Following up on my blog post for those who are new to the field of cellular agriculture, I want to briefly mention 3 excellent resources that report on current events in cellular agriculture as well as offering more in-depth information.
The first is Alex Shirazi’s Cultured Meat and Future Food podcast.
This podcast covers a series of interviews with a broad range of people in cellular agriculture from start ups to academia. Of particular interest for students is the New Harvest Fellows series that features graduate students working on cellular agriculture projects. Fellows talk about how they got interested in the field, found mentors and research opportunities, and describe the work they are doing. Since I am not a scientist myself, I always appreciate Alex Shirazi’s “explain it like I’m five” prompting that breaks down complex ideas into easily digestible bits for a broader audience. He has had many important voices who shaped the field on his show and the average length of about 30 minutes makes the episodes informative and engaging.
The second one is Billion Dollar Burger: Inside Big Tech’s Race For the Future of Food (2020) by Chase Purdy:
Following Paul Shapiro’s and Ben Wurgaft’s work, this is the third book that focuses on cellular agriculture and cultured meat in particular. Purdy is a journalist that has been covering cellular agriculture for quite some time and the book gives us the most up-to-date overview of the field and foregrounds the story of Josh Tetrick, the CEO of JUST, a vegan food company that many people are already familiar with, which is now expanding into cultured meat. Like Shapiro’s and Wurgaft’s books, Billion Dollar Burger invites readers into the behind-the-scenes world of the industry while avoiding unnecessary jargon or technical explanations. It is written for a general audience which makes it an accessible and lively read.
Also, here is a great interview with the author:
And here is Chase Purdy’s blog:
Lastly, I want to recommend Ahmed Khan’s CellAgri website which collects and summarizes news in the cellular agriculture field:
Khan is a cellular agriculture consultant who edits the info for the site and updates it about once a month. He offers a free download for a great little e-book entitled Introduction to Cellular Agriculture that gives readers the basics. The site is a one-stop-shop for news in the field that is well organized and easy to navigate.
Although The Good Food Institute and New Harvest are still what I call the “twin portals” of all things cellular agriculture, these blogs and sites do a great job summarizing and curating the news in the field for a general or younger audience.