“Cultivated Meat: A Wakeup Call for Optimists” by CianHamilton

Oct 1, 2025

26:36

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Summary: Consumers rejected genetically modified crops, and I expect they will do the same for cultivated meat. The meat lobby will fight to discredit the new technology, and as consumers are already primed to believe it's unnatural, it won’t be difficult to persuade them.

When I hear people talk about cultivated meat (i.e. lab-grown meat) and how it will replace traditional animal agriculture, I find it depressingly reminiscent of the techno-optimists of the 1980s and ‘90s speculating about how genetic modification will solve all our food problems. The optimism of the time was understandable: in 1994 the first GMO product was introduced to supermarkets, and the benefits of the technology promised incredible rewards. GMOs were predicted to bring about the end of world hunger, all while requiring less water, pesticides, and land.

Today, thirty years later, in the EU GM foods are so regulated that they are [...]

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Outline:

(01:56) Why did GMOs fail to be widely adopted?

(02:44) A Bad First Impression

(05:54) Unpopular Corporate Concentration

(07:22) Cultivated Meat IS GMO

(08:45) What timeline are we in?

(10:24) What can be done to prevent cultivated meat from becoming irrelevant?

(10:30) Expect incredible opposition

(11:46) Be ready to tell a clear story about the benefits.

(13:17) A proactive PR Effort