Data from AgFunderNews cited by the National Pulse reveals that the industry is in dire straits due to dwindling money. Funding for the lab-grown meat sector peaked at $989 million in 2021 but dipped slightly to $807 million in 2022. This dropped by almost 80 percent to just a mere $177 million last year.

“Industry experts claim they need substantial government assistance to survive, with various sectors within agrifood tech seeing a steep decline in investments since early 2022 and private capital for [lab-grown] meat almost vanishing,” the Pulse pointed out. “The decline in funding has prompted many startups to reduce staff, consolidate operations or, in some cases, cease operations altogether.”

Robert Jones, vice president for global public affairs at Dutch startup Mosa Meat, highlighted this issue during the Future Food-Tech Summit in late September. He told participants: “There’s a valley of death we’re not going to cross as an industry without a massive infusion of public investment.”

Andrew Ive, founder and managing general partner at venture capital (VC) firm Big Idea Ventures, echoed Jones’ sentiments. He emphasized that VC money won’t be funding capital expenses for large-scale commercial facilities for fake meat production.

“I think it’s going to take [a country] like the Netherlands or the [United Arab Emirates],” he told AgFunderNews, stressing the immense capital needed. “Maybe Saudi Arabia. It could be … Japan.”

Ive continued: “For me, what makes sense is [the mix of] cultivated with traditional meat – a bit like adding ethanol to gasoline for cars. So I think the way this will ultimately be rolled out in the marketplace will be where 20 percent of the meat content of a dumpling in China, for example, will end up being cultivated meat as opposed to traditional meat.”

Customers have decided: Fake meat is a NO for them

According to the Pulse, the economic case for lab-grown meat is “deteriorating rapidly.” In the same manner, the environmental and health cases for it are also on a decline.

Recent studies have suggested that fake meat is far from being a green alternative to the traditional livestock farming it ostensibly seeks to replace. One such paper by scientists from the University of California, Davis found that lab-grown meat produces up to 25 times more carbon dioxide (CO2) when scaled up to the current supply in the market.

According to the paper, the environmental impact of fake meat “is likely to be orders of magnitude higher than median beef production.” The increased CO2 levels would be necessary for the purification processes that supply nutrients to cultured cells. The study defines this process as “the removal of cells from an animal or plant and their subsequent growth in a favorable artificial environment.” (Related: CLIMATE FAIL: Study finds lab-grown meat generates up to 25 TIMES MORE CO2 than conventional beef production.)

“The use of refinement methods contributes significantly to the economic and environmental costs associated with pharmaceutical products since they are both energy and resource intensive,” the study authors wrote.

Aside from this, concerns about fake meat being a product of “immortalized cell lines” that replicate in perpetuity – cancer, in other words. A February 2023 op-ed in the Pulse by the Raw Egg Nationalist, which cited a story from Bloomberg, warned of the dangers of eating such edible cancer cells.

“The problem is that the materials used to make the product – ‘immortalized cell lines’ – replicate forever, just like cancer. Which means, in effect, that they are cancer. Although these cell lines are widely used in scientific research, they’ve never been used to produce food before.”

Head over to FakeMeat.news for more stories like this. Watch Jefferey Jaxen and Del Bigtree discussing the free fall of the fake meat industry.

This video is from the HighWire with Del Bigtree channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

• What they don’t want you to know about lab-grown meat.
• Fake meat firms collapsing due to lower sales, anti-woke backlash.
• Study: Vegan FAKE MEAT products linked to cardiovascular issues.
• Immortalized cell lines used in lab-grown meats can cause CANCER.
• Fake meat companies are failing as consumers abandon processed plant-based alternatives to real meat.

Sources include:

• TheNationalPulse.com 1
• AgFunderNews.com
• TheNationalPulse.com 2
• TheNationalPulse.com 3
• Brighteon.com

We’ve watched this narrative forming for years even as other meat alternatives failed. Plant-based proteins, once so popular that entire restaurants and grocery stores carried them exclusively, have rapidly faded in popularity the last couple of years. According to Canary Media:

In 2022, U.S. plant-based meat sales declined for the first time — 8 percent by volume. Beyond Meat, a behemoth in the sector and the supplier of McPlant patties, saw its stock price plummet 94 percent from its peak in 2020 as sales slid more than 20 percent last year. The company laid off one-fifth of its employees last fall.

Insect-based proteins have failed to capture mainstream popularity as standalone products but there is a relatively new push to introduce it into people’s diet without them even knowing it. “Acheta Protein” is cricket powder and is becoming increasingly present as an ingredient in common foods. Unfortunately, the vast majority of Americans don’t read the ingredients in what they eat and most who do have no idea what’s in “Acheta Protein.”

Whether it’s through climate change, attacks on “corporate” farms, bird flu, or fearmongering “health” warnings, meat in general is under attack and beef is the primary target. In recent months, we’ve seen a sharp rise in gaslighting and propaganda that not only disparages beef, but also promotes the concept of lab-grown “meat”.

An article in July’s “Nature” describes how scientific breakthroughs are allowing cultured meat to taste more like real beef. According to the article:

Although previous research has explored ways to advance cultured-meat production, mimicking the structures of familiar products such as meatballs, these studies often “don’t really focus on the ‘organoleptic’ — sense — properties, especially flavour and taste”, says Lee.

When conventional meat is cooked at high temperatures, it undergoes the Maillard reaction — its amino acids and sugars react with each other, giving the meat its recognizable aroma and taste. But because cultured meat has a different amino-acid profile to conventional meat, it doesn’t react to the same extent.

To try to rectify this, Lee and her colleagues developed a compound that could be added to cultured meat, containing furfuryl mercaptan — a product of the Maillard reaction known to contribute to a savoury flavour profile — along with substances that would help it to bind to the meat and keep it from breaking down. They engineered the compound to be ‘switchable’, meaning that the flavour would be released when the meat was heated to 150 °C.

They were also keen to ensure that the compound was compatible with the cell-culturing process. They incorporated it into a hydrogel: a jellylike material that can be used as a scaffold for stem cells as they grow into muscle tissue and become more meat-like.

In layman’s terms, lab-grown “meat” isn’t really like beef because it’s made up of different components but they’re using genetic modifications and chemicals to make it mimic the real thing. That doesn’t exactly sound safe, let alone appetizing.

Prepper All-Naturals, a long-term storage beef company, has vowed to never allow genetically modified anything into their products. They will not allow cultured meat to enter their facilities; only Texas born and Texas raised grass fed cattle are used to produce their survival food. And if (when?) government mandates the use of lab-grown meats, they have sworn to shut down the company altogether.

To keep their steaks all-natural while making them shelf-stable for decades, the company follows a unique process. Their cattle are butchered and hand-carved. The meat is cooked sous vide, then freeze dried over a 30-hour process. It is then packaged in mylar bags with oxygen absorbers to maximize longevity.

There is only one ingredient: beef. Their process allows a 25-year shelf life without the use of any other ingredients. They don’t even add salt. This allows their Ribeyes, NY Strips, Tenderloins, and Sirloins to be available for just about any American’s diet.

Prepper All-Naturals has extended their Independence Day Sale for a limited time. Use promo code “freedom35” to receive 35% off at checkout.

(Mercola)—A 2024 systematic review¹ of the literature confirmed what multiple studies have shown — the higher your intake of ultraprocessed food, the higher your risk of adverse health outcomes.

The analysis, which included 45 unique pooled analyses and 9,888,373 participants, found direct associations between 32 health parameters and exposure to ultraprocessed food, including metabolic dysfunction, cancer, mental, respiratory, cardiovascular and gastrointestinal issues, as well as all-cause mortality.

Depression and anxiety disorders were also highly correlated with ultraprocessed food consumption. Previous studies have also linked ultraprocessed foods to cognitive decline² and obesity.³

Considering the well-established effects of ultraprocessed foods, it’s only a matter of time before the truth comes out about the health effects of lab-grown and cultured meats, which are the epitome of ultraprocessed food.

The Truth About the Fake Meat Industry

The documentary above, “Beyond Impossible — The Truth Behind the Fake Meat Industry” by Gravitas Documentaries, exposes the corruption and lies of the fake meat industry. As noted in the film, the fake meat industry is an outgrowth of the vegan trend, which eschews any food derived from animals. However, perhaps there’s more to it than that. As noted by Gravitas:⁴

“What do Harvard University, internet vegans and the World Economic Forum [WEF] all have in common? A religious desire for the world to go vegan. But why? Is it an effort to stop global warming? Is it an earnest attempt at making everyone healthier? Is it a desperate plea to end animal cruelty?

