Jul 26, 2022
Karthik Sekar, Ph.D, argues that “other than donating effectively, practicing unabashed, hardline veganism is the most tractable, impactful good we can do. I claim this through the lens of the tipping point phenomenon and counterfactuals: We can measure our good by the area shift of the S-curve, which is massive. I hope the piece adds to your thinking and motivation for a better world!”
Original Post: https://karthiksekar.com/2022/07/22/shifting-to-a-better-world/
Related Episodes:
171: Technical Outrage: Innovating to Reduce Animal Use
170 Fermentation for Alternative Protein Production
322: Universal Meals
De-normalizing eating animals with the Liberation Pledge 314, 311, 100
Karthik’s Interviews on other Podcasts:
Karthik Sekar, Ph.D is the author of After Meat: The Case for an Amazing Meat-Free World.
He is a trained scientist and engineer. He finished his B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of North Carolina, his PhD in Chemical Engineering from Northwestern University, and a postdoctoral position in Systems Biology at ETH Zurich. He currently works on the front lines of the alternative food industry in the San Francisco Bay Area. Please visit www.aftermeatbook.com to learn more.
“The movement away from animal-based foods is already proceeding with tremendous momentum,” says Karthik Sekar, Ph.D. and author of AFTER MEAT (November 16, 2021). According to Dr. Sekar, Burger King and McDonalds have both introduced veggie burgers sourced from well-known, next-generation vegan food companies, Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, and the publication, The Economist, declared 2019 to be the “Year of the Vegan”.
AFTER MEAT explores the technological reasons for moving away from animal products. “Animals are awful technology,” says Dr. Sekar, who supports his opinion by examining how inefficient it is to use cows, for example, to produce steaks, leather, and milk. According to Dr. Sekar, it takes more than a year to grow food to feed animals, and we “waste” more than ninety percent of what we feed the animal to reach the desired result, due to the fundamental physics of cow biology. These are irretrievably terrible metrics. We can do much better with alternative technology such as microbial fermentation, which will also be easier to innovate for taste, nutrition, and other qualities we care about. And all indications are that the future of food will ultimately be tastier, healthier, cheaper, kinder, and better for the environment. This will happen because we won’t use animal products.
100% of the proceeds of AFTER MEAT will be donated to the following charities: The Good Food Institute; Animal Charity Evaluator’s Recommended Charity Fund; Effective Altruism’s Animal Welfare Fund; and Faunalytics.
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