Giving Compass' Take:

• Bruce Friedrich explains the strategy of reducing demand for meat by creating superior plant-based products may pave the way to outlawing factory farming. 

• What cultural barriers must be considered? What is the tipping point when factory farming becomes more abhorrent than it is necessary? 

• This discussion begs the question: do we want alternative protein?

Before the US Civil War, it was easier for the North to morally oppose slavery. Why? Because unlike the South they weren’t profiting much from its existence. The fight for abolition was partly won because many no longer saw themselves as having a selfish stake in its continuation.

Bruce Friedrich, executive director of The Good Food Institute (GFI), thinks the same may be true in the fight against speciesism. 98% of people currently eat meat. But if eating meat stops being part of most people’s daily lives — it should be a lot easier to convince them that farming practices are just as cruel as they look, and that the suffering of these animals really matters.

Well, you can perfectly replicate it. You can do better. … If you are going to go the conventional meat-making way, you are constrained by the biology of the animal. If you want to use plant-based meat … you can do taste tests and find things that people like even more…

That’s why GFI is “working with scientists, investors, and entrepreneurs” to create plant-based meat, dairy, and eggs as well as clean meat alternatives to animal products. In 2016, Animal Charity Evaluators named GFI one of its recommended charities.

Read the full article on outstanding meat substitutes by Robert Wiblin and Keiran Harris at 80000 Hours.