The answers may surprise you. ‘Beyond Impossible’ reveals an uncomfortable truth about a world where peoples good intentions are being taken advantage of by everyone from vegan doctors to global elites hellbent on instituting planetary policies that remove all personal choices from the kitchen and beyond …

Joined by experts that include doctors, journalists and even former vegans, [health expert, director and co-producer] Vinnie Tortorich maintains that while we still have the power of free will, it’s only a matter of time before it’s too late.”

Fake Meats Contain Novel Proteins and the Worst Fat Possible

As explained in the film, it’s exceedingly difficult to get all the nutrients you need from a vegan diet, and while you could theoretically supplement yourself out of short-term trouble, you’d need to take a high-quality vitamin B12, iron, calcium, vitamin D, omega-3 and extra protein supplements, at bare minimum, to avoid some of the most common nutritional deficiencies associated with a meat-free diet.

However, as stressed by science journalist Nina Teicholz in the film, “many people cannot absorb B vitamins and minerals in their supplemental forms.” Additionally, plant proteins aren’t equivalent to meat-based protein. They’re not even equivalent to whole plant foods. As noted by Tortorich:

“Here’s the crazy part of all these fake meats. They’re not really made from vegetables. They’re made from monocultured crops … They’re made from starches, fake proteins and seed oils.”

“Plant-based” meat alternatives don’t contain the same amino acids, and they’re not as digestible as meat protein, so meeting your protein requirements for muscle maintenance and everything else could be a challenge.

Instead, fake meats contain novel proteins that no one fully understands yet. For example, the ingredient in Impossible Burger’s meat that makes it taste like meat is genetically engineered soy leghemoglobin, for which there are no long-term health studies. The process to make it also creates at least 45 other proteins as byproducts, which are also consumed and have never been evaluated.

Fake Meats Loaded With Bad Fats

Fake meats also typically contain the absolute worst type of fats possible, namely polyunsaturated fats (PUFAs) that are high in linoleic acid (LA), and/or monounsaturated fats (MUFAs) high in oleic acid.

For example, a half-pound serving of organic grass fed beef will provide less than half a gram of linoleic acid (500 mg). Compare this to a serving of an Impossible Burger or Beyond Meat burger, which have 10 to 20 times the amount of linoleic acid.⁵ So fake meat can only add to the catastrophic metabolic deterioration of your health caused by other processed and ultraprocessed foods.

Some fake meats will incorporate “healthier” oils like olive oil, but that still doesn’t solve the problem, as MUFAs are nearly as bad as seed oils. When consumed in excess, MUFAs like oleic acid will increase insulin resistance, promote fat storage, and decrease your metabolic rate.

I recently interviewed Brad Marshall on reductive stress, and he has done a magnificent job in highlighting the problems with oleic acid and how it increases the risk of obesity and metabolic dysfunction. That interview will be out shortly.

Further exploration into the relationship between olive oil and obesity reveals complex dynamics. Despite high local olive oil consumption, studies suggest that its impact on body mass index (BMI) is negligible.

This challenges the notion that olive oil directly contributes to obesity. However, this narrative took a defensive turn when researchers, rather controversially, attributed obesity rates in Mediterranean regions to lifestyle factors like physical inactivity rather than dietary habits. This perspective was tested in experiments where dietary olive oil was shown to induce insulin resistance in mice, suggesting a potential metabolic concern.

In-depth studies have used animal models to isolate the effects of oleic acid, aiming to control variables present in olive oil like polyphenols and saturated fats. Results indicated that pure oleic acid led to even greater insulin resistance in mice, highlighting concerns over its metabolic impacts when isolated from other components typically found in olive oil.

This points to the complexity of olive oil’s health impacts, suggesting that beneficial outcomes might be more attributable to its polyphenol content rather than the oil itself.

The discourse expanded with studies focusing on how MUFAs influence fat metabolism and storage, particularly through mechanisms involving the desaturase enzymes, which convert saturated fats into MUFAs. These enzymes, upregulated by dietary MUFAs, play a significant role in lipogenesis, the process of converting carbohydrates into fatty acids.

This biological pathway is crucial as it highlights how dietary fats influence lipid profiles and underscores the nuanced interplay between different types of dietary fats and metabolic health.

Side Note About High-Fat, Low-Carb Diets

On a side note, in the film, Tortorich presents the ideal diet as being one that is nearly devoid of carbs, sugars and grains. While I would have agreed with him on that as recently as a year or two ago, I’ve since come to understand that this is a serious mistake, as you absolutely need carbs for optimal metabolism, mitochondrial function, and energy production.

He doesn’t dwell on that in the film, so I won’t go into further detail on this here either. To learn more, see “A Surprising Reason Why You May Need More Carbs in Your Diet.” To his credit, Tortorich correctly stresses the benefits of saturated animal fats, eggs and whole-fat dairy, and the importance of avoiding seed oils and processed foods.

Fake Meat Provides No Collagen

While not discussed in this documentary, one-third of your protein also needs to be collagen, and there’s no plant-based alternative for that. Collagen is the most common and abundant of your body’s proteins, accounting for about 30% of the total protein in your body. One of its primary purposes is to provide structural scaffolding to allow tissues to stretch and flex while maintaining tissue integrity.

Collagen is found in your skin, connective tissues like tendons, ligaments, cartilage and fascia, your bones, organs, blood vessels, musculoskeletal system, hair and nails.

Collagen is also crucial for bone health and recovery from soft tissue injuries, and can help improve sleep, reduce joint pain, improve gut health, glucose tolerance and blood pressure, reduce cardiovascular damage, lower your risk of osteoporosis, and lower inflammation and oxidative damage.

The primary amino acids in collagen — glycine, proline and hydroxyproline — make up the matrix of connective tissue. Beef contains very little of these amino acids, so eating only muscle meat will not provide enough amino acids to allow you to build strong connective tissue and maintain bone strength. A vegan diet will put you at even greater risk, as the amount of these amino acids is even lower in plant foods than red meat.

Dairy Fat May Be Essential

Another animal-based food that cannot be replicated by vegan alternatives is full-fat, raw dairy. According to recent research,⁶ the odd-chain saturated fats pentadecanoic acid (C15:0) and heptadecanoic acid (C17:0) found in whole-fat dairy are likely some of the most important fats in the human diet, and C15:0 may be essential, although it’s not currently recognized as such.

As noted in the 2020 scientific report, “Efficacy of Dietary Odd-Chain Saturated Fatty Acid Pentadecanoic Acid Parallels Broad Associated Health Benefits in Humans: Could It Be Essential?”:⁷

“Dietary odd-chain saturated fatty acids (OCFAs) are present in trace levels in dairy fat and some fish and plants. Higher circulating concentrations of OCFAs, pentadecanoic acid (C15:0) and heptadecanoic acid (C17:0), are associated with lower risks of cardiometabolic diseases, and higher dietary intake of OCFAs is associated with lower mortality.

Population-wide circulating OCFA levels, however, have been declining over recent years. Here, we show C15:0 as an active dietary fatty acid that attenuates inflammation, anemia, dyslipidemia, and fibrosis in vivo, potentially by binding to key metabolic regulators and repairing mitochondrial function.

This is the first demonstration of C15:0’s direct role in attenuating multiple comorbidities using relevant physiological mechanisms at established circulating concentrations.

Pairing our findings with evidence that (1) C15:0 is not readily made endogenously, (2) lower C15:0 dietary intake and blood concentrations are associated with higher mortality and a poorer physiological state, and (3) C15:0 has demonstrated activities and efficacy that parallel associated health benefits in humans, we propose C15:0 as a potential essential fatty acid.”

Meat Alternatives Will Likely Undermine Public Health

But getting back to the issue of fake meat, it’s important to realize that it’s the very definition of ultraprocessed food. As noted by Michael Hansen, Ph.D., a senior staff scientist at Consumer Reports, meat alternatives are all just junk food and GMOs on steroids.⁸ For a more in-depth review of what goes into lab-grown meats and the novel health hazards they present, see “Why Synthetic Food is Very Dangerous.”

Researchers warn that removing real meat and dairy from the human diet would result in significant harm to health.

