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As we prepare for a food-centric holiday next week, we’ve got a story for you today about the future of technological innovation in plant-based food — and some news about the growth of clean transportation.

This post originally appeared in Grist’s weekly solutions newsletter, Looking Forward. Not on our list yet? Subscribe here to get it in your inbox every Friday.

The technological future of food

A photo of a cute pig in a barn

Courtesy of Mission Barns

My colleague Matt Simon recently sampled meatballs and bacon made from a pig named Dawn, who lives on a sanctuary in upstate New York. Yes, lives — present tense. She’s still alive and well, enjoying belly rubs and sunshine. Those pork products were actually made from plants, enhanced by a sample of Dawn’s fat that engineers cultivated in a device called a bioreactor. 

“All told, it was actually really good,” said Matt, who identifies as a flexitarian. “I was surprised what a relatively small amount of cultivated fat can impart, as far as flavor is concerned — because, like with other meats, so much of the flavor comes from the fat.”

If you’ve tried any plant-based meat alternatives over the past decade or so, you probably know that they’ve been getting better. Recently, they’ve been getting a lot better, thanks to technological tools that have supercharged innovation to make faux meat products taste more and more like what they’re trying to imitate. 

Those developments include using AI tools to find plants that can approximate animal proteins, experimenting with new ingredients like fungi, and even 3D printing to replicate precise textures and nutritional contents. Other innovations aim to create actual meat without raising and killing livestock, growing animal tissues in a lab rather than on a farm.

But the “pork” Matt tried, made by a company called Mission Barns, takes a weirder approach: cultivating only a part of animal meat — the all-important fat — and adding it to a plant-based product.

The final product isn’t animal-free, strictly speaking. It does contain real pig fat. But no slaughter was involved — and if the operations are powered by renewable energy, the company claims, the process represents a significant improvement over conventional animal agriculture in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. 

Close-up of pork meatballs cooking in a pan

Mission Barns’ meatballs, served over polenta. Matt Simon / Grist

Like Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat, the idea is to put a dent in meat consumption by offering plant-based foods designed to appeal not so much to vegans and vegetarians (although they might also enjoy them), but to omnivores. 

For these alternatives to actually achieve that, they have to conquer not only taste, texture, and mouthfeel, but other facets of the meat experience as well — like how it cooks. And the most  crucial determiner in the end may be how much it costs.

Despite the initial hype, almost-like-the-real-thing faux meat companies like Impossible Foods have seen a lull in sales in recent years. And it remains to be seen how well cultivated meat products will sell. “I think it’s going to be, at least in the near future, a niche thing, especially as the price remains higher than traditional meat,” Matt said. 

Market research has shown that the primary audience for cultivated meat is people like Matt, who can afford to eat meat but choose to generally avoid it because of any number of health or ethical concerns. Getting down to a competitive price point, where other consumers might make the switch based on their wallets rather than their ethics, is the goal. But, Matt added, “who knows how long that’s going to take.”

Meanwhile, global demand for meat is growing — driven in large part by the growth of the middle class. In Matt’s view, that’s where the alt-meat mission gets interesting, and where solving the taste and price puzzles might pay off in demand.

Mission Barns’ goal is not just to sell its own products, but to license its technology to others to de-meatify other meats. Its bioreactors could be used to make chicken or beef products.

“That’s the potential of this,” Matt said, “is that it’s actually quite scalable — much more so than expecting to provide enough meat for that growing mass of people coming to the middle class, by somehow finding more land to raise more pigs and other livestock. This is a potential way to do that in a more sustainable method.”

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Last week, I asked how your pets have influenced your climate journeys (and shamelessly fished for cute animal pictures). So many of you delivered — thank you for all the wonderful photos, and thoughts! Here are just a couple of insights that stood out to me. Check out Grist’s IG stories for more from our pet-owning staff members.

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A photo of a smiley black dog wearing a bandana next to a quote from a reader about making his food out of leftovers

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In other news

And finally, looking forward to …

… the future of inventive plant-forward cuisine. This drabble comes from my editor, Jess, inspired by her own father’s love of carving. 

🍽️🍽️🍽️

Your dad calls. Again. He’s on the train heading over for the big meal, with all his typical annual anxiety over the menu.

But this year, you’re ready. The smell seeping from the kitchen is making your mouth water. The paprika really made a difference.

Dad knows it’s actually a plant-based roast with just a dash of fat to give it that juicy inside and crispy brown outside. He fought it at first, but you’ve been experimenting to get it just right. Last year was amazing, but this year — chef’s kiss.

“Dad, I can’t wait for you to carve it.”

— a drabble by Jess Stahl

🍽️🍽️🍽️

A drabble is a 100-word piece of fiction — in this case, offering a tiny glimpse of what a clean, green, just future might look like. Want to try writing your own (and see it featured in a future newsletter)? We would love to hear from you! Please send us your visions for our climate future, in drabble form, at lookingforward@grist.org

👋 See you next week!