Can We End Factory Farming Without Giving Up Meat? (with Bruce Friedrich)

Industrial meat production is inherently inefficient, requiring nine calories of feed to produce one calorie of chicken, while contributing significantly to environmental degradation, antibiotic resistance, and pandemic risks. Bruce Friedrich, author of *Meat*, argues that because global meat consumption continues to rise alongside GDP, behavioral changes alone are insufficient to mitigate these systemic harms. Instead, the transition to plant-based and cultivated meat—produced in brewery-like facilities—offers a scalable solution that maintains the taste and affordability consumers demand. Cultivated meat, in particular, could eventually replace traditional animal agriculture by using a small number of cells to grow muscle and fat, thereby eliminating the need for large-scale slaughterhouses. Achieving price and taste parity through increased government funding for research, development, and infrastructure is essential to transitioning the global food system away from its reliance on industrial animal farming.