Nothing good can come from transitioning away from real animal foods to manmade alternatives. As noted in the film, the complete nutritional profile of meat simply cannot be artificially replicated, and research⁹ has warned that removing real meat and dairy from the human diet would result in significant harm to health. As reported by Nutrition Insight in mid-April 2023:¹⁰

“The researchers explain that meat offers a source of high-quality protein and nutrients that are not always easily obtained with meat-free diets and are often suboptimal or deficient in global populations.

‘Animal-sourced foods are superior to plant-sourced foods at simultaneously supplying several bioavailable micronutrients and high-quality macronutrients critical for growth and cognitive development,’ notes co-author Dr. Adegbola Adesogan, director of the University of Florida’s Global Food Systems Institute. Dietary recommendations to eliminate animal-source foods from diets ignore their importance …”

Indeed, as noted in this paper,¹¹ human anatomy, digestion and metabolism indicates that humans are not only compatible with but also reliant upon relatively substantial meat intake, and disconnecting the entire population from our evolutionary dietary patterns raises rather than lowers the risk for nutrient deficiencies and chronic diseases. As noted by the authors:¹²

“As a food matrix, meat is more than the sum of its individual nutrients.”

Research detailed in “Red Meat Is Not a Health Risk” has demonstrated that unprocessed red meat poses a very low-risk for adverse health effects, if any. On the other hand, plant-based meats have been shown to inhibit mineral absorption in humans,¹³ so nutrient deficiencies are entirely predictable.

Fake Meat Industry Is Part of the Controlled Destruction of Our Food Supply

The fake meat industry is also a major part of the controlled destruction of our food supply. Animal farming is being regulated into oblivion in order to be replaced by insect farms (so-called micro livestock), gene-edited food, lab-grown meat and synthetic animal-free dairy products — all in the name of solving hunger, protecting the environment and reversing climate change.

For years, the WEF has promoted the idea that lab-grown animal foods and genetically engineered crops are the only way to feed the world and save the planet. Industrial agriculture uses 75% of available farmland yet produces just 30% of food consumed globally. This shocking statistic is part of the narrative for why we need a new and more sustainable food system.

What’s left out of the conversation, however, is that small biodiverse farms use just 25% of land yet provide 70% of our diet,¹⁴ so eliminating traditional farming is hardly the solution to global hunger.

What’s more, studies have repeatedly shown that regenerative and biodynamic farming practices effectively LOWER demand on valuable resources like water, don’t require synthetic fertilizers and produce greater yields than GMO monocultures. It also rebuilds rather than destroys soil, supports animal welfare and promotes biodiversity of plants and wildlife.

When animals are raised according to regenerative agriculture, a complete ecosystem is created, one that is both healing for the land and productive for the farmers who keep it. Eating meat is not synonymous with harming the environment: It’s industrial farming practices that inflict the damage.

If the goal was to safeguard the environment, combat climate change and optimize food production and human nutrition, then transitioning to biodynamic farming methods would be the obvious solution. Instead, it’s made out to be the enemy of the planet and mankind.

Regenerative Farming Has a Negative Carbon Footprint

Impossible Foods directly attacked regenerative ranching in its 2019 Impact Report,¹⁵ claiming grass fed cattle ranching generates higher amounts of greenhouse gas emissions than cows raised in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs).

But according to a third-party lifecycle analysis¹⁶ (LCA) performed by the very same company that conducted Impossible Burger’s LCA, the carbon footprint of beef from White Oak Pastures (a regenerative farm) is actually 111% lower than conventional CAFO beef, as the “system effectively captures soil carbon, offsetting a majority of the emissions related to beef production.”

All things considered, including enteric emissions, manure emissions, soil carbon capture, vegetation carbon, miscellaneous farm activities, slaughter and transport, the total net carbon emissions from the beef production on White Oak Pastures was found to be a negative 3.5 kilos (kg) of carbon emissions per kilo of fresh meat, making this integrated, holistic system six times more carbon efficient than the average CAFO production model.

Meanwhile, Impossible Foods’ soy-based fake meat is still a carbon emitter. While grass fed beef has a net carbon sink of 3.5 kg per kg of fresh meat, conventional soybeans produce 2 kg of carbon emissions for each kg of food, and pea protein (which Beyond Burger uses for its meat substitute) produces 4 kg of carbon for every kg of food.¹⁷

So, how can fake meat be considered more environmentally sound than regenerative farming? In addition to still being a carbon emitter, GMO soy does nothing to regenerate and build soils, nothing to protect our insect and wildlife population, nothing to increase plant diversity and nothing to improve human health of consumers.

On the contrary, corn and soy, both conventional and GMO, are rapidly eliminating grasslands and prairies across the U.S. as they’re converted into monocrop farm fields, and this may be one of the worst environmental impacts of all, as prairies help retain water and sequesters carbon in the soil.

Cell-Based Meat Substitutes Aren’t Environmentally Friendly Either

Cell-based meats also fail the test as far as protecting the environment is concerned. According to an Environmental Science and Technology study published in 2015, lab-grown meat where the meat is cultured from stem cells actually requires more energy than conventional agriculture. As explained in the study’s abstract:¹⁸

“Cultured, or in vitro, meat consists of edible biomass grown from animal stem cells in a factory, or carnery. In the coming decades, in vitro biomass cultivation could enable the production of meat without the need to raise livestock.

Using an anticipatory life cycle analysis framework, the study described herein examines the environmental implications of this emerging technology and compares the results with published impacts of beef, pork, poultry, and another speculative analysis of cultured biomass.

While uncertainty ranges are large, the findings suggest that in vitro biomass cultivation could require smaller quantities of agricultural inputs and land than livestock; however, those benefits could come at the expense of more intensive energy use as biological functions such as digestion and nutrient circulation are replaced by industrial equivalents.

From this perspective, large-scale cultivation of in vitro meat and other bioengineered products could represent a new phase of industrialization with inherently complex and challenging trade-offs.”

Culling Cows to Meet Climate Change Goals

As illustrated in the film, cows now stand accused of being one of the primary sources of methane emissions, another greenhouse gas said to drive climate change. So, to meet climate change goals, countries around the world are implementing new emission targets for farmers that will require drastic reductions in herd size.

Yet there’s ample evidence showing that properly raised and grazed livestock have a tremendously beneficial impact on ecological health and local climate.¹⁹ Erratic climate is in large part caused by desertification (when fertile land dries up and turns to desert), which is what current conventional agricultural practices encourage.

This situation can only be effectively reversed by dramatically increasing the number of grazing livestock. In essence, it’s not an excess of livestock that are causing the problem, but that we have far too few, and the livestock we do have, we’ve not managed properly.

The graphic below, which compares the carbon recycling of cows and fossil fuel emissions, is also instructive. The methane cows burp up eventually breaks down into carbon dioxide and water, both of which are taken up by plants. The carbon is then put back into the soil through the roots of the plants. This is the natural cycle, which benefits all life. Yet none of this ever makes it into the climate conversation.

It’s All Part of a Plan

It’s easy to assume that decision makers are simply inept, but that’s letting them off the hook. There’s a cohesive plan behind such seemingly ignorant decisions such as forcing farms to shut down by putting radical restrictions on nitrogen fertilizers or methane emissions from cow farts and paying farmers not to farm even in the face of looming food shortages.

They’re forcing farmers and ranchers out of business because they want them out of business. In their place, they can then introduce their fake meat solution, which will recreate the global control of the food supply that Monsanto and others achieved through patented GMO seed development.

Once living animals are eliminated and replaced with patented alternatives derived from plants, yeast, bacteria, fungi or insects, private companies will effectively control the food supply in its entirety, and those who own the patents will control the people. Ultraprocessed food already make up 58% of the average American’s diet,²⁰ so the globalists have every reason to believe they can get it to 100%.

Synthetic Food Will Never Be Healthier Than the Real McCoy

There are several key take-homes from all of this. First, synthetic food will never be healthier than the real food it’s trying to imitate. Second, a meat-free diet is inadvisable for most people as plant proteins are not identical to animal-based proteins.

Plant proteins also cannot replace your need for collagen. Nor can plant-based fats replace the likely essential fats found in whole dairy. As mentioned, the fat added in the making of many meat alternatives is cheap seed oils, which are a primary driver of chronic diseases as these fats destroy mitochondrial function.

Third, the fanatic push for fake meat has strong geopolitical underpinnings rooted in population control and the implementation of a one world government. The technocratic globalists funding the fake meat industry for their own gain are simply piggy backing on the vegan ideology, which tends to be more fanatical than other dietary trends.

