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Transcriber: Amanda Zhu
Reviewer: Alexis Young
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Today, we write messages
by tapping on glass screens.
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But for thousands of years,
quill pens like this one were the norm.
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The Dead Sea Scrolls, the Magna Carta,
the Declaration of Independence,
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all written with quills
torn from live geese’s bodies.
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Now, until the 19th century,
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the literate world required huge numbers
of geese in order to keep people writing.
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And all of these geese
were subjected to live plucking
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that is not that pleasant.
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And it was very violent, very inhumane,
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and in fact, today’s anti-cruelty
laws would prohibit it.
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Yet, it wasn’t humane sentiment
nor sustainability concerns
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that spared geese
from such an undesirable fate.
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Rather,
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the invention of the metal fountain pen
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was good for the goose
and good for the gander.
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With the new found ability
to write sentences
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uninterrupted by the need to stop
and dip your quill into an inkwell
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and sharpen the quill tip.
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We now have the ability
to continue to write in ways
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that were so much preferable
to the way that we had written before
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that the metal fountain pen
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quickly rendered the quill pen
a relic of an archaic past.
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Today, we face yet another opportunity
to render a distasteful practice obsolete.
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And yet again, today,
it has to do with geese.
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But the problem is much bigger than geese.
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The problem today is that we are using
vast numbers of geese, ducks,
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chickens, turkeys, pigs, cows
and other animals
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who we frankly really like to eat.
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Now, obviously, this is
a big problem for those animals,
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but it’s especially a big problem for us
and an even bigger problem for the planet,
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because the planet
is not getting any bigger.
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Humanity's footprint on the planet
is getting a lot bigger,
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but the planet itself
remains the same size.
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One of the primary ways
we leave that footprint
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is through our food print,
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principally in the amount
of meat that we eat.
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It’s no longer a secret
that it takes a lot of land,
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a lot of water, a lot of energy
and a lot of greenhouse gas emissions
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to raise and slaughter
billions of animals for food
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compared to just eating plants directly.
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Using animals for food is
the number one driver of deforestation,
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the number one driver
of wildlife extinction
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and a whole host of other environmental
crises that we face today.
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As just one example,
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consider the fact that animal agriculture
contributes more greenhouse gas emissions
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than the entirety of
the transportation sector combined.
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Let that sink in.
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Using animals for food contributes
more to greenhouse gas emissions
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than all cars, all trucks, all planes,
all boats and all trains all combined.
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Now, of course, we all know
that it would be better
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for us to enjoy more plant based meals
and eat fewer animals.
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That would be great.
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Unfortunately, that’s not
what’s happening.
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What’s happening is that meat demand
is going up, not down.
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It's going up because, yes, we are
adding more people to the planet,
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which, of course, increases total demand.
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But it’s especially going up
because on a per person basis,
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we are eating more meat today
than we ever have been
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in all of human history prior.
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It would be wonderful
if we wanted to enjoy more lentil soup
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and rice and bean burritos
and hummus wraps.
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These are great foods.
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I wish we would eat more of them,
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but I also wish people
would walk and bike more,
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yet people seem to really want to drive,
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so we need to make cars
that don’t rely on fossil fuels.
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Similarly, people seem
to really want to eat meat,
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so we must find ways to recreate
the meat experience without animals
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just in the same way
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that the metal fountain pen
allowed us to continue writing
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but in a way that was much more efficient
than we had written for millennia prior.
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The task before humanity today
must be to find ways
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to continue to allow ourselves
to enjoy the experience of eating meat,
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but in a way that uses
way less land, way less water,
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way fewer greenhouse gas emissions,
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and of course, in a way
that doesn’t harm animals.
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That is how we can efficiently enjoy
the meat experience.
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Well, good news.
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There are many ways to recreate meat,
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just as there are many ways to get
energy without fossil fuels.
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Think wind, solar, geothermal,
nuclear, and more.
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Well, there's lots of ways to recreate
the meat experience without animals.
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Already, many companies
are turning plant proteins
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into things that look like animal meat
and that taste like animal meat.
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And these are great.
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These plant-based meats
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aren’t fake meat any more
than a metal fountain pen is a fake quill.
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It's just a new way
to enjoy the meat experience.
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But there are some limitations
to using plant proteins,
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mainly because plants and animals
are really far away from one another
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on the tree of life.
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So you need to do a lot to plants
to make them look and taste like animals.
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So some companies, instead,
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are just cultivating actual animal cells
and growing animal meat
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without the animals.
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This field is sometimes referred to
as cultivated meat or clean meat.
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And it is awesome.
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It’s such a cool technology.
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Unfortunately, it is still many years away
from being able to sell this stuff
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on fast food menus
or big box grocery store shelves,
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which is of course the type
of scale that is needed
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in order to make a dent in the problem
that we are trying to solve.
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But there is a third way, and yes,
I am talking about the F word,
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fungi, of course.
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But not just any fungi.
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We’re not talking here about mushrooms.
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We’re talking about microscopic fungi,
sometimes referred to as mycelium,
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that, as you can see here
at a 40x magnification,
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doesn’t look like a mushroom
at all because it’s not.
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Rather, as you can see here,
we’ve dyed the fungi red,
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and what’s been dyed purple
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is actually byproducts
from a French fry processing facility.
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Now, I’ll explain in a minute
why this is so important, but for now,
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just know that the fungi
is eating the potatoes.
