# Alt is the new mainstream

## [Alt food for the good?](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/04/lab-grown-meat-britain-eu-us)

This year, the UK became the [only country in Europe to approve the use of](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jul/17/uk-first-european-country-to-approve-cultivated-meat-starting-with-pet-food) lab-grown meat in pet food.

According to [estimates from the European Environment Agency, lab-based meat cultivation uses 45% less ene](https://www.bcg.com/publications/2022/bringing-the-benefits-of-cultivated-meat-to-the-uk)rgy than traditional beef farming; if powered by renewable energy, [research suggests a 92% reduction](https://gfi.org/initiatives/climate/environmental-benefits-of-alt-proteins/) in overall greenhouse gas emissions, plus water and land use reductions of 78% and 95% respectively.

And a couple of infographic pics showing <mark>energy, land and water savings, as well as emission reductions</mark> that’ll result from switching to alt-meat:

![](https://web-assets.bcg.com/dims4/default/0c102c6/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2481x1331+0+0/resize/2880x1546!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fboston-consulting-group-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F2c%2F89%2F024cb1c64f0382373c64b3662860%2Fcultivated-meat-in-the-uk-ex02-1.png align="left")

![Caloric conversion for feed input to edible calories for different conventional animal products](https://gfi.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/COM21006_environmental-benefits-of-alt-proteins_caloric-conversion.png align="left")

![Comparison of the environmental impacts of plant-based meat and conventional meat products.](https://gfi.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/COM21006_comparison-of-the-environmental-impacts-of-plant-based-meat-and-conventional-meat-products-1-800x600.png align="left")

And yeah - the industry is not only ineffective itself; the **majority of e.g. soy production goes to supporting the farming industry**:

![Graph of global soy usage from 2017-2019, showing more than three quarters of the world’s soy is used for animal feed.](https://gfi.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/COM21006_environmental-benefits-of-alt-proteins_soy-sankey-diagram-1.png align="left")

All this marks the importance:

* **switching to alt-food** → not only for alleviating suffering, but the bare pragmatic reasons
    
* considering **second-order effects** → e.g. how soy production is skewed, or how transportation/biotech/VC industry have to cater to all that
    
    * another concern is [accelerated pace of panresistant bacteria emerging](https://www.perplexity.ai/search/farming-antibiotics-and-panres-AmPydRSFSoajVkvtzqriGg)
        

### [The cute kitten they’ve saved in a TikTok video 🥹](https://www.worldanimalprotection.org/latest/news/fake-animal-rescues/)

![Internet Comes Together to Save Stray Kitten Found Covered in Glue -  Newsweek](https://d.newsweek.com/en/full/2224172/coco-kitten.png align="left")

Fock, again Goodhart’s law and unintended consequences: a [lot of animal rescue videos are actually fake.](https://www.smaccoalition.com/fake-rescue-report)

> 1. **More than 1000 links** showing fake rescue content were collected over six weeks from Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and Twitter/X.
>     
> 2. **Almost 52% of links** were found on  Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok each feature around a quarter of the content.
>     
> 3. The links located by SMACC had been watched **572,013,959 times.**
>     
> 4. **The most common Fake Rescue themes identified were:**
>     
>     * *“Found to be abandoned”* (30.6%)
>         
>     * *“Rescued from being trapped/stuck”* 28.1%
>         
>     * *“Rescued from being attacked by animal/s”* 15.7%
>         
> 5. **Cats** were the most numerous animal featured (42%), followed by **primates, dogs, snakes and turtle species.**
>     
> 6. **21% of fake rescue creators** asked viewers for donations under the disguise of helping animals, usually by Paypal links.
>     

# Links

## [Top 15 foodtech deals in 2024](https://agfundernews.com/top-15-foodtech-deals-in-2024)

![The Difference Between FoodTech and AgTech — PostHarvest Technologies](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65764d4e6c1b3b026d0afd05/1702863859543-OF14J7ORAMFXFMLPEQEV/pexels-anthony-rahayel-10269715.jpg align="left")

<s>Is it even foodtech?</s> O-okay, it is:

> * The definition of foodtech applied above includes the AgFunder categories Innovative Food (which includes novel ingredients and alt proteins); eGrocery (online stores and marketplaces); Instore Retail & Restaurant Tech; Online Restaurants & Marketplaces (meal kits etc); Cloud Retail Infrastructure (ghost kitchens, last-mile delivery robots and services; and Home & Cooking Tech (smart kitchen appliances etc).
>     

* eGrocery startups
    
* Nutrition recommender systems
    
* Restaurant tech (menu optimization etc)
    

Mostly interested in the deals tackling alt-food space, so:

* 🇺🇸 [Perfect Day’s](http://www.perfectdayfoods.com/) $90M (dairy proteins identical to cow’s milk)
    
* 🇩🇪 [Formo’s](https://formo.bio/) $61M Series B (precision fermentation → expressing microbes that make dairy proteins → dairy products like cheese)
    
* Even 🇫🇮 [Solar Food’s EUR 8M](https://www.londonstockexchange.com/news-article/ANIC/solar-foods-raises-an-additional-eur8-million/16441678) deserves attention (yeah I’m biased as I love the idea of [knallgas](https://www.sciencedirect.com/org/science/article/pii/S1874285822000139#sec4) and other [chemotrophs](https://www.perplexity.ai/search/what-bacteria-do-solar-foods-u-e2CHy3o5QtaIalrKKszGqg); [Aerbio/Deep Branch’s Proton](https://aer.bio/proton-greener-protein/) is another example)
    

## Random links

### [Worldwide old-time photos](https://pastvu.com/)

![](https://pastvu.com/_p/d/u/g/9/ug9hn4a34rwbqtfa6u.jpg align="left")

A treasure trove! Something similar - [criticalpast.com](https://www.criticalpast.com/), an archive of old videos (one can find both wartime footage and LSD monkey experiments there).

### [5 free rotating proxies](https://oxylabs.io/pages/best-free-proxies)

from one of the leaders in the space, OxyLabs.

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