4 min listen
#167 – Seren Kell on the research gaps holding back alternative proteins from mass adoption
#167 – Seren Kell on the research gaps holding back alternative proteins from mass adoption
ratings:
Length:
115 minutes
Released:
Oct 18, 2023
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
"There have been literally thousands of years of breeding and living with animals to optimise these kinds of problems. But because we're just so early on with alternative proteins and there's so much white space, it's actually just really exciting to know that we can keep on innovating and being far more efficient than this existing technology — which, fundamentally, is just quite inefficient. You're feeding animals a bunch of food to then extract a small fraction of their biomass to then eat that.Animal agriculture takes up 83% of farmland, but produces just 18% of food calories. So the current system just is so wasteful. And the limiting factor is that you're just growing a bunch of food to then feed a third of the world's crops directly to animals, where the vast majority of those calories going in are lost to animals existing." — Seren KellLinks to learn more, summary and full transcript.In today’s episode, host Luisa Rodriguez interviews Seren Kell — Senior Science and Technology Manager at the Good Food Institute Europe — about making alternative proteins as tasty, cheap, and convenient as traditional meat, dairy, and egg products.They cover:
The basic case for alternative proteins, and why they’re so hard to make
Why fermentation is a surprisingly promising technology for creating delicious alternative proteins
The main scientific challenges that need to be solved to make fermentation even more useful
The progress that’s been made on the cultivated meat front, and what it will take to make cultivated meat affordable
How GFI Europe is helping with some of these challenges
How people can use their careers to contribute to replacing factory farming with alternative proteins
The best part of Seren’s job
Plenty more
Producer and editor: Keiran HarrisAudio Engineering Lead: Ben CordellTechnical editing: Dominic Armstrong and Milo McGuireAdditional content editing: Luisa Rodriguez and Katy MooreTranscriptions: Katy Moore
The basic case for alternative proteins, and why they’re so hard to make
Why fermentation is a surprisingly promising technology for creating delicious alternative proteins
The main scientific challenges that need to be solved to make fermentation even more useful
The progress that’s been made on the cultivated meat front, and what it will take to make cultivated meat affordable
How GFI Europe is helping with some of these challenges
How people can use their careers to contribute to replacing factory farming with alternative proteins
The best part of Seren’s job
Plenty more
Producer and editor: Keiran HarrisAudio Engineering Lead: Ben CordellTechnical editing: Dominic Armstrong and Milo McGuireAdditional content editing: Luisa Rodriguez and Katy MooreTranscriptions: Katy Moore
Released:
Oct 18, 2023
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (100)
#0 – Introducing the 80,000 Hours Podcast: <p>Since 2017 this show has been putting out interviews about the world's most pressing problems and how to solve them.<br></p> by 80,000 Hours Podcast