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"A meat-eater with a bicycle is much more environmentally unfriendly than a vegetarian with a Hummer."
--Dr Mark Post
The world's largest food concern, Unilever, has opened a new research lab at the world's most prestigious agricultural university, the University of Wageningen (the Netherlands). Unilever will locate all elements of its foods R&D there. A spokeswoman on Dutch radio stressed plant-based meat alternatives as an important research subject.
Wageningen University has strong credentials in that respect, with the development of shear cell technology.
Shear cell technology strings plant proteins together in tightly controlled fibers, resulting in a meat substitute where texture (fibrousness, bite, mouthfeel) can easily be controlled, and changed at will. This, combined with 3D food printing, offers the possibility of creating multiple meat (substitute) variations in future.
Unilever's food campus is open to startups, innovators and partners. One of the first to have build its own lab on the same grounds is Symrise, an industrial flavours and scents group.
About half of Dutch people call themselves 'flexitarians'. This means that they don't eat meat with their main meal at least three times a week. The proportion of vegetarians is stable, at just under five percent of the Dutch population.
Wageningen researchers believe, however, that feeding 9 billion people with animal meat will not be sustainable for the planet.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 06 2019, @03:37PM (4 children)
> US academic community is simply no longer good at their jobs
Climate science is not a US-only thing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 06 2019, @03:45PM
The US government is by far the biggest funder of "science", so whatever conventions and customs are supported by it get applied all around the (flat?) globe. For a bit the USSR was largely independent, but as we saw that government mucked up science even worse.
Really what we want is a return to pre WWII state where science was funded by competing universities. Progress occurs in a diverse environment, not a monoculture.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Friday December 06 2019, @06:58PM (2 children)
Pretending its fake is, though!
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday December 06 2019, @07:56PM
Not entirely, though: Brazil seems to also be pretending it's fake, for instance.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Friday December 06 2019, @11:52PM
Yes. Right. Let's pretend that other societies base their policies on facts instead of feelings. They don't, though.
Travel to any country in the world. Any. Then absorb a local paper and then ask yourself how independent they are.
We should all do this. Then we can quickly dispel the illusion that one place is remarkably better than another.
Washington DC delenda est.