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It ’s no secret that to a fault make up solid food is n’t good for our health . The production of these intellectual nourishment is also extremely harmful for agriculture and the surround . The end result of make up foods conduct to the elimination of many modest farm .
We must commute the room we produce and purchase nutrient to stay healthy and keep small farms running .
The following is an extract fromSaying NO to a Farm - Free FuturebyChris Smaje . It has been adapted for the web .
The “Rationale” for Manufactured Food
An important part of the rationale for manufactured food for thought is the cost to nature of what George Monbiot calls farming sprawl , suggesting the need to cut agrarian land area . While are a few seam in this demesne - spare argument , there is some grounds to indicate that fabricate food might help .
For deterrent example , a detailed subject area release in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ( PNAS ) has incur thata hectare of Edwin Herbert Land devote to protein - plentiful microbial biomass output perk up by solar ( photovoltaic – henceforth PV ) panel could potentially produce 15 t of protein per year.2Whereas a hectare of soybeans , the authors report , only produces 1.1 metric ton of protein .
PNAS Study on Manufactured Food
It has to be say that the PNAS cogitation makes various assumptions rather golden to the case for manufactured food , one of which is to utilise name for incoming solar energy to the panels typical of places such as Southern California ( around 2,000 kilowatt - hour per square metre per year – the jibe shape in the UK is about 1,000 ) and a world intermediate figure for soybean yields .
So , the 15:1.1 proportion is in all probability well taken as the upper limit of estate - spar possibilities for manufactured food ( Monbiot claims the opening are greater , but on the basis of blemished figure , as I ’ll evoke in a moment).3It must also be borne in mind that no large - plate manufactured solid food facilities yet subsist , so all these figures remain speculative .
Benefits of the Manufactured Food Study
On the top , the PNAS study render a lot of useful detail , and its comparison between PV - energise manufacture protein and soybeans is appropriate . The electrical vigour need to make protein via the manufactured food itinerary could be generated by any method , including fossil fuel , but PV panels are a sensible choice for evaluating the event for manufactured food because they ’re probably the best bet globally for succeeding low - carbon vim , even though they ’re themselves a land - hungry way of bug energy .
And soybean rather than meat protein is the appropriate comparability because if the name of the secret plan is efficient feeding of the Global Standard Consumer , then looking at the optimal product from the Global Standard Farm in equivalence to the manufactured food approach is the right way to go about it .
One matter the PNAS study does n’t do overtly is provide a figure for the amount of electrical push required to manufacture the 15 tonnes of protein on the nominative hectare . To his deferred payment , Monbiot does provide such a figure , although he does n’t summons a author for it . He states that the manufacture of Solein uses 16.7 kilowatt - hours ( kWh ) of electric energy to produce 1 kilogram ( kg ) of protein ( to give an everyday sense of that , it ’s the combining weight of boiling about 90 timpani filled with 2 cubic decimetre of water).4
Flaws in the Figures: Issues With the PNAS Study
Monbiot guess on that footing that the protein need of the entire orbicular universe could be met through manufactured protein using about 11 per cent of the humanity ’s current electricity use . Which sounds to me like a lot , but not only beyond the bounds of possibility .
However , so far as I can see , this material body is incorrect – so unseasonable , in fact , that it ’s less than the minimal vitality cost of what ’s even theoretically potential , a figure that stands at 17.7 kWh / kg.5A respectable figure for the factual energy inputs can be calculated with a moment of bit crunching from behind the picture of the PNAS newspaper , to arrive at around 65 kWh / kg – nearly four time higher than Monbiot’s.6
Even this anatomy is unrealistically low-pitched , involving several assumption favourable to the case for cook up food , for example in assuming mellow levels of solar irradiance and in ignoring the energy price associated with construction and maintaining bioreactors , PV arrays and all the supporting infrastructure . So it should n’t be used as the ‘ tangible ’ figure – only as a minimal ballpark .
It ’s also deserving noting that the primary energy inputs for most forms of generated electrical vigour other than PV , such as nuclear or fossil - fuel power generation plants , would be two to three times higher , due to vim conversion inefficiencies.7
Which Figures Should We Use?
If we replicate Monbiot ’s computation with this minimal park 65 kWh / kilogram figure , we find that meeting the global population ’s protein require via the manufactured route would require at least 43 per penny of the earth ’s electrical energy consumption using his own electricity consumption figures . Using pattern for electricity genesis in 2021,I calculate that meeting world protein needs would call for at least 89 per centime of its low - atomic number 6 electricity supply(nuclear , hydro and renewables ) , or at least 924 per cent of its solar electricity supply .
By comparison , I estimate the vigour input for big - weighing machine soybean agriculture in the US , including the human labor that ’s involve , as around 1,090 kWh / ha on the groundwork of relevant studies.8Applying that to the national average yield suggests a figure of about 1.0 kWh / kg protein – about 65 times less than the minimum approximate range figure for manufactured protein .
Of course , if you grew the soja in your backyard for your own consumption you could probably do it with footling more than a digging marijuana cigarette , and the vigour inputs would be negligible .
For soybeans grown organically with broadscale mechanised method acting , I figure they take around 1.5 metre the energy comment ( including human Labour Party ) , per kg of protein compared to conventional soybeans , which is mainly due to lower yield per hectare without the agrochemical stimulus into conventional crops.9
Food for Thought: Saving Money and Energy
So , putting all this together , with mechanized Department of Agriculture you could produce 1 kg of soy protein for the get-up-and-go cost of boiling about five 2 - cubic decimeter kettles of water , or about eight tympani with constitutional methods , and much less with backyard method . Or you could go down the invent solid food route and , even neglecting various energy cost , produce 1 kilo of protein for around 20x more with 100 kettles as the absolute theoretical minimum , or more probable about 70x more with 350 boiler as a ‘ tangible - earth ’ minimum approximate range figure tipped rather generously towards the manufacture route .
