Eco-friendly steaks in the near future

Beef! It ain’t what’s for dinner anymore. That's the popular response to the tripling of beef prices in the past 15 years. The underlying reasons have been severe droughts in the cattle producing states of Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas, aggravated by the 50% tariff imposed by Trump on imports of Brazilian beef. Ironically, the droughts are connected to global warming caused in part by methane emissions from cattle. The rising price is expected to reduce consumption of beef, as well as the associated disastrous impacts on our personal health and the health of our planet.

But there is still hope for folks who just "have to have" their steak. A number of startup companies are developing healthy, eco-friendly, convenient, tasty, and reasonably priced steaks from animal cells and plants. They should appear on our supermarket shelves within a couple of years. And here is the best part for those of us who care where our food comes from: these steaks will be processed through sanitary health-inspected vats, rather than through the digestive tracts of cows.

Cecil Roper

Cedar Rapids