Ultimately, if you want to be healthy, you need to eat real food. You cannot correct the health problems caused by ultraprocessed food with even more ultraprocessed food, which is what all meat alternatives are. And, if we want to be free, and if we want food safety and food security, we must focus our efforts on building a decentralized system that connects communities with farmers who grow real food in sustainable ways and distribute that food locally.

• ¹ The BMJ, 2024; 384:e077310
• ² Alzheimer’s Association, August 3, 2022
• ³ Cell Metabolism 2023;35(4), Summary
• ⁴ YouTube Gravitas Documentaries, Beyond Impossible
• ⁵ Bohrer, GM. Food Science and Human Wellness Volume 8, Issue 4, December 2019, Pages 320-329
• ^6, 7 Scientific Reports 2020; 10: 8161
• ⁸ Organic Insider June 8, 2022
• ^9, 11, 12 Animal Frontiers April 15, 2023
• ¹⁰ Nutrition Insight April 17, 2023
• ¹³ Nutrition Insight December 9, 2022
• ¹⁴ Independent Science News June 18, 2019
• ¹⁵ Impossible Foods 2019 Impact Report
• ¹⁶ Quantis, Carbon Footprint Evaluation of Regenerative Grazing at White Oak Pastures, February 25, 2019
• ¹⁷ Civil Eats June 19, 2019
• ¹⁸ Environmental Science and Technology 2015 Oct 6;49(19):11941-9
• ¹⁹ Cowboy State Daily June 2, 2023
• ²⁰ BMJ Open 2016; 6:e009892

(Natural News)—The Bezos Earth Fund has announced an initial $60 million commitment to establish a fund to improve alternative meats by making them cheaper and taste better.

Jeff Bezos’ fiancee, Lauren Sanchez, who is also vice chair of the Bezos Earth Fund, announced on Tuesday, March 19, the creation of the Bezos Centers for Sustainable Protein (BCSP).

The $60 million will fund the creation of BCSP research centers in multiple universities over the next five years. These research centers will focus on reducing the cost of manufacturing fake meat and boosting the quality and nutritional value of so-called “sustainable protein products.” The initial investment will also go toward initiatives to enhance the flavor and texture of artificial meat. (Related: Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos pushing for a new lab-grown meat industry that harvests the blood of unborn cow fetuses.)

“There are also enormous opportunities to enhance the texture and boost flavor through innovation in cell biology and engineering,” said the Bezos Earth Fund in a statement.

The initial investment is part of the Bezos Earth Fund’s commitment to provide $1 billion to “food transformation.” This has seen Bezos’ vast fortune be directed to projects related to reducing methane emissions, boosting the seaweed farming industry and researching alternatives to crop burning, among others.

Consumers still unlikely to transition to eating fake meat due to cost, taste and nutrition

In a press release published by the Bezos Earth Fund, the fund noted that the initial investment would apply to innovation on all kinds of alternative proteins, including plant-based, lab-grown and fermented meats. Funding will be directed to any initiatives that target the “major barriers” to the industry’s growth, those being lowering costs, increasing quality and boosting nutritional benefits.

These issues have significantly stifled the growth of the cultivated meat industry. So far, only two such companies have received the Food and Drug Administration’s approval to sell their fake meat products, showing that these kinds of food items are still a long way from entering the mainstream market affordably.

A study from the nonprofit Good Food Institute also found that consumers are mostly concerned by price and then by the taste of the food items they eat and the main reasons why they are discouraged from purchasing plant-based products.

To date, cultivated meat costs about $17 per pound to produce, which could make them cost at least $40 per pound once they reach grocery stores. Plant-based beef costs twice as much as normal beef, and four times that of chicken. These prices have made investments drop by 78 percent in 2023.

In her announcement of the BCSP, Sanchez claimed “innovations” were necessary in the lab-grown meat industry to allow the world to “feed 10 billion people with healthy, sustainable protein throughout this century.”

“This will need a ton of innovation,” she added. “We’re investing heavily in [the] livestock sector and inventions that will give customers meat options that are better for the Earth.”

Learn the latest developments in the lab-grown meat industry at FakeMeat.news. Watch this clip from “The HighWire” as host Del Bigtree and co-host investigative journalist Jefferey Jaxen discuss the collapse of the fake meat industry.

More related stories:

• Franken-meat grown from chicken cells in labs set to take over U.S. restaurants and supermarkets as GLOBAL FOOD RESET begins.
• U.S. authorities greenlight sale of lab-grown chicken – “Franken-chicken” coming soon to your grocery shelves and restaurant tables.
• CLIMATE FAIL: Study finds lab-grown meat generates up to 25 TIMES MORE C02 than conventional beef production.
• Global fake food market projected to be worth up to $3 trillion in the near future.
• Fake meat companies are failing as consumers abandon processed plant-based alternatives to real meat.

Sources include:

• Expose-News.com
• BusinessInsider.com
• FastCompany.com
• Observer.com
• Brighteon.com

Of course, the sociopaths who want nothing more than to rule over us, make us sick, and sell us the cure are sure to point out that this is all the fault of “climate change”. At the Aspen Ideas Climate, Bezos Earth Fund vice chair Lauren Sánchez announced an initial $60 million commitment to establish Bezos Centres for Sustainable Protein as part of the Bezos Earth Fund’s $1 billion commitment to food transformation.

What exactly is “sustainable protein?” It is “plant-based lab-grown meats.” So to is not food, but a creation made to mimic food that will probably give humans autoimmune or other chronic inflammatory conditions that they’ll “need” to treat with pharmaceutical drugs.

According to a report by The Daily Exposé, the Aspen Ideas Climate conference was held in Miami, Florida over the course of three days from March 11-13, 2024. It had five themes:

• Big Bets on Tech: Charting the course for sustainable technologies of the future which included climate technology, biotechnology, lab-cultured “food,” artificial intelligence, geoengineering, and new ideas for creating and storing energy.
• Building things: Such as urban landscapes, infrastructure, and “reimagined” economies that lead to a “sustainable and inclusive future.”
• Financing the Future: A seismic shift in financial strategies, from billions to trillions globally, is required to address the “climate crisis,” so they claim.
• Healthy Planet, Healthy Community.
• Narratives of Change: “From the resonance of music to the subtleties of architecture, from stirring art to imaginative fiction, profound calls to action are often hidden in the unexpected. Experience the captivating stories that inspire change from some of the most unanticipated sources.” Which has undertones of using psychological techniques to bring about the desired change.

Setting the scene using the usual marketing tactic of fear porn, in this case, global famine. Sánchez asked: “How do we feed 10 billion people with healthy, sustainable protein throughout this century? This will need a ton of innovation,” she said following it with a statement that should make everyone shudder. “We’re investing heavily in [the] livestock sector and inventions that will give consumers meat options that are better for the Earth.”

Except lab-created meat isn’t meat, and we cannot expect it to act the same in the human body. But Sanchez is asking the slave class to “trust” her.

“I’m thrilled to announce, and I’m very excited about this one, tonight 60 million dollars to establish Bezos Centres for Sustainable Protein that will help grow these ideas. Their inventions will make plant-based lab-grown meats cheaper, healthier, and tastier. And these sustainable proteins really are getting better, trust me.”

You can watch Sánchez’s full speech at the Aspen Ideas Climate below.

The Republican-controlled House voted 86-27 to approve SB 1084, with the bill finally ready to go to Governor Ron DeSantis. SB 1084 would make several modifications related to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS).

Democrats fixated on parts of SB 1084 that would ban the sale and manufacture of cultivated meat, which DeSantis has condemned as “fake meat,” and prevent local governments from regulating EV vehicle charging stations.

Rep. Lindsay Cross (D-St. Petersburg) claimed that both bans were meant to “stop innovation, put barriers on the free market and to lock [Florida] into existing frameworks.”

Meanwhile, Rep. Christine Hunschofsky (D-Parkland) insisted that the “food fight” section of SB 1084 “sends a bad message” to researchers and investors about lab-grown meat.

Hunschofsky added that the move could discourage manufacturers from working in Florida because “they don’t know what day of the week that the Legislature will be OK with them being in the state of Florida.”

“Moon meat” is fine if developed for astronauts

House bill sponsor Danny Alvarez (R-Hillsborough County) said that there are still questions about the safety of lab-grown meat. He explained that selling cultivated meat needs to wait, adding that research over time could help confirm that “it is viable for consumption.”