The Importance of Producing Protein
In this latter case , to provide for all of humanity ’s protein need , you ’d have to employ more than nine times the total world ’s current solar electric supply . Many other industriousness , such as steelmaking , are clamour for that supply , because they have few other options for decarbonisation . But in the lawsuit of edible protein , there is one . The sunlight – which costs nothing . So you could say that manufactured food is a 10x origination , but not exactly in the style that Peter Thiel intended .
Protein is , of row , only one component of the human diet . It ’s not the difficult one to produce when land is tight , an pureness that go to gram calorie , or food energy . Among the ten most widely grown cultivatable crops worldwide , six of them are cereals like wheat that are grown predominantly for their energy(although they also curb protein ) . So if we want a truly farm - free future , it ’s not enough only to manufacture protein . We take to manufacture calories as well ( or , more purely speaking , bend the nutritionist’s calorie in sunshine into edible calories by way of PV instrument panel and bioreactors , rather than by way of life of works ) .
Manufactured Food: Ignoring Energy
liken with the flourish over protein , the manufactured food literature has less to say about food energy . peradventure this is because of the toxicity event mention in Chapter 1 . Or because the industriousness is position itself primarily around proprietary manufacture vegan meat substitute , and not the bionomic concerns motivating analyst like Monbiot.10
Or a tricky combining of the first two , inasmuch as once the comestible luck is pull out for vegan food , the better exercise for much of the residue may be as livestock fresh fish . Or else it ’s because the energy input picture for microbic calories looks even more dingy than for protein .
On that last point , I ’ve run some parallel deliberation for food energy as the preceding ones for protein , based on datum provided in the PNAS subject . In this instance , to encounter all of the global universe ’s calorific needs using manufactured calories ( assuming they ’re secure to eat ) would use , at an incredibly scanty minimum , more than three times the world ’s current electrical energy supply , or more than eight time its current depleted - carbon electrical energy supply , or more than ninety - one times its current solar electricity supply . ( Both microbic biomass and soy control some fat – soy proportionally more – which I have n’t considered here . )
A Simple Solution: The Power of Sunlight
Alternatively , we could just utilise sunlight .
The sheath for manufactured protein is sometimes made on the grounds that its bacterially establish processes are more energy efficient than plant photosynthesis . But it ’s a misleading title given the energy costs of acquire the generated electricity and industrial plant ask in the manufactured route . Early stake in Cupriavidus necator as a potential route for edible protein fabrication ran aground in the 1970s in the brass of the unpromising energetics , and nothing much seems to have changed .
What has modify is the emergence of :
( 1 ) environmental controversy for lessen the country take of the food for thought system ;
( 2 ) a ‘ disruptive ’ tech bro 10x frame of entrepreneurship that makes an thought like ‘ Food - as - Software ’ sound coolheaded rather than weird – so much so that few notice what ’s really call for is a summons that ’s 10x ( or , more likely , 70x ) less energy effective than its predecessor ; and
( 3 ) a critical review of farm animal agriculture and a moneymaking market for vegan marrow substitutes driving agriculture corporations to parry their bets on the meat/ vegan issue and position themselves as generic ‘ protein providers ’ .
It seems to me that the real driving power behind manufactured food is point ( 3 ) , for which points ( 1 ) and ( 2 ) function largely as PR glossary , with the potential result of non - disruptive byplay - as - common for an expansionary industrial food arrangement that will probably be detrimental to most mass and most wildlife .
Notes
2 . Leger et al . 2021 .
3 . Monbiot . 2022 , 188 .
4 . Monbiot 2022 , 190 .
5 . Wise et al.2022 .
6 . To cut a long story short , this value is deduce from Equation [ 1 ] , Table 1 and Figure 4 of the PNAS discipline ( Leger et al . 2021 ) . The time value was confirmed as a low - end estimation by one of the study author ( via personal communication ) .
7 . USEIA ( 2020 ) ‘ More Than 60 % of Energy Used for Electricity Generation is Lost in Conversion ’ , 21 July , https://www.eia.gov/ todayinenergy / detail.php?id=44436 .
8 . Pradhan et al . 2011 ; Nag and Gite 2020 ; Knudsen et al . 2010 ; USDA ( 2022 ) ‘ Corn and Soybean Production up in 2021 , USDA Reports , Corn and Soybean origin up from Year sooner , Winter Wheat Seedings up for 2022 ’ , 12 January , https://www.nass.usda.gov/ Newsroom/2022/01 - 12 - 2022.php .
9 . See Note 8 ; and USDA ( 2022 ) ‘ Certified Organic resume : 2021 Summary ’ , National Agricultural Statistics Service : 110 , 15 December , https://downloads.usda.library.cornell.edu/usda- esmis / files / zg64tk92g/2z10z137s / bn99bh97r / cenorg22.pdf .
10 . In this respect , interview remark by Solar Foods ’ chief executive officer look a act like bet - hedging to me : Lomas , Natasha ( 2022 ) ‘ Solar Foods require to supervene upon Industrial Animal Farming with a mellow - Tech Protein Harvest ’ , TechCrunch , 5 September , https://techcrunch . com/2025-02-11 / solar - food - solein .
Recommended Reads
The # 1 Health Rule : Eat substantial Food
The Mystery Behind Meat Labels : Got “ American ” Beef ?
Saying NO to a Farm-Free Future
The Case For an Ecological Food System and Against Manufactured Foods
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