You will eat lab-grown chicken and be happy. The anti-meat agenda has been on full display for the last few years, even dating back to before the inflationary food crisis. However, with US supermarket and restaurant prices up around 10%, maintaining a balanced diet is becoming increasingly expensive, forcing consumers to head to the nearby dollar store or heed the media’s advice and skip meals altogether. But could food grown in a laboratory be the answer to pecuniary pain at the local grocery store?
The Rise or Fall of Frankenfoods
Cultivated meat is manufactured from cells extracted from an animal and processed to propagate in vessels. They are then given a blend of amino acids, sugars, and nutrients. Once this is complete, the meat is harvested and formed into a wide array of products with many ingredients. The objective is to diminish animal agriculture’s environmental impact and reduce animal slaughter by supplying the planet with lab-grown protein. Proponents assert this is the way of the future, while critics contend these products are merely frankenfoods.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cleared a California company’s lab-grown chicken as safe to consume. Federal regulators gave the thumbs up to GOOD Meat and its chicken produced from cells outside an animal. This came soon after the FDA approved Upside Foods’ cultivated meats.
“We have no questions at this time regarding Good Meat’s conclusion that foods comprised of or containing cultured chicken cell material…are as safe as comparable foods produced by other methods,” the FDA said in a Mar. 21 letter to the company.
The initial hurdle will be competitive pricing. Despite functioning as an alternative to chicken, which was up 8.8% year-over-year in February, reports suggest that prices will be comparable to meat. This will be the norm until businesses like Good Meat scale up production and trim operating costs. Indeed, plant-based companies have disappointed investors and consumer groups because sales of vegan protein options have slumped. But they might be looking to the distant future rather than the next quarterly earnings report.
Beyond Meat shares have cratered about 70% over the last 12 months, plummeting to below $16 per share. The company posted a $56.5 million loss in the fourth quarter, and revenues were down 21% year-over-year. Leadership agreed that prices continued to be higher than animal meat, a deterrent for cash-strapped and budget-conscious consumers. This could explain why research has revealed waning interest in plant-based meat substitutes.
So, despite the World Economic Forum (WEF) chief villain Klaus Schwab telling the planet to “eat ze bugs,” is the market signaling that consumers are uninterested in eating non-cow beef and bug-infused protein bars?
Eat Ze Bugs
Would you be interested in baking bread with cricket flour? Would you eat an apple cinnamon protein bar with buffalo beetle powder? Would insect-based meatballs go well with your spaghetti tonight? But while entrepreneurs are building bug-based business models and globalists are yearning for consumers to ditch cow milk for cockroach beverages, households might not be as ebullient to digest spiders and stock up their refrigerators and cupboards with frankenfoods.
(Photo by Newsmakers/USDA)
In addition to disappointing earnings reports, research on the subject shows most consumers are not eager to imbibe edible insects. A June 2020 poll by European Consumer Organisation, BEUC, discovered that only 10% of consumers in places like Austria, Belgium, Germany, and Spain expressed interest in replacing meat with insect derivatives. A November 2021 YouGov survey revealed that only one in five Americans say they are willing to consume insects. A separate July 2022 study by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) learned that one-quarter of adults would be happy munching on slugs.
This is bad news for the globalists who purport that “we need to give insects the role they deserve in our food systems.” Even if this were true, consumers are not going to bite.
Won’t Somebody Think of the Vegans!
Veganism and vegetarianism are growing in popularity. It is estimated that between 6% and 10% of Americans are vegans or vegetarians. This dietary lifestyle consists of not consuming animal products, and theoretically, the concept would restrict chewing on cockroaches. The challenge for vegans and vegetarians is that their sustainability concerns align with the eco globalists. Sure, with the plethora of delicious meals available – chickpea korma or yam tempura avocado sushi rolls, for example – it is easy to avoid eating meat. But what if remnants of insect carcasses are inserted into a package of lentils or a box of cereal? Be it state edicts or quasi-market forces, everyone will be forced to endure the Great Reset of diets.
