By Brianne Hogan / Source: Ecorazzi

In the latest installment of The Atlantic’s “If Our Bodies Could Talk” series, senior editor James Hamblin discovers that our future source of protein will be meatless.

Here are some of the facts: Americans eat three times as much beef as the world average, which works out to be about 322 quarter pound burgers per person. If you consider that each burger requires 400 gallons of water, it’s not surprising that we are in desperate need of seeking protein elsewhere — that is, if we are concerned about our planet. By 2050, we will have to produce as much protein as we do now.

So Hamblin visits Beyond Meat, a company that supports improving human health, animal welfare, sustainability and climate change. No wonder the company calls itself: ‘The Future of Protein.’

There, he is treated to a “meat” lunch that is really made of “stupid peas,” but, according to Hamblin, is “very close” to the real thing.

Hamblin proceeds to the company’s lab to learn about the science, which includes a “sniffer” that allows its “meat” to smell like, well, meat.

“There are two ways to look at meat,” says Ethan Brown, the founder and CEO of Beyond Meat. “One way is that comes from a cow or chicken or a pig. Or you can look it out from another way: what is meat made of? Which is how we look at it here. Meat is really made of five constituent parts: amino acids, lipids, carbohydrates, oils and water. They are all actually present in plants. What we are doing is building meat directly from those plants. The composition is basically the same, so, in that case, we are delivering meat.”

With Bill Gates being an investor of Beyond Meat, there is no question that plant-based protein is big business.

The seven-minute segment is a fascinating look at the future, which is not only meatless and sustainable, but also way more interesting (“Bug Macs”?).

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