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Liz Specht Profile picture
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Nov 30 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
When I say a shift toward alt proteins can help address multiple global challenges in a very direct way, I'm not just blowing smoke.

@GoodFoodInst is the only org to appear on @voxdotcom's list of best charities for reducing animal suffering AND climate change.

Links: ⬇️
For animal impact, Vox relies on the assessment of @AnimalCharityEv, which uses three main criteria: “likely to produce the greatest gains for animals, "actively evaluate and improve their programs, and "have a demonstrated need for more funding."
For climate impact, Vox's isn't the only list GFI is on. Their recommendations are based in part of assessments performed by @FoundersPledge and @GivingGreenE.
vox.com/future-perfect…
Ugh, sent before I added the link! vox.com/future-perfect…
It's not too late to get in on GFI's #GivingTuesday match campaign through midnight tonight or until match funds run out: gfi.org/the-good-food-…

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More from @LizSpecht

Liz Specht Profile picture
Nov 28
This year I took the Giving What We Can pledge to donate >10% of my income to effective charities. I've been donating >5% ever since I've been financially independent (for me, earning a $28k PhD stipend) & am jazzed to do more.

Let me make the entirely selfish case for doing so:
I consider philanthropy to be a literal investment in a more stable & secure future—no different than the money I put into stocks or CDs—not a handout or a "feel-good" activity. I'm investing in the world I want to inhabit
Philanthropy supports the work of people who are devoting their entire lives to build a better world in ways that happen to not be profitable (hence, at *non-profits*) in our current capitalistic society.
Read 9 tweets
Liz Specht Profile picture
Oct 20
Totally surreal to appear on this list alongside several stellar comrades in the pursuit of a more sustainable & kind food system, & also some of my greatest academic heroes incl. Jennifer Doudna & Max Tegmark. Tickled to be in such esteemed company!
vox.com/future-perfect…
Huge thank you to Vox Future Perfect and Kenny Torella for this spotlight, and congratulations to everyone whose efforts to build a better future have been recognized with this honor!
I'm sure I speak for many of us when I say we are usually so heads-down in our work that we don't step back to appreciate the impact we're creating. It's energizing to reflect on the progress we've made step by step thus far, rather than just seeing the huge mountain ahead of us.
Read 5 tweets
Liz Specht Profile picture
Aug 20
We should never tolerate 97% food waste—but that's what beef entails just to produce it. That's not even accounting for further waste at the retailer or consumer end of the chain.

Each human eats 2,000 lbs of food a year. We burn almost all of it off. That's what all animals do.
Animals move, breathe, think, digest, generate body heat. This all requires massive amounts of calories. Farming animals is essentially using animal metabolism to concentrate biomolecules from plants in a horribly inefficient manner. We can do better these days.
When people say that eating lower on the food chain is more sustainable, this is why. At each trophic level, you lose ~90% of what you put in. There's no way around it.

In the long run, cutting out the middle-man (the animal) will always be more efficient.
Read 4 tweets
Liz Specht Profile picture
Aug 19
It's finally happening, but still not fast enough. Major inflection point coming in the alt protein space as plant-based products start outcompeting animal products on price.

2 examples of this starting to happen, in different product categories, and why it matters:
Last month, the average cost of plant-based meat (including beef and chicken products) in the Netherlands was reported to have finally dropped *below* (not just parity!) the average cost of their animal-derived equivalents per kg.
foodnavigator.com/Article/2022/0…
Just this week, the price of @justegg was reported to drop below that of premium chicken eggs. Egg prices have soared 50% in the last year (not just inflation—also a massive outbreak of avian flu sweeping the country) while JUST's price dropped 41%.
foodnavigator-usa.com/Article/2022/0…
Read 6 tweets
Liz Specht Profile picture
Aug 15
Last month was a busy one for convos with journalists, and I couldn't be more thrilled to see expanding coverage of alt proteins in major publications. I spoke with @nytimes, @PopSci, and @TIME. Links for each story in thread below:
Lauren Jackson at @nytimes examines the promise & challenges of fermentation. Her piece has great quotes from @GeorgeMonbiot, including:
“Precision fermentation is the most important environmental technology humanity has ever developed.”
nytimes.com/2022/07/29/pod…
.@SaraKileyWatson at @PopSci covers a development from @eatscifi to grow animal cells in suspension & combine them downstream with plant-derived materials, thus creating hybrid products that can achieve price parity much sooner than cultivated meat alone.
popsci.com/environment/sc…
Read 4 tweets
Liz Specht Profile picture
Jul 25
Three fascinating open-access publications that popped up in my alerts this week (disclaimer: I haven't read these in full, but find the topics and/or home institutions of the authors to be salient):
1) A research team in South Korea published on bovine cultivated meat production using bioinks made from protein hydrolysates. SK is 6th largest R&D funder in the globe; notable that we are seeing an increasing number of alt prot publications from SK.

pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.102…
2) A multi-institution (academic and govt body) mix of collaborators in Europe published an article asking whether the time has come for taxing meat consumption, to bring its costs in alignment with its massive climate externalities.

journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.108…
Read 5 tweets

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