. I'm just skeptical that putting more time, energy and money into headline grabbing "heroics" actually makes people healthier and I am very concerned that it only turns people like me into guinea pigs for people who want some limelight more than they want (people like) me to experience some kind of reasonable quality of life.
I guess you could say this, but given that the planet is essentially burning it seems like we're getting way ahead of ourselves with this type of "solution" when we could be working on more important problems.