Day 1458 – The Future of Food 2– Ask Gramps

Published: Aug. 21, 2020, 7 a.m.

Welcome to Day 1458 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to WisdomThe Future of Food – Ask GrampsWisdom - the final frontier to true knowledge. Welcome to Wisdom-Trek! Where our mission is to create a legacy of wisdom, to seek out discernment and insights, to boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before. Hello, my friend, I am Guthrie Chamberlain, your captain on our journey to increase Wisdom and Create a Living Legacy. Thank you for joining us today as we explore wisdom on our 2nd millennium of podcasts. Today is Day 1458 of our Trek, and our focus on Fridays is the future technological and societal advances, so we call it Futuristic Fridays. My personality is one that has always been very future-oriented. Since my childhood, I have yearned for the exploration and discovery of new technologies and advancements for the future. I grew up with the original Star Trek series, and even today, while I am on my 64th revolution around the sun, I still dream of traveling in space. Each week we will explore rapidly converging technologies and advancements, which will radically change our lives. At times, the topics may sound like something out of a science fiction novel, but each area that we explore is already well on its way of becoming a reality over the next couple of decades.
To keep with our theme of “Ask Gramps,” I will put our weekly topics in the form of a question to get us on track. So this week’s question is, Hey Gramps, technological advances are moving so quickly. With the world population growing briskly, how will technology impact food in the future? 
The Future of Food (Part 2)Last week we focused on the first part of how exponential technologies are impacting food production. This week we will continue exploring how food production is changing rapidly. I am using some of the information mentioned in Peter Diamandis’s blogs and book “The Future is Faster Than You Think.”
Could a hamburger grown in a lab from Kobe beef stem cells be cheaper, better tasting, and healthier for you?
Can you imagine a future where millions of square miles of pastoral land are reclaimed by nature, creating new forests and revitalizing the Earth’s vital oxygen making?
Last week, we discussed the hyper-efficient food production systems of 2030. This week, we continue that discussion, but from a different perspective—because by the end of the next decade, we may witness the end of industrial animal agriculture as we know it.
Through the convergence of biotechnology and AgTech, we will witness the birth of the most ethical, nutritious, and environmentally sustainable food system ever devised by humankind.
Let’s dive in.
·      Cultured MeatMeat production is often problematic. A quarter of the planet’s available landmass is currently used to keep 20 billion chickens, 1.5 billion cattle, and 1 billion sheep alive—that is, until we can kill them and eat them. We also have to deal with all of the waste and by-products associated with the butchering of animals.
Here are some statistics that will open your eyes. One out of seven Americans will go to bed hungry tonight, yet farm animals consume 30 percent of the world’s food crops. It is much more exaggerated in most developing countries. Worse is the water involved. Meat production accounts for 70 percent of global water use. Compared to 1,500 liters required to produce a kilogram of wheat, it takes 15,000 liters to produce a kilogram of beef, meaning there’s enough water in an adult steer to float a U.S. Navy destroyer. While this next statistic may be debatable, it is projected that meat production is also responsible for 14.5 percent of all greenhouse gases and a considerable portion of our deforestation problem as land is cleared for pastures.
So what is the solution as meat consumption continues to rise throughout the world? One...