The Case for Cultivated Meat" (Part 1 of 2: Scaling, Capital, and the

Path to Parity)

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Maureen Ogle spent years tracing how Americans built one of the most productive and destructive food systems on earth. Her book, The Price of Plenty, is a history of meat in America: from colonial abundance to industrial consolidation to the present conundrum of cheap food and its costs. On this episode, Ogle unpacks the political economy of American meat: how the "paradox of plenty" shaped regulation, antitrust failure, and consumer entitlement across two centuries.

We get into the infrastructure that made industrial meat all but inevitable, the public investment that served consolidation far more than smallholders, and what the historical record actually says about whether meaningful change is possible.

History as diagnosis, not nostalgia. You can learn more about Maureen and her book, here https://maureenogle.com/

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Dr. Andrew Stout trained in the lab that created the world's first cultured hamburger. Now, as the first full-time cellular agriculture faculty hire at Tufts University, he's building the next generation of food scientists and rescuing intellectual property from defunct startups to keep the field moving forward. In this episode, Stout and I dig into what it actually takes to design a new food from the cell up, how cellular agriculture is maturing as a scientific discipline, and why building products in today's brutal funding environment is forcing a different kind of creativity. If you think food science is just about what's on your plate, this conversation will change that.

Learn more about Dr. Stout's work at Tufts (link in show notes). https://engineering.tufts.edu/bme/people/faculty/andrew-stout 

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Summary

In this episode of Food Truths, Eric interviews Bruce Friedrich, founder of the Good Food Institute and author of the brand new book, Meat. Eric and Bruce discuss the evolution of meat consumption, the inefficiencies of traditional meat production, and the rise of alternative proteins. They explore the challenges and criticisms faced by the alternative protein industry, the economic and environmental implications of meat consumption, and the future of food production. Bruce talks about his new book (find out more via the link below), emphasizing the need for innovation and the importance of addressing global hunger and sustainability.

Bruce's new book: https://meatbook.org/

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In this live onstage session, Food Truths host Eric Schulze discusses the rapidly changing food business and regulatory environment, including the just-announced (an hour before the panel!) new food pyramid, with a fantastic panel of food experts.

Eric's guests in this session include Juliana Bernalostos-Boy, the Chief Innovation Officer for Ingredion; Dana McCauley, the CEO of the Canadian Food Innovation Network; Brittany Kovacevik, the Managing Director at Culinex; and Carolyn O'Neil, Nutritionist & Host of the Watch What You Eat podcast (on The Spoon Podcast Network).

The panelists discuss the shift in dietary recommendations, the challenges of reformulating products, and the need for clear definitions in food policy. They emphasize the importance of transparency and consumer education in navigating these changes, as well as the potential for innovation in response to new guidelines.

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Did you know the most abundant protein in the world is from plants, not animals? You eat it in ever green leafed plant, but now CEO Ross Milne and his team of New Zealand-based Leaft Foods are bringing this protein, Rubisco, to your plate.

Rubisco is one of the most important proteins to ever exist - it ensures light and CO2 get converted into sugar and releasing that ever-so-important Oxygen for us to breathe.

Ross teaches me about what it took to make Rubisco a food ingredient, its untapped potential, and how he approaches innovation. You can learn more about Ross and Leaft Foods here https://www.leaftfoods.com/. 

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Today's guest is Meenal Lele, CEO and Founder of Hanimune Therapeutics. Meenal joins the show to discuss a complex and frustating issue for many parents and children: food allergies. Food allergies are becoming more frequently diagnosed as we learn how children's genetics, environment, and microbiomes develop in response to foods.

Meenal's food brand, Lil Mixins, is solving this with thoughtful adherence to the latest consensus science on food allergies and how best to approach reducing food allergies in children.

Despite my immunology background, I learned so much from Meenal. You can learn more about Meenal and Lil Mixins here: Hamimune Therapeutics https://www.hanimunetherapeutics.com/,

Lil Mixins https://www.lilmixins.com/, and Meenal https://www.linkedin.com/in/meenallele/

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Today's guest is Naman Tekriwal, Co-Founder and COO of Breer, a Hong Kong-based company that makes beer from excess bread that would be otherwise wasted or thrown away. Naman and his team make the case that delicious food can be made from the stuff we may want to throw away. Naman walks me through how bread is turned into beer, why local specialities make very loyal customers, and how you start a company that treats its customers as shareholders. We also talk about how Naman's journey to Breer and our shared loved for Slavic fermented beverages. You can find more about Naman here and his company here.

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Today's guest is CEO and Co-founder of Prefer, Jake Berber. Jake and his Singapore-based team are working to bring the cost of coffee down by producing authentic coffee that is bean-free. They do this by producing the flavors and aromas of coffee through a state of the art fermentation process, no coffee plant needed.

Why go around the coffee plant altogether? Well, the cost of coffee has exploded, climate change is adding difficulty to producing it, and there is a huge demand for foods that have coffee flavor. So, Jake and his team have developed a new way to produce it. And what makes this so interesting is Jake's view on how to build a food company in such a competitive environment - cleverly building consumer trust on price and quality and not on technology value.

Many neat lessons for any folks building food products using new technologies.

You can learn more about Prefer here [https://www.prefer.coffee/] and Jake here [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakeberber/]

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Today's guest is Professor Charlotte Biltekoff, author, researcher, and lecturer at UC Davis. Dr. Biltekoff focuses on how good food became 'real' in the beginning of the 21st century and how the food industry has responded to increasingly negative public views of processed foods. She has turned her sights on ultra processed foods (UPFs) and the confusion on what they are and are not.

Most important, she unpacks the history of how we got this point, with a large discussion about food science, food scientism, and naturalism. We end up having a discussion about the nature of knowledge and nutrition and how our cultural backgrounds really frame how we think about UPFs and food's goodness overall.

As a scientist and policy maker, I learned so much from Charlotte, and I think you will too.

You can learn more about Charlotte and her work here [https://www.charlottebiltekoff.com/] and you can find links to her book, Real Food, Real Facts, here [https://www.ucpress.edu/books/real-food-real-facts/epub-pdf] and Eating Right in America, here [https://www.amazon.com/Eating-Right-America-Cultural-Politics/dp/0822355590].

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