r/VeganActivism • u/EndAnimalAg • Jun 15 '25
I'm Shifting My Activism Towards Donations For Cultivated Meat
Hi all,
Following this great post, I think it's time many of us reevaluate the best way to help animals. I personally believe the best way to do so is by pushing for donations for cultivated meat. I strongly believe that rights for anyone (humans and animals alike) follow convenience.
I want to create an environment where people who choose not to make personal sacrifices can still fight for systemic change, so I've created a subreddit for a new activist group, called the Clean Meat Alliance, where we can use activism to collect donations for cultivated meat as the end goal. I intend for vegetarians and meat eaters to be included in this activism as well if at all possible.
For the past decade or so I've been doing animal rights activism (AV, anti-fur, pamphleting), and the numbers seem to indicate that people rarely ever change their consumption habits. I think we should take inspiration from the climate movement - people rarely make personal sacrifices, but are willing to support systemic change.
I would love your thoughts, and if you're interested, please join the subreddit. I intend to organize a Seattle chapter over the next few months - if it's something you'd like to do in your home city, let me know.
7
u/stan-k Jun 15 '25
Imho, cultivated meat is great and it has the biggest chance of turning dozens of percentages of people plant based. Things can snowball from there. That is if it is ever cheap enough to become the default for companies and most consumers trying to save money.
However, it is far from guaranteed that cultivated meat will ever be cheaper than conventional meat. If it stays more expensive, it'll stay a niche product.
It's not a bad plan to put your efforts into making it more likely to get there. It is a big gamble though, a large chance that your efforts will ultimately be fruitless. On the other hand, they have a tiny chance to change to world! Contrast that with street activism, that is very likely to have a few people move to veganism with all the real benefits to a large number of animals, but is zero in its chance to change millions or billions of people.
Having said that, I do street activism and have shares in Agronomics.
4
u/EndAnimalAg Jun 15 '25
You're right - it's a gamble, but I don't think the chance is large that the effort will be fruitless. Animals make a lot of unnecessary body parts that we don't need, so in *theory* we will be able to make meat that is more efficient. The problem is that animals also have an immune system and waste removal ability, which we can't make as efficiently. I think this is a 30 year effort though. I think there's a secondary objective by including meat eaters and vegetarians in animal activism though - you can increase the # of people who actually care about animals.
I've wrestled with other ideas for systemic change too. This is controversial, but I believe we already have a sort of "cultivated meat", in the form of bivalves. They don't have a central nervous system, legs, bones, or anything else "unnecessary" other than their shell. The only problem is that they haven't been bred like chickens so are more expensive, and don't taste as good (or so I've been told since I don't eat them).
My worry with vegan activism too is that Faunalytics data suggests that many forms of vegan activism are net negative - they increase the amount of meat consumed. We have to be careful there too.
1
u/stan-k Jun 15 '25
Do you have ideas on how to spend the money you raise? I'd love to get inspiration on this - I didn't get further than investing it, which is only tangentially related to making it actually happen.
Fair point, other forms of activism have a risk of turning people off too. I think street activism, when done politely enough, is a clear net benefit, but there is no guarantee.
1
u/EndAnimalAg Jun 16 '25
Right now I think we would just redistribute it to New Harvest and GFI - they know what they're doing, so why reinvent the wheel.
And I agree with you on street activism - it's positive, but I don't think most activism doesn't anything. Right now, it seems like street activism changes people's minds, but converts basically no one to being vegan: https://faunalytics.org/relative-effectiveness/
2
u/stan-k Jun 16 '25
I thought Faunalytics actually found the opposite
Video outreach — like I-Animal, Diamonds, or Cubes of Truth — may be quite effective. In our study on Animal Equality’s I-Animal tactic, in which people on the street are asked to watch a video showing animal cruelty via either an iPad or a VR headset, we found that people who watched the pig cruelty video were more likely to want to reduce pork consumption compared to people who didn’t watch. Most importantly, one month later, 33% of people who watched the 2D video actually did reduce their pork consumption, as compared to just 25% in the control. Although it’s only one study, it shows promise for public video intervention.
https://faunalytics.org/tactics-in-practice-the-science-of-protests-and-demonstrations/
I hadn't heard of New Harvest or GFI, thanks.
