The Future of Protein Dinner

Additional course content

Course #4
The Biodiverse Table - The Year 2030

The Eggmobile and a flock of chickens at Polyface Farms, a stalwart advocate for biodiversity in farming. 

The Eggmobile and a flock of chickens at Polyface Farms, a stalwart advocate for biodiversity in farming. 

We live in a world centered on monocultures. Food and dietary trends reinforce the behavior of consuming one thing to a massive scale, as well as avoiding other things entirely - focusing on individual elements as a simplifying way of engaging with food. As we are discovering, this approach has created all sorts of problems. The future of food is not one thing, it’s about eating and growing a little of everything. The future of food lies in biodiversity. 

food Culture

In the future, we will let go of the idea that we can - or even want to - have the same foods all the time and in any place. Meat producers have been particularly driven by our traditional meat myopia, where only a few cuts of an animal are celebrated and the rest are considered inferior. To evolve a more sustainable meat production system and to incentivize better meat production, we need to eat the whole animal. Not only is the whole animal delicious, eating it all is also the best way to ensure farmers will invest more in animals that are well raised.

Nutrition

Biodiversity is essential for healthy ecosystems, and eating a more diverse diet is also better for your body. There are even certain foods that work together to give you more complete nutrition, like the Three Sisters. And offal meats contain some of the best nutrition on the animal. 

environment

Diverse ecosystems - ones containing a wide variety of plants and animals that have evolved to thrive in a common environment - are naturally more robust and healthy. Living organisms develop relationships with each other that help them resist predators, source nutrition and process waste - all of which creates stronger ecosystems better able to withstand weather events, fires, flooding and other challenges. Leveraging these natural relationships is key to an farming approach that avoids harmful pesticides and minimizes the need for artificial fertilizers - and essential to the organic agricultural movement.

PROTEIN PRODUCTION

It’s easy to see how demand for all parts of an animal raised for meat has multiple beneficial consequences. Greater usage equals less waste to process and higher market value per animal, which allows farmers to raise fewer animals and treat them better.

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