He noted that the bill is being passed because they “know that Florida agriculture can hold us down and provide plenty of safe, quality beef and agricultural products.” Alvarez also said lab-grown meat is being banned in Florida to help protect consumers.

The measure, which passed the Senate early in March, would allow research into cultivated meat. Production involves a process of taking cultured cells from animals and growing them in controlled settings to produce food.

A potential research ban was removed from earlier versions of the bill due to worries that such a ban could affect the space industry, which is also considering the development of lab-grown meats for long-term space journeys.

Rep. Dean Black (R-Jacksonville) clarified that while it’s fine to develop “Moon meat” for astronauts, cattlemen like himself won’t support it. (Related: FDA approves lab-grown meat produced by Chinese firm linked to biowarfare program.)

“They can make it on the Moon and export it to Mars, and it’s fine to have Martian meat as well,” Black said, adding that he supported SB 1084 because you shouldn’t be able to buy lab-grown meat in Florida, or anywhere in the United States.

Under SB 1084, selling or manufacturing lab-grown meat will be considered a second-degree misdemeanor. Additionally, the bill would put oversight of EV charging stations under the FDACS, which regulates pumps at gas stations. Florida has at least 3,230 public charging stations in 44 of the 67 counties.

According to a staff analysis of the bill, electric cars made up at least three percent of cars sold in Florida from July 2020 to July 2021.

A 2021 state law already prohibits local governments from mandating such things as EV charging stations on gas retailers. That law was enforced after a move by Petaluma, California, to ban new gas stations with the intention of fast-tracking the shift to electric cars.

We are building the infrastructure of human freedom and empowering people to be informed, healthy and aware. Support us at HealthRangerStore.com and read about our “human freedom infrastructure” mission at this article link.

Watch the video below of “The Dr. Jane Ruby” show to learn more about lab-culture meat and the potential cancer risks of consuming it.

This video is from the High Hopes channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

• Florida lawmakers advancing bills to block the sale of LAB-GROWN MEAT in the Sunshine State.
• Biden admin backs LAB-GROWN MEAT made of CANCER cells as the “food of the future.”
• CLIMATE FAIL: Study finds lab-grown meat generates up to 25 TIMES MORE CO2 than conventional beef production.
• TRUTH: Lab-grown “meat” produces 25x more carbon dioxide “pollution” than traditional animal husbandry.

Sources include:

• Twitter.com
• NBCMiami.com
• Brighteon.com

(Natural News)—Critics are skewering the World Health Organization for using climate scare tactics to convince the world that avoiding meat is in the planet’s best interest.

The head of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom, said at the recent COP28 conference that the world should shift to a plant-based diet in order to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.

“Our food systems are harming the health of our people and planet,” he said. “Food systems contribute to over 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions and account for almost one-third of the global burden of disease.”

He estimates that eight million lives could be saved each year with this one change. Although shifting away from red meat has been recommended for many years for health reasons, his motivation here appears to be purely environmental, with a context note on a video of him declaring the war on meat noting that climate change “refers to long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns, mainly caused by human activities.”

He went on to say “I’m therefore very pleased that over 130 have signed the COP28 UAE Declaration on climate and health.” This includes the United States, who, under the Biden administration, signed this declaration.

The WHO’s war on meat is part of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) COP28 “roadmap” for reducing the rise in global temperatures by 1.5 degrees Celsius, in keeping with the Paris climate agreement.

Although the FAO claims the meat industry is harming the planet with its nitrogen and methane emissions, the jury is still out on this question, and researchers have found that methane actually traps heat in the atmosphere and forms cooling clouds that offset surface warming, meaning that livestock farming could actually be cooling the planet.

Ahead of the conference, Bloomberg News reported: “Nations that over-consume meat will be advised to limit their intake while developing countries — where under-consumption of meat adds to a prevalent nutrition challenge — will need to improve their livestock farming.”

Critics want WHO to focus on more pressing issues

The criticism began to pile up almost immediately, with lawyer and journalist Gordon Chang pointing out the WHO’s connections to the Chinese Communist Party.

He wrote on X: “[Tedros] and [the WHO] should be paying attention to [China’s’] biological weapons programs—including the [Chinese] ‘genetic drugs’—instead of pontificating on matters outside their scope of responsibility.”

Other critics accused Tedros of hypocrisy, such as Dr. Kat Lindley, who wrote: “I wonder what plant based delicacy he eats every day and is he eating insect snacks when he is hungry?! I suspect the answer is NO. Sometimes I listen to his words and just wonder what did we do to deserve this nonsense.”

Others felt he had taken a puzzling stance for an African person, with South African scientist Tim Noakes commenting: “Tedros must know that there is widespread protein malnutrition in Africa and the goal of his organisation should be to reverse that. Not to make it worse. Instead what he also really wants to [do] is to give Africa more vaccines. One reason why he comes to visit my neck of the woods.

As alarming as the WHO’s demands are, there are some climate groups that are taking the insanity even further. For example, the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, which is a globalist organization composed of almost 100 cities around the world, wants to completely eradicate the consumption of both meat and dairy by 2030.

Sound off about this article on The Liberty Daily Substack.

Sources for this article include:

• WinePressNews.com
• CatholicVote.org
• TheFederalist.com

(Mercola)—Silicon Valley is banking on cultured meat taking off, providing animal-free “meat” to satisfy the carnivorous appetites of the world’s more than 8 billion people — most of whom eat meat. But what started out with grandiose fanfare and backing from billionaire investors like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos¹ is falling flat.

The dream of creating cultured “chicken” breasts or animal-free “beef” fillets is turning out to be nothing more than a fairy tale. Upside Foods, a leader in the fake meat market and one of two companies allowed to sell cultured meat in the U.S.,² has resorted instead to “growing just minuscule numbers of chicken skin-type cells in small plastic bottles, then scraping them out gram by gram to compress and mold them into a single forkful of flesh.”³

It’s not only unappetizing. Even if it succeeds, fake meat, presented as a solution to save the environment, may end up being worse for the planet than real meat, while presenting consumers with another highly processed food product that may further devastate human health.

What Happens When Silicon Valley Gets Mixed Up in Food Production?

Putting faith in Silicon Valley to produce wholesome food was the first mistake in the race to create cultured food. While regenerative farmers raising grass fed cows and free-range chickens work in concert with nature to provide food in the form humans have thrived on since the beginning of time, Silicon Valley does just the opposite.

In a process completely removed from nature, venture-backed startups are using precision fermentation based on genetically engineered microbes to create synthetic food products in a lab. At Upside, which has received backing from Richard Branson, Kimbal Musk and even meat giants Tyson Foods and Cargill,⁴ stainless steel bioreactors are paraded as a measure of progress at media events, but it’s nothing more than careful PR.

Inside reports from employees, uncovered by The Wall Street Journal, claim that the bioreactors are plagued by contamination and rodent DNA was once found in a chicken cell line.⁵ Illustrating the contradiction that is the fake meat industry, the “sustainable” lab-grown chicken is in actuality being grown in two-liter plastic bottles — hundreds of which are required to product a few fillets.⁶

In the U.S., a limited amount of Upside’s lab-grown chicken is available as part of a tasting menu at Bar Crenn in San Francisco. But even Bloomberg reported this “sustainable” solution makes no sense:⁷

“The company is growing them in small, single-use plastic bottles, in amounts so piddling that a single night at Bar Crenn, a ‘certified plastic-free’ establishment, according to its website, could require the use of more than a hundred such bottles.”

Upside’s Expensive Fake Chicken Bits Aren’t Made From Muscle Cells

To make fake meat, cell lines taken from a living organism. They’re then manipulated to grow quickly and consistently. While myoblasts are the type of cells that grow into muscle meat, they’re the most difficult for fake meat companies to grow and “immortalize.”

“A regular cell extracted from an animal, known as a primary cell, won’t replicate forever. Eventually it stops, entering a phase known as senescence. If a company wants to grow significant amounts of meat and doesn’t want to have to keep taking cells from live animals or embryos, it needs to turn primary cells into immortal ones,” Bloomberg reports.⁸

Because myoblasts are difficult to immortalize, fibroblasts, which grow easily, are often used in cultured meat products. “But when it comes to food, they’re not what most people would consider delectable. They can develop into fat and other cells, but they’re most known for their role in making connective tissue, like cartilage or what’s found in skin,” according to Bloomberg’s report.⁹

Adipocytes, or fat cells, are also sometimes used, often mixed with plant proteins. In a dossier for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Upside named genetically engineered immortalized fibroblasts and a naturally immortalized myoblast cell line as options for its fake meat. But Samir Qurashi, a former Upside employee, shared doubts the company had a myoblast cell line capable of being used in production.

