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]
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/28/well/eat/how-much-protein...
[2]https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/how-much-protein-do-you-...
No conflict of interest there.
I've long heard that most Americans eat too much meat/protein. My understanding is that's a completely reasonable claim, citations or no citations.
Referencing an article that doesn't support one's argument is nonetheless silly.
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?
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 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.
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.
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.
Did you also know that you are legally allowed to decline medical procedures? You can even sign yourself out of a hospital AMA ("Against Medical Advice") if you don't like what's happening.
You are also completely free, and generally advised, to seek alternate medical opinions.
The existence of a medical procedure or option has not, and never does, obligate you to take it.
"Oh, well, now that we've let your organs decline this far, you can get a transplant and maybe live. Or you are free to decline it and almost certainly die." is not a meaningful choice.
I've gotten ridiculous amounts of flak for making real choices about my health. Much of the world would like me to know I'm evil incarnate for doing prosaic things like eating better as a first line of defense.
Optimistically it seems even according to this article that most of barriers for affordable cultivated protein are with high capital costs and once the factories are built, you can eventually amortize a lot of the costs aka how solar/electric cars did so. Also they are aiming for a self-imposed 2030 deadline, sure it might take until 2040/2050 but nothing the article says it won't eventually be built. (Unlike say the water/housing/ education/healthcare crises with bottlenecks of land/regulations/labor)