A Future of Meat without Animals? It's Closer than You Think.

Paul Shapiro is not your average entrepreneur. He is the author
of Clean Meat: How Growing Meat Without Animals Will
Revolutionize Dinner and The World and the CEO of The Better Meat
Co. These projects stem from his passion for food sustainability.
He talked with host Barbara Castiglia on this episode of The Main
Course.


“I grew up with a love of animals,” Shapiro said. “I’ve always
felt, We, human beings, treat animals in ways that are pretty
deplorable.”


In addition to his love for animals, he noted that future
generations would be taken back by the way we treat animals,
especially the animals that end up on our plates for consumption.
“They’re going to be pretty shocked,” he said.


Shapiro has spent a lot of his life trying to figure out ways to
improve our coexistence with animals. He worked for years trying
to get laws passed that improved the life of a farm animal. One
example was getting egg-laying chickens out of the small cages
where they laid eggs.


“About five or six years ago, I started wondering if technology
would do even more,” Shapiro said, “to help improve the treatment
of animals, besides trying to persuade people what we are doing
is wrong.” He elaborated that the United States was once a
whaling nation, but now we care about them. It happened because
we no longer needed their resources.


It led him down the path of clean meat, without the downside of
raising farm animals, so people can still have the same food
without the cruelty.