Great post, George. I enjoyed reading it and the accompanying Medium post. Your knowledge and passion are really exciting!
I’ve noticed that while many another areas of EA have embraced a hits based approach to accomplishing goals, farmed animal welfare seems more conservative. We may be overly focused on the trinity of welfare, moral suasion and plant-based/cultivated meats, and not willing enough to take risks. I suspect your proposal is a high-risk, medium-reward project, but as you point out, even a medium-reward intervention for farmed animals could result in some incredible numbers of animals saved. It seems obvious to me that this is a worthy area to explore, even if there are risks of failure.
You seem to be focusing on whether or not current omnivores would try these tofus and therefore replace a current meat-inclusive meal with tofu. Have you considered that by increasing the variety, availability and tastiness of tofus, you could be extending the amount of time a current vegetarian/vegan remains committed? I think that as a movement we tend to focus on new converts, and neglect maintaining those who currently avoid animal products, especially in light of evidence that many vegetarian/vegans eventually revert to eating meat. I suspect that people who already eat tofu would be the initial base for the new-to-the-West tofus.
Have you considered that by increasing the variety, availability and tastiness of tofus, you could be extending the amount of time a current vegetarian/vegan remains committed? I think that as a movement we tend to focus on new converts, and neglect maintaining those who currently avoid animal products, especially in light of evidence that many vegetarian/vegans eventually revert to eating meat.
This is a great point, Bryan! I wonder how a “support vegetarians” angle would compare to a “help meat eaters reduce” branding. More broadly, it seems like it might hinge on how helpful it is (to the long or short-term success of the movement) to grow the # of vegetarians vs flexitarian allies. I’d expect those goals to have more overlap than difference, but it seems worthwhile to at least think about.
My hunch would be to focus first on high-end flexitarian chefs, to establish that the ingredients aren’t “just for vegans,” then try to expand within the veg community. But I could be wrong.
I suspect that people who already eat tofu would be the initial base for the new-to-the-West tofus.
I’m actually not so sure about this. From a flavor perspective, rare tofus taste pretty different from one another and have different use cases, so liking one type wouldn’t necessarily be strongly correlated with liking another. That said, there might be greater willingness to try?
Great post, George. I enjoyed reading it and the accompanying Medium post. Your knowledge and passion are really exciting!
I’ve noticed that while many another areas of EA have embraced a hits based approach to accomplishing goals, farmed animal welfare seems more conservative. We may be overly focused on the trinity of welfare, moral suasion and plant-based/cultivated meats, and not willing enough to take risks. I suspect your proposal is a high-risk, medium-reward project, but as you point out, even a medium-reward intervention for farmed animals could result in some incredible numbers of animals saved. It seems obvious to me that this is a worthy area to explore, even if there are risks of failure.
You seem to be focusing on whether or not current omnivores would try these tofus and therefore replace a current meat-inclusive meal with tofu. Have you considered that by increasing the variety, availability and tastiness of tofus, you could be extending the amount of time a current vegetarian/vegan remains committed? I think that as a movement we tend to focus on new converts, and neglect maintaining those who currently avoid animal products, especially in light of evidence that many vegetarian/vegans eventually revert to eating meat. I suspect that people who already eat tofu would be the initial base for the new-to-the-West tofus.
This is a great point, Bryan! I wonder how a “support vegetarians” angle would compare to a “help meat eaters reduce” branding. More broadly, it seems like it might hinge on how helpful it is (to the long or short-term success of the movement) to grow the # of vegetarians vs flexitarian allies. I’d expect those goals to have more overlap than difference, but it seems worthwhile to at least think about.
My hunch would be to focus first on high-end flexitarian chefs, to establish that the ingredients aren’t “just for vegans,” then try to expand within the veg community. But I could be wrong.
I’m actually not so sure about this. From a flavor perspective, rare tofus taste pretty different from one another and have different use cases, so liking one type wouldn’t necessarily be strongly correlated with liking another. That said, there might be greater willingness to try?