Agri-food tech’s building block: narrating protein, agnostic of source, in the face of crisis

Inventive producers in Silicon Valley and other innovations sectors are going beyond the simulated animal products of plant-based proteins and cellular technologies to produce a third generation of protein products, making protein the leading edge of high tech food innovation. Since innovators draw...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:BioSocieties 2023-09, Vol.18 (3), p.656-678
Main Authors: Guthman, Julie, Biltekoff, Charlotte
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agnosticism
Agribusiness
Agricultural production
Animal products
Carbohydrates
Crises
Deployment
Discourses
Disruption
Fats
Food
Impending
Innovations
Interconnections
Livestock
Livestock production
Original Article
Plant-based foods
Proteins
Scarcity
Shortages
Social Sciences
Third generation
Transformation
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Inventive producers in Silicon Valley and other innovations sectors are going beyond the simulated animal products of plant-based proteins and cellular technologies to produce a third generation of protein products, making protein the leading edge of high tech food innovation. Since innovators draw on sources not generally recognized as food these products are speculative as both foods and investments. Building on scholarship that examines edibility formation of so-called alternative proteins, we show the deployment of three interlocking narratives that make novel protein products both edible and investible: protein is ubiquitous and protean, which provides myriad opportunities for technological transformation; its longtime associations with vigor, strength and energy, along with current day obsessions with the negatives of fats and carbohydrates, renders it the one remaining macronutrient that it is unequivocally good; and widely circulated discourses of both future shortages and the problems with contemporary livestock production makes producing more an almost indisputable solution. While innovators and investors act as if protein needs this sector to solve an impending crisis and bring its possibilities to fruition, we suggest the inverse—that without protein the sector would be nearly barren of novelty and food, much less the disruption and impact routinely claimed.
ISSN:1745-8552
1745-8560
DOI:10.1057/s41292-022-00287-3