I've been vegetarian now for over twenty years. I'm not fanatical about it, and I will still eat meat if no vegetarian food is available. However, I refuse to eat beef because of the huge, negative impacts cattle grazing has had on public lands in the Western US. Beef production also has the highest climate impact of any of the common meats. I like ethnic foods, and I enjoy cooking, so I find it easy to prepare delicious, vegetarian meals from the Indian, Chinese, Thai, and Eurasian traditions. It is much easier to prepare these foods now since the specialized ingredients that are sometimes required are readily available on the internet. I have to thank Madhur Jaffrey and Martha Rose Shulman for writing some of the best vegetarian cookbooks that are available!
What I’m thankful for is delicious meat and therefore want to eat it responsibly.
What I’m tired of is the idea that solutions to this giant problem we have can’t possibly ask anything of anyone. Is the expectation of people acting responsibly, and showing some restraint in their diets really amount to guilt.
Is one really thankful for their quality of life if they demand it only continue or improve at any cost?
Enough of that though, let’s go appreciate some good food in all it varieties. Happy Thanksgiving HEATED.
Yes, very helpful to read more of the complexities and nuances of this issue.
My spouse objects to the ultra processing of alternative burgers, though I enjoy the experiments in texture and flavor. But we already do not eat red meat anymore.
Happy Thanksgiving to anyone celebrating today, first of all. I personally hope that alternatives to meat gain traction. As someone who appreciates the environmental, ethical, and medical concerns involved with eating meat, I'm, ahem, a fairly reluctant vegetable eater. If AI can help facilitate the creation of more sustainable options, great.
I admit that I didn't have a firm grasp on the distinction between the resource consumption level of large language models and smaller applications, so this was a real informative read. Thanks, Arielle!
Really cool stuff. I heard before AI was pretty good at protein design but I never put it together that would mean it would be possible to help with alternative meat proteins.
As a tissue engineer who also writes about alternative protein research, this was lovely to read! Great exploration of AI in biological research, which is definitely the first question people have asked me lately when I tell them I'm a bioengineer. People are often surprised that Jeff Bezos and companies like TikTok have business arms focused solely on using AI to predict protein folding/function.
I myself am a vegetarian, but I have been wishing for years that some pet food company would grow mouse cell culture and can it for me to feed to my cat. I hate thinking about the pet food industry "supply chain"
The problem with the “alt protein” framing is that it buys into a meat centric framing where meat equals protein even though protein exists in many plants and pigs and cows get their protein from plants as well (either grasses, soy or something else).
There’s a ton of dishes that can easily be made without meat and where the protein can come from lentils, beans, peas, maize or something else. Sometimes the protein will come from a different place in a vegetarian dish - for instance in a meat dish the meat (and thus protein) might be in the sauce but in a vegetarian dish I might mix the rice with lentils and have less protein in the sauce. Once you mix the sauce and the rice it’s all the same though.
My feeling (that could warrant further inquiry) is that the meat industry is aware that meat is much easier to sell as a stand in for protein and has worked with influencers, food bloggers, fitness coaches, etc to make this connection stick. Just think about protein powder for fitness shakes where a plant based vegan alternative exist - kind of makes you wonder what part of an animal the non vegan powder came from and what they’ve done to it to get it to powder form.
I've been vegetarian now for over twenty years. I'm not fanatical about it, and I will still eat meat if no vegetarian food is available. However, I refuse to eat beef because of the huge, negative impacts cattle grazing has had on public lands in the Western US. Beef production also has the highest climate impact of any of the common meats. I like ethnic foods, and I enjoy cooking, so I find it easy to prepare delicious, vegetarian meals from the Indian, Chinese, Thai, and Eurasian traditions. It is much easier to prepare these foods now since the specialized ingredients that are sometimes required are readily available on the internet. I have to thank Madhur Jaffrey and Martha Rose Shulman for writing some of the best vegetarian cookbooks that are available!
What I’m thankful for is delicious meat and therefore want to eat it responsibly.
What I’m tired of is the idea that solutions to this giant problem we have can’t possibly ask anything of anyone. Is the expectation of people acting responsibly, and showing some restraint in their diets really amount to guilt.
Is one really thankful for their quality of life if they demand it only continue or improve at any cost?
Enough of that though, let’s go appreciate some good food in all it varieties. Happy Thanksgiving HEATED.
Yes, very helpful to read more of the complexities and nuances of this issue.
My spouse objects to the ultra processing of alternative burgers, though I enjoy the experiments in texture and flavor. But we already do not eat red meat anymore.
Thanks again!
Happy Thanksgiving to anyone celebrating today, first of all. I personally hope that alternatives to meat gain traction. As someone who appreciates the environmental, ethical, and medical concerns involved with eating meat, I'm, ahem, a fairly reluctant vegetable eater. If AI can help facilitate the creation of more sustainable options, great.
I admit that I didn't have a firm grasp on the distinction between the resource consumption level of large language models and smaller applications, so this was a real informative read. Thanks, Arielle!
Really cool stuff. I heard before AI was pretty good at protein design but I never put it together that would mean it would be possible to help with alternative meat proteins.
Thank you for the fun article!
Possibly the only useful thing AI might do is, someday, design the brain of a populist president.
What was that old saying about "It's hard to fly with eagles when you're stuck with a bunch of
turkeys"??? (Or something to that effect...)
As a tissue engineer who also writes about alternative protein research, this was lovely to read! Great exploration of AI in biological research, which is definitely the first question people have asked me lately when I tell them I'm a bioengineer. People are often surprised that Jeff Bezos and companies like TikTok have business arms focused solely on using AI to predict protein folding/function.
I myself am a vegetarian, but I have been wishing for years that some pet food company would grow mouse cell culture and can it for me to feed to my cat. I hate thinking about the pet food industry "supply chain"
The problem with the “alt protein” framing is that it buys into a meat centric framing where meat equals protein even though protein exists in many plants and pigs and cows get their protein from plants as well (either grasses, soy or something else).
There’s a ton of dishes that can easily be made without meat and where the protein can come from lentils, beans, peas, maize or something else. Sometimes the protein will come from a different place in a vegetarian dish - for instance in a meat dish the meat (and thus protein) might be in the sauce but in a vegetarian dish I might mix the rice with lentils and have less protein in the sauce. Once you mix the sauce and the rice it’s all the same though.
My feeling (that could warrant further inquiry) is that the meat industry is aware that meat is much easier to sell as a stand in for protein and has worked with influencers, food bloggers, fitness coaches, etc to make this connection stick. Just think about protein powder for fitness shakes where a plant based vegan alternative exist - kind of makes you wonder what part of an animal the non vegan powder came from and what they’ve done to it to get it to powder form.