“It’s next to near impossible,” he told Bloomberg, and, indeed, the fake meat Upside is serving at upscale Bar Crenn is made from fibroblasts, the type that typically forms connective tissue. Further, according to Bloomberg:¹⁰

“The chicken doesn’t even include immortalized cells; it’s made of primary fibroblast cells that at some point will stop replicating and at best grow only into connective tissue. This means that to make more chicken, scientists will eventually have to go back to an embryo and remove more cells, a process that, even when it works, also kills the embryo. (Bar Crenn didn’t provide comment.)

It’s an admission that has left experts both confused and amused. “I scratch my head,” says David Kaplan, director of the Tufts University Center for Cellular Agriculture. “Why would you ever use primary cells?”

The Myth of Animal-Free Meat

One of the foundational principles behind cultured meat is the ability to produce food without killing animals. But fake meat is often made using animal components, negating this principle.

Normally, cells grow in a structure in your body. The cell lines being grown in labs are grown in a thin film or growth medium. In the body, the growth medium is your blood, Dutch investigative journalist Elze van Hamelen reports,¹¹ a complex substance that laboratories try to replicate using fetal bovine serum (FBS) — blood taken from living calf fetuses.

“It’s really gruesome how this is harvested,” she says,¹² pointing out that this contradicts the narrative that lab-grown meats are made without animals. FBS is often used to grow cultured cells because of the proteins and vitamins it contains. A 2013 study stated, “In many common culture media, the sole source of micronutrients is fetal bovine serum (FBS) …”¹³

When lab-grown chicken made by U.S. startup Eat Just debuted in Singapore in 2020 — marking the first cultured meat to be sold at a restaurant¹⁴ — it was produced using FBS. Upside stated in 2021 that it had developed a way to grow fake meat without animal components, yet its first chicken filets still depended on animal compounds.¹⁵

In fact, part of Qurashi’s role at Upside was to harvest cells from crustaceans, a process that killed them. As reported by Bloomberg, “Qurashi had the extremely challenging task of procuring cells from live crustaceans — a job that always led to their untimely demise, costing two or three animals their life each week. ‘Literally, people cried when they saw me,’ Qurashi says of his colleagues.”¹⁶

In order to develop synthetic “blood” instead, precision fermentation and artificial hormones may be used. Micronutrients and minerals must also be sourced, making the process “insanely expensive,” van Hamelen says.¹⁷

Use of FBS-free medium may cause cultured meat to cost over $20,000 per kilogram.¹⁸ A report from the Good Food Institute (GFI), a nonprofit group behind the alternative protein industry,¹⁹ suggested that if the cost of FBS-free mediums could be reduced, it would drive down the cost of cultured meat by 90%. This, however, is unlikely.

“[T]he report provides no evidence to explain why these micronutrient costs will fall,” Joe Fassler, The Counter’s deputy editor, wrote in an in-depth exposé about the actual science behind lab-grown meat.”²⁰

Fake Chicken Contains More Lead Than Real Chicken

Adding to the controversy over lab-grown meat, when Upside tested its fake meat products for heavy metals, some samples contained 20 times more lead than conventional ground chicken, along with about eight times more cholesterol compared to conventional chicken.²¹

There are other concerns as well. Writing in Frontiers in Nutrition, it’s speculated that “with this high level of cell multiplication, some dysregulation is likely as happens in cancer cells. Likewise, the control of its nutritional composition is still unclear, especially for micronutrients and iron.”²²

Synthetic dairy products, including milk made from genetically engineered yeast, is also raising concerns about the health risks of fake food. Along with missing important micronutrients that are abundant in real milk, fake milk contains compounds that have never before existed in the human diet. One analysis revealed 92 mysterious, unknown compounds in fake milk that don’t exist in real milk.²³

The Environment Also Suffers From Lab-Grown Meat

The other myth that’s part of the fake meat narrative is that it’s better for the environment than real meat. Even with the use of renewable energy factored in, lab-grown chicken would have the same carbon footprint as conventional chicken, according to a report by CE Delft.²⁴ When global average energy mixes were used, lab-grown meat had a higher carbon footprint than pork and chicken.

A preprint study from University of California, Davis researchers also found that the environmental impact of lab-grown meat is “likely to be orders of magnitude higher than median beef production,”²⁵ again highlighting the myth that fake foods are more sustainable than real foods, especially when they’re produced regeneratively.

The reality is that fake foods are far from sustainable. John Fagan, Ph.D., a molecular biologist who worked with the U.S. National Institutes of Health for 8.5 years, explains:²⁶

“The reality is that many of the carbon footprint calculations have been done starting with the fermentation process and going forward, but where did the high fructose corn syrup come from that is the primary energy component that goes into these fermentations?

… And you look at that industrial agriculture and you add that carbon footprint on to what they have been using in their calculations and suddenly it goes way in the wrong direction. And so we can’t even use the sustainability arguments to justify what’s being done. It just doesn’t work.”

This Is About Controlling the Food Supply

Sustainability, animal rights and human health are all buzzwords being floated around fake meat. But this isn’t about saving the planet or animals, and it’s certainly not about making people healthier. The reason why Silicon Valley is willing to invest billions into fake food is because it knows that whoever controls the food supply controls the population.

The globalists are trying to replace animal husbandry with lab-grown meat, which will allow private companies to effectively control the entire food supply. Just as was the case with GMOs, raising awareness about the dangers of fake meat is important, especially in this early and aggressively expanding phase.

Tell your social circle that to save the planet and support your health, it’s necessary to skip all the fake meat and dairy alternatives and opt for real food instead. When you shop for food, know your farmer and look for regenerative, biodynamic and/or grass fed farming methods, which are what we need to support a healthy, autonomous population.

• ^{1, 3, 7, 8, 9, 10, 16, 21} Bloomberg December 14, 2023 (Archived)
• ² Wired September 15, 2023
• ^{4, 5, 6, 15} The Wall Street Journal April 23, 2023 (Archived)
• ¹¹ The Solari Report February 1, 2023
• ¹² Rumble, Children’s Health Defense, Pharma Food: Biotech on Your Plate With Elze van Hamelen November 16, 2023, 14:07
• ¹³ Biomed Res Int. 2013;2013:597282. doi: 10.1155/2013/597282. Epub 2013 May 27
• ¹⁴ CNBC December 18, 2020
• ¹⁷ Rumble, Children’s Health Defense, Pharma Food: Biotech on Your Plate With Elze van Hamelen November 16, 2023, 14:31
• ^18, 20 The Counter September 22, 2021
• ¹⁹ Techno-Economic Analysis for the production of cultivated meat February 2021
• ²² Front. Nutr., 07 February 2020
• ²³ The Checkout, Episode 157, Dr. John Fagan’s Concerning New Findings About “Animal Free” Dairy, 10-11:00
• ²⁴ CE Delft January 2023 (Archived)
• ²⁵ bioRxiv April 21, 2023
• ²⁶ The Checkout, Episode 157, Dr. John Fagan’s Concerning New Findings About “Animal Free” Dairy, 31:19

This year’s climate summit was the first to extensively address food production.  There was a Food Systems Pavilion with eight thematic days, and one of those days was exclusively about how to “Advance Protein Diversification.”

In other words, how to get people to eat stuff they don’t want to.

The publishing industry is getting into this, too. You can find dozens of books that have been recently brought to market, earnestly promoting insects as food to save the planet. These are not to be outdone by books swearing that lab-grown meat will revolutionize food.

They discussed how to “push” consumers toward novel protein.

Discussions highlighted innovations in Israel, Brazil, Singapore, Denmark, and the Netherlands, all countries that have pioneered research in either insect farming or cultured meat.  The folks at the climate summit discussed “how we can push others toward the tipping point in protein diversification.”

One discussion focused on circular agrifood and biomass.  “Circular agrifood” sounds high-tech but really boils down to waste processing.  For example, a farm may be perfectly circular if livestock exclusively consumes vegetation on the farm, their poop is spread around the pastures, they get processed on-farm, and the waste materials are buried, fed to dogs, or otherwise kept on the property.  Two hundred years ago, most farms were “circular agrifood systems.”

