With MAHA in the news again this week going up against the Trump administration’s support for glyphosate, it got me thinking about MAHA’s recent call for 50%-100% more protein intake. Despite Americans getting more than enough protein, it is hard to envision what almost doubling our intake would look like.
What’s Possible; What’s Not
Animal agriculture has risks and limitations that keep it from scaling to demand.
Our current use of animals for protein is extremely resource-intensive and environmentally damaging. While it won’t be going away anytime soon, an increase in its production would cause a downward spiral in natural resources.
Let’s take a look.
More Deforestation, Land & Water Use: Livestock uses 80% of the world’s agricultural land, is responsible for 41% of global tropical deforestation (primarily beef) and uses 70% of the world’s water. It is expensive and risky to take over more land and water for animal production when people need these resources.
More Antibiotic Use and Pandemic Risk: Both pig and chicken production have continued issues with high antibiotic use, a leading cause of antimicrobial resistance in humans, and a pandemic risk. The latter makes sense as living butt-to-snout in feces is a breeding ground for diseases in animals that can spread to humans, something that will only escalate with increased production. One need only remember the increased egg prices from a decreased supply of birds due to annihilating hundreds of thousands of the same in an effort to thwart avian flu, something the U.S. has been combating unsuccessfully for over 30 years. Scaling bird production 50%-100% won’t be as carefree as it seems.
More Contamination. Add risks from air and water contamination of overflowing pig manure pits and air contamination from ammonia due to the intense number of birds in each factory, and it seems that increasing protein from animals by 50%-100% could come at a large societal cost. Regenerative farming of animals would require even more land, making this option difficult to scale to MAHA orders.
Our World in Data.
Silver Lining: Novel Protein Offerings and Industry Benefits
That said, there are protein possibilities that can help to scale protein production to not only meet increased dietary demand from MAHA, but also the increased demand from middle-income countries.
Plant-based Proteins. From such headliners as pea and soy proteins, these can be made and seasoned into all types of meat products such as burgers and sausages. Growing these proteins directly for food requires less land and water than monocropping alfalfa and soy to feed animals (getting the meat from the animals weeks, months or years later; a very long, wasteful and non-resilient supply chain),
Hybrid Meats. Burgers made from a mushroom-meat blend can save on natural resources and costs, while not sacrificing that great umami taste, yet adding new, tasty options for the consumer.
Fermented Biomass Proteins. (With fiber, bonus!) Made from mycelium, this technology based in the well known food tradition of brewing tea, beer, yeast and more is already scaling and proving viable and delicious, and
Cultivated Meat. This technology has a while to go yet, but what a guaranteed crowd pleaser: the actual meat grown from the cells of animals without the deforestation and water use needed for growing crops for animal feed. Just skip the animal and all its land, water, time and food needs altogether! Brilliant for the global win-win.
So what does all this mean or even look like? Think of the almighty potato chip.
The Meat Counter Becomes the Chip Aisle
What could ever possibly make that beautiful crisp better than it already is: potato, oil, salt…it’s perfection! Nothing could possibly be more delicious…or could it? What if the chip was baked, instead of fried? What if it had ridges? What if it was whole grain and was the shape of a square? What if it was a neon-orange curl that we’ll call Cheetos? It should come in a bag, no, wait! What if it came in a can with a pop lid!?! What if it was made from things like veggies or the sun-what even is a Sun Chip? Maybe it could be a triangle and is blue, or maybe it has flavors like ‘Flaming Red Hot???’
Indeed, there have been quite a few additions to the chip aisle over the years such that everyone still has the all-perfect, classic potato chip and they also have an entire aisle dedicated to every other kind of chip known to man. The grocery store is happy; it has more business. The consumer is happy, they have more options. The chip maker is happy; it has more products.
The chip-snack (and other snacks for that matter) competition has increased to meet demand and all industry players and consumers are benefiting.
And so it could be with the meat counter. Factory meat, grass-fed meat (expensive due to its use of natural resources, but a perfect option for the upper-spending tier), plant-based meats, fermented meats, cultivated meats and hybrid meats will offer more price and meat choices to the consumer, more production options for the meat companies and more growth for the grocery chain.
Equally as exciting is the increase in jobs that can come from the innovation growth for all these new options, and the resiliency of the entire sector that comes from diversification, just as it did for the potato chip.
What are we waiting for?
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