May 31, 2018 9:30 pm

Friday, Discover More About Clean Meat with Author Paul Shapiro and The Good Food Institute’s Liz Specht

“Clean meat” – If you’re not familiar with that term, this is the week for you. In the coming years, clean meat will be in the zeitgeist and on the rise. Clean meat, or “cultured meat” is meat grown from cultured animal cells instead of animal agriculture.

This week on StarTalk Radio we get all the details on the rise of clean meat. Neil deGrasse Tyson is joined by comic co-host Maeve Higgins and animal advocate and author of “Clean Meat: How Growing Meat Without Animals Will Revolutionize Dinner and the World” Paul Shapiro. And when Paul says the world, he means the world. Clean meat could help reduce some of the world’s biggest issues like climate change and world hunger.

We’re also joined this week by Dr. Liz Specht, Senior Scientist at The Good Food Institute. The Good Food Institute is a non-profit who “Work[s] with scientists, investors, and entrepreneurs to make groundbreaking good food a reality. [They] focus on clean meat and plant-based alternatives to animal products – foods that are more delicious, safer to eat, and better for the planet then their outdated counterparts.” So, it’s safe to say we brought the experts in on this one.

You’ll hear about the companies on the forefront of the clean meat revolution. Learn more about the process of culturing animal cells to grow the meat, and how soon products will be available for mass consumption.. You’ll also find out how NASA and space exploration played a major role in the creation of this budding industry.

We also answer your fan-submitted Cosmic Queries about clean meat. Does it taste the same as regular meat? Are there differences in energy usage between animal agriculture and clean meat? How does nutritional value stack up between the two?

We then ponder the possibilities of “designer” meats, where chefs can design their own flavor palates of clean meat, similar to how you serve different cuts from different areas of the world. Lastly, we look at the impact clean meat could have on de-politicizing food.

Please join us tomorrow night for Clean Meat, with Paul Shapiro at 7pm ET right here on our website, as well as on Apple Podcasts, Google Play Music, SoundCloud, Stitcher, and TuneIn. If you’re an All-Access subscriber, you can watch or listen to this episode ad-free at 7pm, too.

That’s it for now. Keep Looking Up!
–Ian Mullen