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Now, we’ll go back to grade school
biology class for a moment here
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and remind ourselves that, yes, there are
the kingdoms of plant and animal,
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but there's also another kingdom,
the fantastic world of fungi.
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And interestingly enough,
fungi and animals
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are way closer to one another
than either is to plants.
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Interestingly, many cultures
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have been using mushrooms
as a meat alternative for many centuries
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because many species of mushrooms
have a far more meat-like texture
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than do plants that
the plants typically do.
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Now, again, though, we're not
talking about mushrooms.
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We are talking about mycelium,
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the filamental, root-like structure
that carpets much of the earth
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that is made of fungi.
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And fortuitously, there are
many species of fungi
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whose flesh, so to speak,
is already textured like animal flesh,
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and it's packed with protein, zinc,
iron and other nutrients
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that we typically associate
with animal-based meat.
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So we’ll go back to our friendly
fungi that’s magnified 40x.
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And I want to show you
what this looks like,
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why it’s important
if we go a little bit deeper.
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So I’m going to show you
what it looks like at 100x,
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just that you can get a sense
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of what’s actually happening
and why it’s important.
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So, as you can see when you go here,
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what’s happening
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is that we can feed the byproducts
of the agricultural industry,
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like corn, potato and rice,
to microscopic fungi,
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who turns it into mycelium
that on its own,
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in its natural whole food,
unprocessed state
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already has the texture of meat
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and the nutritional qualities of meat
that we are seeking.
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And the result is frankly amazing.
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Let me show you some of the applications
that we can make from this mycelium
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at my startup, the Better Meat Co,
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for example,
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we can make a succulent chicken breast
made from mycelium without the chicken
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or a delicious turkey deli sliced sandwich
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without the turkey,
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or a steak that can satisfy
even the most inveterate carnivore.
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And yes, for our friends
in the geese community
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who are happy to be keeping their quills
because we no longer need them,
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they too can now keep their livers
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because we can make a microbial
delectable foie gras
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that will satisfy
even the most stingy gourmand.
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In other words,
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by using fungi to replace
animal based meat,
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we can allow ourselves
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to continue enjoying the experience
of meat consumption
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but in a way that takes
far fewer resources.
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And importantly, we can grow
this type of product
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in stainless steel tanks
that resemble craft breweries
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except instead of brewing alcohol,
we are brewing protein.
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And unlike a cow, who needs
more than a year of feeding
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before you get a steak,
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we can harvest our little microbial fungi
in less than one single day.
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That's right.
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From the time we inoculate our fermenter
to the time we harvest our fermenter
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can occur in less than one single day,
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making this among the most efficient ways
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to produce protein on a planet
that is increasingly hungry,
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meaning that we can continue
enjoying the meat experience
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in a way that uses less land, less water,
fewer greenhouse gas emissions.
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And yes, it is also dramatically
more humane to animals.
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And just in the same way
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that metal fountain pens
weren’t mere quill mimicry,
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they are better than quills.
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We now have the opportunity
to utilize microbial fermentation of fungi
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to not only slash humanity’s
footprint on the planet
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but also to create all types
of novel culinary experiences
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that we’ve never before enjoyed.
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What if, for example,
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you could just in the same way
that you might have a bread maker
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or an ice cream maker
on your kitchen counter today,
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you happen to have your own meat maker,
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and you could just order tea bags
full of fungi spores that you drop in
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and come back the next day
to get freshly brewed meat?
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Or maybe you’ll go
to your local restaurant
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and just like they’re brewing
their own IPA in the back,
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they happen to be brewing
your dinner that night,
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local artisanal meat made just for you.
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Or what if we do ever figure out
how to depart from our pale, blue dot?
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You can rest assured that if we are
ever engaged in cosmic tourism,
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we’re not going to be carrying
Noah’s Ark in tow.
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If long distance astronauts
want to eat meat,
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they’re going to have to grow it.
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Technology has changed so much
about how we live here on Earth.
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Instead of whipping horses,
we now use bikes and cars.
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Instead of harpooning whales,
we now use electricity.
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And instead of live plucking geese,
we now tap on glass screens.
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All of these inventions, at first,
of course, seem so odd and foreign to us.
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Recall, for example,
that what we now know as cars
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were originally referred to
as horseless carriages.
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But eventually we come to recognize
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the new technology as so superior
that we switch to it en masse
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and we hardly remember
what life was like once
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prior to the new invention.
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Just imagine how shocked you would be
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if somebody who you knew today
relied on horses for transportation
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or whales for lighting
or geese for writing?
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Well, I believe that technologies,
like microbial fungi fermentation,
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are going to allow our descendants
the ability to also express shock
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if somebody they know
chooses to slaughter animals
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rather than utilize the obviously superior
technology that has been invented.
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Microbial fungi fermentation
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is just one way to liberate humanity
from our reliance on animal slaughter.
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But it is a critically important,
cost effective and scalable solution
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to this vexing problem of how we are going
to sustainably feed ourselves
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into the 21st century.
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We only have one planet,
and we shouldn’t deforest the rest of it
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simply so we can continue to eat
more and more animals,
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instead,
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just as we must end
our reliance on fossil fuels,
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so, too, must we end our reliance
on factory farms.
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Today, the only place
that you are likely to find a quill pen
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is inside of a museum.
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The time has come for us, similarly,
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to leave the factory farming of animals
where it, too, belongs -
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in our past.
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Thank you.