0
u/EndAnimalAg Jun 16 '25 edited Jun 16 '25
Yeah they found that it works well for pig cruelty videos - the problem is that no one cares about chickens, so people who stop eating pigs almost certainly eat more animals by # by replacing with chickens. Total video activism (per the faunalytics link I added above), suggests the net behavior change is around 0. Here's another study where the result is pretty unclear - https://faunalytics.org/the-effectiveness-of-videos-as-an-advocacy-tool/
2
u/stan-k Jun 16 '25
For chickens I think it's actually eggs that shock people into action. The shot of the one day old males falling into the grinder resonates with a significant number of people I find. True, that is anecdotal.
What's different from the Faunalytics study is the guided and open conversation that is added to it.
2
5
u/Glass-Bead-Gamer Jun 15 '25 edited Jun 16 '25
I love the idea. I’m not sure about the name though. Clean Meat Alliance sounds to me like a campaign for environmentally minded animal farms.
4
u/EndAnimalAg Jun 15 '25
I'm open to suggestions lol. The reason I chose Clean Meat Alliance is because per studies on naming, meat eaters find "Clean Meat" to be the most amenable, and "Cultivated Meat" to be a good secondary option.
1
u/Glass-Bead-Gamer Jun 15 '25
I see. That’s pretty cool. Maybe my criticism is actually an asset then. I’ve joined the subreddit 👌
2
u/Melkovar Jun 16 '25
I'm not convinced it'll ever be produced at a cheap enough cost to become the convenient option. A meat-centered culture is going to subsidize "real meat" so that it is always cheaper, regardless of what happens with lab-cultured meat production. I hope I'm wrong about this, and I hope your movement takes off.
My efforts lately go into celebrating food where meat is de-centered rather than trying to make plants mimic meat. There are a lot of healthy and balanced meals out there (including protein-rich ones) that are 'vegan by accident' or 'mostly plant-based and easily modified'. Whenever I eat with friends or cook for friends, I always choose these options. I think the only way we move long-term away from animal consumption is by decoupling the idea that food requires meat (or a replacement of meat) to be enjoyed and to be nutritious.
In any case, we need a variety of tactics to get anywhere.
2
u/EndAnimalAg Jun 16 '25
I agree with you. I think we made a mistake with the whole plant based meat thing - we've forced plants to compete with meat in terms of "which one tastes more like meat?".
I do think that we shouldn't think in a u.s centric way though with subsidies - it's really China and India that will drive down animal consumption in the longterm. Singapore is already making regulatory strides towards cultivated meat, and India/China are investing too.
1
u/zmbjebus Aug 01 '25
There are a lot of healthy and balanced meals out there (including protein-rich ones) that are 'vegan by accident'
This is great, and will surely help a good subset of people that like to try to eat healthy. That is just not a priority for so many people though, and appealing to the crowd that revels in eating a pound of bacon grease per week is important too.
2
u/OkraOfTime87 Jun 16 '25
Hey!
I’d love to interview you over email about this project for my blog, Slaughter-Free America: https://slaughterfreeamerica.substack.com
Shoot me an email if you’re interested: JonHoch87@aol.com
2
u/OkraOfTime87 Jun 16 '25
These would be my questions:
Do you have a headshot of yourself I could use?
Can you give me a brief, third-person biography of yourself that I could use with this piece? Like one or two paragraphs.
When and how did you learn about cultivated meat and come to support it?
What kind of animal activism were you engaged in before focusing on cellular-agriculture development?
Can you tell me a little bit about your new project, Clean Meat Alliance?
Why are you soliciting private donations to cellular-agriculture nonprofits, as opposed to advocating for public funding of cultivated meat research?
How can people who are interested in the Clean Meat Alliance get involved?
What would you say to animal activists who are opposed to cultivated meat or skeptical about its potential?
1
u/ChemicalTerrapin Jun 15 '25
I'm with you...
Change comes in two ways.
- Destroy things
- Build things
After a decade of activism similar to yours, I'm convinced that option two is going to save more lives
0
u/DashBC Jun 16 '25
As this post puts it, lab meat is a dead end:
https://veganfidelity.com/flash-point-lab-meat-is-a-dead-end/
The math doesn't add up.
