logo
episode-header-image
Jun 2022
27m 4s

The World Ahead: The future of food

The Economist
About this episode

Are there some things we shouldn’t eat? Host Tom Standage travels to the year 2042 to find that animal-based meat is being pushed aside in favour of cultured meat grown in vats, a new industry dominated by three companies. He samples food grown from the cells of endangered animals and hears from a food activist. Back in the present day, we ask The Economist's Jon Fasman and Liz Specht, vice president of Science and Technology at the Good Food Institute, a non-profit group focused on reimagining protein production, to assess the likelihood of this imagined scenario. 


For full access to The Economist’s print, digital and audio editions subscribe at economist.com/podcastoffer



Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Up next
Today
That warm buzzy feeling: malaria and climate change
As temperatures climb, mosquitoes will migrate to places where natural resistance to malaria is lower. More and more severe natural disasters will make for more breeding grounds. How to stop a deadly disease getting deadlier? In China’s cut-throat food-delivery war, absolutely no ... Show More
24m 43s
Aug 22
Rule and divide: opposition grows in Syria
Less than nine months after Syria’s dictator Bashar al-Assad was toppled, the honeymoon is over. How is the new regime responding to rising dissent? Introducing Britain’s revolutionary retirees: why pensioners increasingly dominate political protest. And celebrating the life of o ... Show More
23m 38s
Aug 21
Stake and chips: will America take 10% of Intel?
Intel was once synonymous with chip-making, but in recent years it has fallen behind. Now the Trump administration may become its biggest shareholder. A political assassination in Colombia raises fears about a return to violence. And what an annual snail race tells us about rural ... Show More
21m 2s
Recommended Episodes
Feb 2024
Rob Percival, "The Meat Paradox: Eating, Empathy, and the Future of Meat" (Pegasus, 2022)
Our future diet will be shaped by diverse forces. It will be shaped by novel technologies, by geopolitical tensions, and the evolution of cultural preferences, by shocks to the status quo-- pandemics and economic strife, the escalation of the climate and ecological crises--and by ... Show More
49m 23s
Feb 2023
The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Fake Meat in America
For the past 50 years, Americans have basically responded to the case against eating animals by eating more animals. The share of Americans who call themselves vegan or vegetarian hasn’t increased in the past 20 years. But a few years ago, I was certain that we were near peak mea ... Show More
40m 25s
Mar 2022
Rob Percival, "The Meat Paradox: Eating, Empathy, and the Future of Meat" (Pegasus, 2022)
Our future diet will be shaped by diverse forces. It will be shaped by novel technologies, by geopolitical tensions, and the evolution of cultural preferences, by shocks to the status quo-- pandemics and economic strife, the escalation of the climate and ecological crises--and by ... Show More
49m 23s
Jan 2022
‘Who Do You Want Controlling Your Food?’
During the pandemic, the price of beef shot up. Wholesale beef prices increased more than 40 percent — more than 70 percent for certain cuts of steak. The conventional wisdom was that price increases simply reflected the chaos that the coronavirus had caused in the supply chain. ... Show More
53m 59s
Oct 2020
The meat we eat affects us all
In this special episode of the Future Perfect podcast, neuroscientist Lori Marino helps us understand how arbitrarily we draw the lines between animals as pets and animals as food, and how we might redraw those lines.Subscribe to Future Perfect on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your ... Show More
35m 4s
Sep 2021
The politics of eating meat, with Henry Mance
Anoosh Chakelian, Ailbhe Rea and Stephen Bush talk to FT feature writer and author Henry Mance about his new book: How to Love Animals: In a Human-Shaped World They discuss what it was like to work in an abattoir, the evacuation of pets from Afghanistan and what it will take to g ... Show More
21m 46s
Nov 2022
Checks and Balance: From our archive—beef encounter
At Thanksgiving Americans express gratitude for family, the harvest… and a big, juicy turkey.  Americans consume the most meat per person, but that's not good for the planet. In an episode first released in November 2021, we ask: could they cut back? The Economist’s Jon Fasman an ... Show More
40m 12s