So, are they promoting the traditional closed-loop, locally-owned, independently operated farms?

Not quite.  This discussion was chaired by an expert in waste management and a representative of an innovative food processing company, not managers of closed-loop farms.

In fact, if you live in a wealthy country, these people may see your local farmer as the problem, not the solution.  Speakers at COP28 summits blame overconsumption in wealthy countries for food instability in poorer ones.

This is a gross simplification of an incredibly complex set of problems.

Overconsumption of food isn’t just a “rich people problem.” It’s the opposite.

For starters, overconsumption of food is not necessarily related to overall wealth.  You don’t see overweight people walking around elite enclaves like Malibu or Aspen. They’re in the poorer parts of major cities, and throughout rural America.

I spent much of my childhood in a low-income household.  People at the bottom of the socioeconomic food chain are not overconsuming pastured steaks and Kerrygold butter. They’re overconsuming the stuff their SNAP benefits pay for at Dollar Tree, foods like Doritos and Mountain Dew.  These foods are artificially cheap because they are made of processed corn, which is heavily subsidized by the government.

US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is aware of this. He was less militant about eliminating meat from American diets than his European counterparts.  His talks during “Food Day” emphasized less food wastage rather than eliminating meat and dairy.  However, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) insists that affluent Westerners need to reduce meat and dairy consumption by 35-50% to achieve climate goals.

Climate change is being blamed for food shortages in developing countries.  However, you cannot ignore the role distribution problems play.  These might be related to war or to internal problems such as corruption. They are not necessarily affected by the actions of wealthier countries.

Solving the problem of low-income, overweight Americans would involve massive cultural changes.  It would involve fixing the subsidy system that makes junk food so cheap.  It would involve a huge push to re-introduce home economics classes, empowering people to prepare their own food.  And it would involve a change in cultural expectations. When working multiple part-time jobs is the norm, it’s really hard to find time to prepare healthy meals.

Food scarcity in developing countries isn’t because of “rich Westerners,” either.

Solving the problem of food scarcity in less developed countries is no small feat either. It would involve better infrastructure, such as roads and refrigeration facilities.  It would also require accountability at the local level in terms of ensuring corrupt officials do not keep donated goods for themselves.

All of these solutions involve increasing local control and self-empowerment for individuals to make better decisions for themselves.

So, is that what the food giants and the attendees of summits like COP28 are working toward?

These summits promote consolidation and processed foods.

No, they’re going to keep moving toward consolidating food companies and putting more highly processed junk food on the market.

The “Big Four” meatpackers (JBS, Cargill, Tyson, and National Beef Packing) control more than 80% of the market.  Of these four, JBS, Cargill, and Tyson have invested in cultured (lab-grown) meat.

They are beginning to see themselves as in the protein business rather than the meat business. Also, it doesn’t hurt that investing in alternative proteins helps companies’ ESG scores.

They are not just investing in cultured meat. Cargill and Tyson have also been investing in insect production.

In 2022, Cargill partnered with Innovafeed, an insect meal producer.  They feed livestock waste to black soldier flies, which then are in turn fed to farmed fish, chicks, and piglets.

Now Tyson’s getting in on the game.  In October, Tyson purchased a minority stake in Dutch insect farming company Protix.  They plan to build a black soldier fly facility in the US for use in pet foods and livestock feed.  Tyson says they do not plan to add insects to human food “at this time.”

Fish, chicks, and piglets do naturally consume insects.  But I still think this drive toward partnerships between giants in the traditional livestock industry and insect producers is worth our attention.

In a previous article about eating bugs, I referenced studies finding that putting the infrastructure in place for insect protein production is not as climate-neutral as it pretends to be.  Constructing the facilities required for a substantial amount of protein production would require a significant amount of space and energy.  A whole new infrastructure would need to be built, and in a more freely functioning market, investors would need to see demand before making those kinds of commitments.

As we noted in another previous article, the demand for novel proteins has not been developing organically, and a huge infrastructure for conventional meat processing already exists.  Consumers are not choosing novel proteins. They’re being pushed on us by people who seem religiously convinced that eating insects is good for the planet.

Tyson may not be planning to put insect meal into their meat products “at this time,” but they’re investing in the infrastructure that could make that happen when they think the time is right.  With all the talk about how good eating insects is for the environment, it’s reasonable to assume that companies will start looking at how to incorporate insect protein into their food products.

How to really improve the agricultural system

There are absolutely ways in which the agricultural system could improve.  But the real solutions lie in working toward fewer middlemen.  This would make locally produced food more affordable, wherever “local” is for you, and more profitable for the farmers.  Customers need more transparency to make better dietary choices, and building connections with local farmers and custom processors is a great way to achieve that.

I have eaten crickets that still look like crickets. I am not interested in processed foods with hidden ingredients.  As the food giants move toward novel proteins, it will be more important than ever to know where your meat comes from.  Unless, of course, insect nuggets sound delicious to you.

What are your thoughts, though? If you could save money, would you eat lab-grown meat or insects? Do you think this type of “food” production is good for the planet? Are you interested in trying these products?

Let’s discuss it in the comments section.

About Marie Hawthorne

A lover of novels and cultivator of superb apple pie recipes, Marie spends her free time writing about the world around her.

• Dutch investigative journalist Elze van Hamelen reports on the “tsunami of fake foods” being rolled out by the biotech industry
• Fake meats are not about your health or the environment’s; they’re a tool to phase out farmers and ranchers and replace them with an ultraprocessed food product that can be controlled by patents
• Creating lab-grown meat is “insanely expensive” and plagued by bacterial and viral contamination
• Despite the pharmaceutical-style manufacturing, lab-grown meat isn’t considered a pharmaceutical product, which means no human testing is required
• Van Hamelen recommends directing your food dollars not to corporate supermarket chains or fake food products but to small farmers growing real food

(Mercola)—Lab-grown meat may one day represent 80% or more of the “meat” consumed worldwide,¹ a dramatic departure from the way humans have eaten for centuries. Speaking with Catherine Austin Fitts of “The Solari Report,” Dutch investigative journalist Elze van Hamelen reports on the “tsunami of fake foods”² being rolled out by the biotech industry — and what this means for human health.

The Dutch government is among those investing heavily in lab-grown meat, using technologies made to develop pharmaceuticals. While fake meat is touted as the solution to save the planet and end world hunger, it’s plagued by technological challenges that make it prohibitively expensive, prone to bacterial and viral contamination and nearly impossible to grow at scale.³

Fake meats are not about your health or the environment’s; they’re a tool to phase out farmers and ranchers and replace them with an ultraprocessed food product that can be controlled by patents. Remember that if government and corporate entities are able to take control of the food supply via fake food, they also control the people.

How Biotech Grows Meat in Labs

To make fake meat, cell lines are taken from a living organism. They’re then manipulated to grow quickly and consistently. “What are cells that proliferate quickly? Either cancers or fetuses. They have cells that proliferate very quickly,” van Hamelen says.⁴ For lab-grown meats, biotech is cryptic about what types of cell lines are actually used.

Normally, cells grow in a structure in your body. The cell lines being grown in bioreactors in labs are grown in a thin film or growth medium. In the body, the growth medium is your blood, van Hamelen explains, a complex substance that laboratories try to replicate using fetal bovine serum (FBS) — blood taken from living calf fetuses.

“It’s really gruesome how this is harvested,” she says,⁵ pointing out that this negates the narrative that lab-grown meats are made without animals. FBS is often used to grow cultured cells because of the proteins and vitamins it contains. A 2013 study stated, “In many common culture media, the sole source of micronutrients is fetal bovine serum (FBS) …”⁶

When lab-grown chicken made by U.S. startup Eat Just debuted in Singapore in 2020 — marking the first cultured meat to be sold at a restaurant⁷ — it was produced using FBS.

In order to develop synthetic “blood” instead, precision fermentation, using genetically engineered microbes, is used, along with artificial hormones, which can’t legally be added to food in the European Union. Micronutrients and minerals must also be sourced, making the process “insanely expensive,” van Hamelen says.⁸

How expensive? Use of FBS-free medium may cause cultured meat to cost over $20,000 per kilogram.⁹ A report from the Good Food Institute (GFI), a nonprofit group behind the alternative protein industry,¹⁰ suggested that if the cost of FBS-free mediums could be reduced, it would drive down the cost of cultured meat by 90%. This, however, is unlikely.