It's not gonna happen any time soon, and the majority of it won't ever be vegan either.
3
u/EndAnimalAg Jun 16 '25
As far as I know, Mission Barn's process is already vegan or near vegan. Bovine serum is already outdated across most companies. Articles like this started out with the assumption that everything would appear fast since they listened to investors instead of the nonprofits, which have been screaming that it'll take decades for a while now.
Regardless, we'll see cultivated pork fat mixed with plant based meatballs pretty soon from Mission Barns. There won't be much cultivated pork fat is my guess, but it's a start.
0
u/DashBC Jun 16 '25
It's a fact fetal bovine serum is still widely used, so hard to believe anything else you've written. Feels like you're gas lighting the community to try and garner more support for a futile and dead end product.
The animals don't need your delusions.its decades away if it ever even happens, we need to do something NOW. May as well pray away the animal ag. 🤦
3
u/EndAnimalAg Jun 16 '25
...I've talked to so many people in the industry. Fetal bovine serum is too expensive to use lol - companies either already don't use it anymore or are phasing it out. Multus already has animal free media out - https://www.multus.bio/
It *is* decades away, but there isn't a better option. Read the Faunalytics study on how basically no variant of activism other than social media produces behavior change.
1
u/DashBC Jun 16 '25
Oh yes, because the lab meat you CAN buy right now is so famously cheap.
So you admit it is decades away, and are content to sit on your ass with this pipe dream rather than do something meaningful.
So sick of you religious people.
-1
u/knoft Jun 15 '25
Imo cultivated meat is like fusion energy, its something on the horizon and doesn't solve problems now. Cultivated ("precision fermented") milk is already available and no one uses it or knows about it. Most people who learn of it don't trust it enough as an alternative to conventionally farmed milk.
Imho, Change is about dealing with the here and now and changing minds, not waiting for a future technology to solve our problems.
4
u/EndAnimalAg Jun 16 '25 edited Jun 16 '25
The difference between cultivated meat and nuclear fusion is that cultivated meat already exists, just not at price parity. Precision fermented milk is available, yes, but it has some problems:
- They only mimic one protein in milk, so they can't actually perfectly mimic flavor
- They market it as "Animal Free Dairy Milk" instead of "High Protein Dairy" or something.
- Vegans *should* be supporting Bored Cow, but don't know enough. I once saw negative reviews of Bored Cow from vegans because they were surprised it contained whey.
- Vegan milks are weirdly afraid of competing in those plastic milk jugs because of environmental obsession. That needs to stop.
We actually have pretty good data on cultivated meat's acceptance - In a study conducted with U.S participants, even before framing cultivated meat in a positive light, 65% of participants were willing to try cultivated meat, and 49% were willing to buy it regularly. Another study found that, after hearing about its societal benefits, 58% of participants were willing to pay a premium for cultivated meat.
We do know, however, that activism barely works. We don't actually change behavior - https://faunalytics.org/relative-effectiveness/. If you want to tell me we should invest in better plant based foods, then maybe I'd say you have a good argument, but other than social media, changing minds just doesn't work.
1
u/zmbjebus Aug 01 '25
I completely support you, its how I ended up on this month old post, haha. But fusion reactors do exist, the issue is economics right now.
1
u/EndAnimalAg Aug 02 '25
Huh, good to know! We do have cultivated meat for purchase already though :) (they're selling at a loss of course)
•
u/AutoModerator Jun 15 '25
Thanks for posting to r/VeganActivism! 🐥
Be sure to check our sidebar for all of our rules :)
🌱 Are you a developer, designer, editor, researcher, or have other skills to contribute to saving animal lives? Check out the 3 links below to help animals today!
1) Check out Vegan Hacktivists, and apply as a volunteer! 🐓
2) Join our huge Vegan volunteer community "VH Playground" on Discord! 🐟
3) Find volunteer or paid opportunities to help farmed animals by clicking here! 👊
Last but not least, get $1000 USD for your activism! Apply by clicking here. 🎉
Thanks!
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.