Can this burger save the planet? : synthetic beef and the dream of an American animal-free diet

Sustainable food movements are focused on reducing meat consumption for one simple reason: meat is extremely environmentally costly. This enormous resource use by one industry makes it an appealing target for those looking to reduce American resource use. As a result, many are looking at ways to make livestock more sustainable. And there are two main ways to do so. Clover Food Lab represents one idea: a return to local farming with an emphasis on a plant-based diet. Impossible Foods is the second: using biotechnology to provide a sacrifice free alternative, synthetic beef. These companies aren't solutions in of themselves, but proposals on the way solutions should be implemented. The partnership between these two opposing strategies reveals the promises and pitfalls of trying to reform the American diet and, most importantly, that above all else our food system is unsustainable as it is now.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Graduate Program in Science Writing

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2018

Author dc:creator

• Junger, Ashley

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Thomas Levenson.

• Comparative Media Studies.
• Graduate Program in Science Writing.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/119972

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/119972