What Is The Future Of Animal Protein?

If you didn’t know, I’m a futurist. I have some strong feelings about where humanity is going and how we will get there. As our ancestors did before us, we currently live at the height of technology for the human race.

In the last 100 years, we’ve gone from building the first car to 3d printing replacement parts on the international space station. Our world’s greatest threat went from fighting Nazis to fighting global warming. And while we won the former, we are losing the latter.

There is less snowfall and more wildfires every year. There is a hole in the O-zone over New Zealand that is steadily growing, and sooner or later, Venice will go the same way as Atlantis.

As always, we don’t know what the future will hold, but if things continue on their current trajectories, our children could experience a scarcity of animal proteins, and what will replace them is the content of this article:

Why will there be a scarcity of animal proteins?

You may think that I’m a doomsday prepper or nut that thinks the sky is falling. But, to be clear, I don’t think we are in danger of food scarcity, although I believe we will need to reduce factory farming.

The water it takes to grow, feed, and clean livestock will one day be needed more for humans and plants. And the greenhouse gases created by the methane from Cow farts are staggering. We will see a pullback from traditional factory farming methods at some point, whether to preserve our most valuable commodity, freshwater or to preserve our environment.

What will replace animal protein?

As a futurist, I want to say 3D printed meats are the future of our diets, but unfortunately, we are still ways away from that being practical.

Humans don’t actually need that much protein in our diets, we require some protein, but we eat it because it is freaking delicious.

In the near future, there are a few ways that the human race will continue to create ample protein to feed an ever-growing population:

3D Printed or Lab-Grown Meat

I know I just said that this is a ways off, but if it works at scale, a 3d printing meat machine will be in every home. I’m not talking about Impossible burgers or Beyond Burgers either; those are simple vegetables dressed up as meat.

I’m referring to growing meat in labs from the stem cells of cows and chickens. This process almost wholly removes the greenhouse gasses from meat production. It is currently a timely and inefficient way to produce food, but who knows if it will work in the future.

Genetically Modified Vegetables

Animal protein is not a necessary part of a person’s diet. It is a luxury and an efficient way to feed people. Five acres of grazing cows can feed a lot more people for longer than five acres of wheat. Fat is simply the most effective way to feed calories to humans. However, this article is about the future of protein, and protein can be found in vegetables.

There are nine essential amino acids, and if a food contains all nine of them, it is considered a perfect protein. For example, rice and beans together create a perfect protein. If we genetically modified beans to contain methionine (an amino acid), you wouldn’t need the rice. They are currently making great strides by adding vitamin A and E to potatoes to make them a more complete part of children’s diets. Soon we may see protein-rich veggies or simply improved Impossible burgers.

Aquaponics

Aquaponics is not a new concept, but it always surprises me how fringe of an idea it is. Aquaponics is a food production system that revolves around fish and lettuce production, though you could grow other vegetables in water the same way.

The premise is that you have a tank of fish and lettuce growing in circulating water. The fish poop and feed the plants. The plants, in turn, clean the water, along with the help of some filtration, and can grow duckweed which will feed the fish. However, it is not uncommon to give the fish store-bought fish feed instead.

As the fish breed and the plants grow, you remove and eat them to maintain the delicate balance between the two.

It is a rather brilliant system, but it is costly to set up and difficult to maintain. It works on a household level, but it likely is not viable for commercial farming nationwide. However, if someone was to create an automated aquaponics system, each household in the country could be making its own food.

Crickets

Last but not least, let’s talk about insects. Entomophagy is the scientific name for people who eat bugs. About twenty-five percent of the earth’s population eat insects regularly, and the most popular insect to eat is crickets.

Crickets are cheap to grow, and they breed like crazy. They do not harm the environment and don’t taste bad at all. I know for most westerners, eating bugs is gross, but for me, as long as it isn’t a worm, I’m game.

Crickets taste like mashed-up sunflower seeds and are very high in protein. They cost virtually nothing to produce and can be done in almost any environment. Crickets are one of the most efficient forms of protein on the planet, and I think they will become a more significant part of the global diet as the years go by.

Nobody knows what the future holds for protein production. The only thing we know is that as long as there are people on this earth, many of them will want to eat meat. But, in an ever-changing world, one of these four methods may win out.