This does not address one possible use of alternative proteins—feeding them to domesticated carnivorous animals. Obviously many EA folks might prefer that we don’t eat such animals or have them as pets but if we do it would be better if their food did not have an adverse climate impact or did not involve more animal suffering (or both!). Alt proteins here would not need to have the same taste as the foods they replace, be tasty to humans, or pass strict safety guidelines—they would just need to be minimally acceptable to (and digestible by/​safe for) their ‘target’ animals. I recall those breeding insects as food (not alt proteins of course) are targeting this marketplace. Any thoughts? Research? Evidence of success?
I think this is potentially a really important use for alternative proteins. While plant-based pet food has been around for some time, it hasn’t quite caught on, and I don’t want to wade into the debate around whether cats can thrive on protein from plants. This is why cultivated meat in particular might be really valuable here. It also makes intuitive sense that people might be willing to feed cultivated meat to other animals, even if they have concerns about eating it themselves, and that this might eventually help to normalize cultivated meat in general.
That being said, I couldn’t find any good research or evidence of success in this area, which is why I didn’t delve into it here. It seems like a promising area for research, and now that there is a limited amount of cultivated meat on sale as dog food in the UK perhaps we will start to get some data.
This does not address one possible use of alternative proteins—feeding them to domesticated carnivorous animals. Obviously many EA folks might prefer that we don’t eat such animals or have them as pets but if we do it would be better if their food did not have an adverse climate impact or did not involve more animal suffering (or both!). Alt proteins here would not need to have the same taste as the foods they replace, be tasty to humans, or pass strict safety guidelines—they would just need to be minimally acceptable to (and digestible by/​safe for) their ‘target’ animals. I recall those breeding insects as food (not alt proteins of course) are targeting this marketplace. Any thoughts? Research? Evidence of success?
I think this is potentially a really important use for alternative proteins. While plant-based pet food has been around for some time, it hasn’t quite caught on, and I don’t want to wade into the debate around whether cats can thrive on protein from plants. This is why cultivated meat in particular might be really valuable here. It also makes intuitive sense that people might be willing to feed cultivated meat to other animals, even if they have concerns about eating it themselves, and that this might eventually help to normalize cultivated meat in general.
That being said, I couldn’t find any good research or evidence of success in this area, which is why I didn’t delve into it here. It seems like a promising area for research, and now that there is a limited amount of cultivated meat on sale as dog food in the UK perhaps we will start to get some data.
This is happening! Last month in the UK dog food containing cultured chicken meat went on sale—albeit so far just as a trial in a single pet shop.