“[T]he report provides no evidence to explain why these micronutrient costs will fall,” Joe Fassler, The Counter’s deputy editor, wrote in an in-depth exposé about the actual science behind lab-grown meat.”¹¹

Contamination May Also Put Lab-Grown Meat Out of Reach

In precision fermentation, GE microbes such as yeast and bacteria are fermented in brewery-style tanks under high-tech, sterile conditions. Contamination must be controlled down to 2 parts per billion, van Hamelen says, “because as soon as there is a contamination … it becomes riddled with bacteria, and you don’t have a cell culture, you have a bacteria culture.”¹²

GFI’s report assumes that cultured meat facilities of the future will be food-grade, as opposed to pharmaceutical-grade — the latter of which would increase costs even further. But a report by chemical engineer David Humbird for Open Philanthropy¹³ found that cultured meat may remain too expensive to ever come to market, assuming pharmaceutical-grade specifications and aseptic “clean rooms” would be necessary due to the slow growth rate of culture cells.

This makes them extremely vulnerable to contamination from bacteria and viruses. Humbird told Fassler:¹⁴

“Bacteria grow every 20 minutes, and the animal cells are stuck at 24 hours. You’re going to crush the culture in hours with a contamination event … There are documented cases of, basically, operators getting the culture sick.

Not even because the operator themselves had a cold. But there was a virus particle on a glove. Or not cleaned out of a line. The culture has no immune system. If there’s virus particles in there that can infect the cells, they will. And generally, the cells just die, and then there’s no product anymore. You just dump it.”

Paul Wood, a former pharmaceutical industry executive, added, “We’re saying, guys, it has to be pharmaceutical-grade because the process is going to demand it. It’s not whether someone will allow you [to run at food-grade specs.] It’s just the fact you can’t physically do it.”¹⁵

Adding to the issues, the human body has vessels that not only deliver nutrients to cells but also get rid of toxins. In the fake meat growing process, there is no vessel system, so the culture starts to generate toxins, and there’s no way to get rid of them.

An exposé in Wired points to a number of the technological challenges that van Hamelen speaks of,¹⁶ direct from employees at Upside Foods, one of two companies allowed to sell cultured meat in the U.S. Wired reported:¹⁷

“One former employee says that between the factory opening in November 2021 and the summer of 2022, they saw dozens of attempts to use the bioreactors to produce sheets of tissue, but they rarely resulted in usable meat. At times, production runs were ruined by contamination that meant the meat was unsuitable for turning into a product, the former employee says.

Former Upside employees describe how batches of meat growing in the custom-made bioreactors would frequently be ruined by contamination and have to be incinerated. ‘Once they had any indication it was contaminating, they would try to just stop the run, get the cells, and get any results out of it that they could,’ says a former employee with knowledge of the process.”

Meanwhile, despite the pharmaceutical-style manufacturing, lab-grown meat isn’t considered a pharmaceutical product, which means no human testing is required. “If this is brought to market, it’s a human experiment,” van Hamelen says.¹⁸

Fake Food Has Roots in Central Control

Van Hamelen also describes a war against Dutch farmers that has emerged, threatening to push them off the land they’ve farmed for generations. As small and mid-sized farms close their doors, governments and corporate entities can scoop up the land, leaving consumers with no choice but to eat the fake lab-grown, animal-free foods they’re offering.

You can hear about this in-depth van Hamelen’s report and podcast for “The Solari Report” — Dutch Farmers and Fishermen: The People Who Feed Us.¹⁹

“In 2021, the European Union’s Natura 2000 network released a map of areas in the Netherlands that are now protected against nitrogen emissions. Any Dutch farmer who operates their farm within 5 kilometers of a Natura 2000 protected area would now need to severely curtail their nitrogen output, which in turn would limit their production,” Roman Balmakov, Epoch Times reporter and host of ‘Facts Matter,’ says.²⁰

Dutch dairy farmer Nynke Koopmans, with the Forum for Democracy, believes the nitrogen problem is made up. “It’s one big lie,” she says. “The nitrogen has nothing to do with environmental. It’s just getting rid of farmers.” Another farmer said if new nitrogen rules go into effect, he’d have to reduce his herd of 58 milking cows down to six.

Nitrogen scientist Jaap C. Hanekamp, Ph.D., was working for a government committee to study nitrogen, tasked with analyzing the government’s nitrogen model. He told Balmakov:²¹

“The whole policy is based on the deposition model about how to deal with nitrogen emissions on nature areas. And I looked at the validation studies and show that the model is actually crap. It doesn’t work. And doesn’t matter. They still continue using it. Which is, in a sense, unsettling. I mean, really, can we do such a thing in terms of policy? Use a model which doesn’t work? It’s never about innovation, it’s always about getting rid of farmers.”

Fake Food a ‘Dangerous Chapter’ in ‘the Great Poisoning’

Once you get rid of farmers, the only food choices left will be lab-grown products, insects and other synthetic foods. According to Fitts’ Solari Report:²²

“Synthetic food and lab-grown meat represent a new and dangerous chapter in what I call ‘the Great Poisoning.’ Despite an economics that makes no sense — and clear indications that these products are repugnant to consumers — money is apparently no object.

Staked by massive infusions of venture capital and burgeoning public-private partnerships, items like cricket flour and lab-cultured ‘eggs’ have already made their way into grocery stores — with non-existent or misleading labeling designed to get past unwary consumers’ defenses.

As Elze’s research shows, this is a multipronged attack, with synthetic foods also targeting pets and livestock. There is every indication that governments, corporations, and others are serious about establishing a tightly controlled food system that replaces real food and real meat with synthetic, pharma-inspired ‘alternatives.’”

One way you can fight back, aside from supporting farmers producing real food using real farming, is to contact your representatives and encourage them to vote in favor of the Prime Act. Introduced by U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, the Processing Revival and Intrastate Meat Exemption (PRIME) Act would allow farmers to sell meat processed at smaller slaughtering facilities and allow states to set their own meat processing standards.

Because small slaughterhouses do not have an inspector on staff — a requirement that only large facilities can easily fulfill — they’re banned from selling their meat. The PRIME Act would lift this regulation without sacrificing safety, as random USDA inspections could still occur.²³ Ultimately, the Act would make meat much more affordable and available.

The answer to food safety and security lies in a decentralized food system that connects communities with farmers growing real food sustainably and distributing it locally. Van Hamelen recommends directing your food dollars not to corporate supermarket chains but to small farmers or their intermediaries.

• ¹ Rumble, Children’s Health Defense, Pharma Food: Biotech on Your Plate With Elze van Hamelen November 16, 2023, 9:30
• ^2, 22 The Solari Report February 1, 2023
• ^{3, 9, 11, 14, 15} The Counter September 22, 2021
• ⁴ Rumble, Children’s Health Defense, Pharma Food: Biotech on Your Plate With Elze van Hamelen November 16, 2023, 11:51
• ⁵ Rumble, Children’s Health Defense, Pharma Food: Biotech on Your Plate With Elze van Hamelen November 16, 2023, 14:07
• ⁶ Biomed Res Int. 2013;2013:597282. doi: 10.1155/2013/597282. Epub 2013 May 27
• ⁷ CNBC December 18, 2020
• ⁸ Rumble, Children’s Health Defense, Pharma Food: Biotech on Your Plate With Elze van Hamelen November 16, 2023, 14:31
• ¹⁰ Techno-Economic Analysis for the production of cultivated meat February 2021
• ¹² Rumble, Children’s Health Defense, Pharma Food: Biotech on Your Plate With Elze van Hamelen November 16, 2023, 15:30
• ¹³ Engrxiv, Scale-Up Economics for Cultured Meat December 28, 2020
• ¹⁶ Rumble, Children’s Health Defense, Pharma Food: Biotech on Your Plate With Elze van Hamelen November 16, 2023, 17:00
• ¹⁷ Wired September 15, 2023
• ¹⁸ Rumble, Children’s Health Defense, Pharma Food: Biotech on Your Plate With Elze van Hamelen November 16, 2023, 18:00
• ¹⁹ The Solari Report August 17, 2023
• ²⁰ The Epoch Times, No Farmers, No Food
• ²¹ The Epoch Times, No Farmers, No Food, 1:16
• ²³ Human Events May 6, 2020