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ghostofkenny.bsky.social
Research Scientist in Environmental Fluid Mechanics/Atmospheric Science. Interested in food systems and how they impact our planet and human health. Also a shill for the plant-based meats/milks and really just plants in general.
101 posts 28 followers 83 following
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There are moments when my plant-based bias is tested. Eating my šŸ«› may break that moral contract. šŸ˜‚
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The groundhog ate all of my snap peas, I’m going hungry this year.
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Either way, this is the hardest problem humanity will likely ever have to grapple with, as we need to reduce the impact our food system has on climate/land/water while keeping it robust enough to weather shocks, while also feeding 10 billion people.
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Oatly currently has an ad campaign challenging people’s preconceived notions on alternatives. Neophobia is a very real thing.
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Yes, yes they are. lineageprovisions.com/pages/tallow...
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It’s bad over there. One big conspiracy hive mind. Imagine the engagement you would have gotten if you mentioned Bill Gates. 😭
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The we should eat more plants people have a stronger message than the we should bike everywhere people though 😜
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I mean, this is kind of how life works, haha. Even the EV/renewable transition has these tradeoffs.
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Optimal ranges for protein and health fall between 1.2 g/kg to 1.6 g/kg. Active and older individuals should skew more towards the higher end. The current RDA is 0.8 g/kg. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...
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I’m not sure how anyone couldn’t be excited about this topic. It touches so many aspects of our lives; from climate change, to human health, to biodiversity, to animal rights/welfare, to water/land use. Surely there’s something that every person can find in this space that excites them.
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BTW, if you wanted to get 21 grams of protein from whole peas, you would have to eat 2.5 cups. Just silly analysis. So yes, I would rather put 1 scoop of pea protein isolate in a smoothie than eat 2.5 cups of peas.
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@jandutkiewicz.bsky.social, at what point do these articles go from being an honest state of the industry, to one being done in bad faith? I’ve been in the climate space long enough to recognize the ā€œMerchants of Doubtā€ form of argument.
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It’s so frustrating, especially when we have studies that show it outperforms the food it’s meant to replace (which she would already categorize as a healthy whole food). Grrrr.
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I’m guessing Michael Pollan is not going to be writing the Foreward/Blurb!
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Studies on the 1st generation products have already shown them to be superior to animal meats for cardiovascular benefits. Still early days, and longer term studies definitely need to be conducted, but I don’t see any reason why they would be WORSE than animals. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38934982/
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The one thing harder to compete with in animal meats is the bioavailability. Plant foods are just naturally less bioavailability than animal meats. Fortification would help with that though. Personally, I just take a simple multivitamin to make up for that loss in bioavailability.
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They should 100% be fortified more. Some countries (Canada), require the plant-based meats to match the nutrient levels of animal meat, so they need to fortify with B12 and vitamin D. But yeah, if they can take out the bad stuff (sat. fat), and add in the good stuff (DHA/EPA,B12) it will be better.
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I do tend to agree with the scaling issue because of contamination. But studies have shown you can mix a few percent into the plant-based meats it compares favorably with animal meat (in blind taste tests). Get the fats to scale with precision fermentation, and you have a great scalable solution.
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Bloomberg has hated food tech since…forever. I don’t get it. We need it all to work.
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I’m still confused how it’s going to beat the price of private grocers when the profit margins for those are already razor thin (1-3%). Seems hard to match the economies of scale these grocers have. But I totally get putting these in locations where there are no other options though.
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We have now entered the ā€œNever Let Me Goā€ part of this story arc. 😭
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He was correct on China also.
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The internet was a mistake, haha.
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Btw, that 2% figure doesn’t include land use changes. When you factor in that very important factor, it significantly increases the impact of beef consumption. www.wri.org/technical-pe...
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The average American consumes 10-15 g of fiber, I’m not sure how anyone poops, haha.
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Everything counts
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Still a very large fraction that we need to care about.
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ā€œFake Meat. Real Chemicalsā€. How in god’s name do you overcome that branding???? šŸ˜‚
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Looks like for flying, the carbon footprint is ~246 g/km travelled. For beef consumption in America, it’s ~ 50 kg CO2/kg beef. The average American consumes about 60 lbs of beef per year, leading to ~1350 kg CO2. So to meet that beef footprint flying, an American would need to fly ~5500 km/year.
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Pee tape! Pee tape! Pee tape!
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Disease risk is also what stops me from wanting to industrialize that fully. China found out the hard way you really don’t want to put pigs in skyscrapers, haha.
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I think the place I’ve settled (at least until we all collectively agree it’s wrong) is that turning pork into delicious BBQ is probably okay, but turning it into McRib slop is probably not.