After Meat: The Case for an Amazing, Meat-Free World

by Karthik Sekar

Animals make for terrible technology. The technological use of animals--making food, drugs, clothing, and cosmetics out of animal material--will cease. A cow takes over one year to grow, "wastes" over ninety percent of what it's fed, and cannot be innovated much further. After Meat explains the fundamental limits of animal technology in terms of physics and biology. Replacement technology such as microbial fermentation will surpass those limits. Eventually, we'll have food that is better in every way--in terms of taste, cost, nutrition, resource consumption, and ethics--because we won't use animals to produce it.




Along the way, After Meat leads us through a veritable forest of adjacent topics. We wade into evolution and reductivism, broach consciousness and the Multiverse, dive into economics and policy, bounce from weather prediction to the problem of hunger to the morality of eating plants. In sum, we ineluctably conclude that our future has little room for animal technology, and that future will be better for it.

Genres: Food

422 pages, Hardcover

Published November 16, 2021

Reviews

[Terence Eden · Rating 3 out of 5]

This self-published book is a bit of a mixed bag. There has been a lot of thought put into it but, in the process of explaining the author's theories, they've forgotten that brevity makes a book like this readable and enjoyable.

It could really have done with a strong editor to tighten things up. The first two chapters are filler. There's a mini introduction to evolution and the basics of the theory of knowledge. I'm not really sure what they're doing there. It seems to be an attempt by the author to prove that he knows what he's talking about. While a short lesson in thermodynamics may be useful, it's just overkill here. The start of chapter three is in thrall to the Cult of St Jobs of Apple, but then finally starts talking about food production. Which is where things get interesting.

The book takes a long time to get to its central point - raising and slaughtering animals for meat is inefficient. It's a poor use of energy, water, crops, and space. We should be able to do better.

But then the book goes a bit off-piste. It returns to a graduate level intro to synthetic biology and modern day genetic manipulation. Again, interesting up to a point, but goes too far into the weeds for a book for the general public. There are some weird and inappropriate comments scattered through the chapters - he casually dismisses the concerns GMO opponents have about proprietary and secretive practices without ever acknowledging them. Similarly, he unfairly lumps vegans in with antivaxers. Despite hundreds of citations throughout the book, there's no footnote for that!

Then there's a bizarre section on meditation. I sort of get the tie in to hedonism and desires but again feels like a brain dump of padding out content.

Finally, we get an excellent chapter on "beyond food". He raises some interesting and exciting questions about the limits of our culinary imaginations. Why are we recreating burgers and steak when we could be making something better?

Annoyingly, it only lightly touches on the history of meat-replacement technology. For example, there's a paragraph about the technology behind Quorn - but nothing about how the population boom in the mid-20th century led to fears of mass starvation.

Can we "3D print" something similar to steak? Can we genetically engineer yeast to produce protiens similar to cheese? This book makes a powerful argument that the tech is nearly here and that it is a moral necessity.

I've been a vegetarian since the turn of the century - and I've tried loads of "meat substitutes". A Quorn burger, once drenched in ketchup, mustard, and pickles, doesn't taste any different from a beef burger. I've eaten the Beyond Meat burgers and, again, they're hardly any different from the existing veggie-burgers.

I get the need to make food for efficiently. And for new flavours, better textures, and more nutrition. The book does a reasonable job for explaining how we're going to get there. We're moving to a world where Synthetarianism is becoming mainstream. This raises interesting ethical questions. Sadly, the book doesn't touch on the ethics of this.

Reduction of meat consumption is probably necessary for our future on this planet - and our eventual off-world adventures. Once you get into this book, there are some excellent ideas and some fascinating science - but you'll need to skim through a lot before you reach the payoff.

Thanks to BookSirens for the review copy.

[Karthik Sekar]

Hey there, I'm Karthik, the author of After Meat. This project was started to convince and excite the world about the transition away from animal products. The book argues that the inefficiency of animals in food production means inevitable and imminent replacement.

One of my favorite parts of the project was the conversation with the 5-10 beta readers who read a preliminary version. Back and forth comments were a delight and really developed my thinking on many topics. I'm looking forward to similar engagement with the Goodreads community. Feel free to ask questions here or send me an email (aftermeatbook.com/contact).

I hope you enjoy After Meat, and I look forward to your thoughts, critiques, and questions.

Sincerely,
Karthik

[Alicia · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent, in-depth argument for eliminating animal products from our human food sources. It is a high-level, academic read with some charts and tables for illustration. I especially enjoyed his discussion about the ridiculousness that is GMO labeling.

This obviously is not aimed at the average grade-school-level reader, but it’s intended audience of academically-gifted concerned citizens should enjoy it. It wanders in a lot of directions, so if you’re a newcomer to food issues, you’ll find definitions and background here.

Thank you to the author and BookSiren for allowing me to preview a copy of the book!

[Jan Peregrine · Rating 5 out of 5]

After Meat~~~~~~

Biochemist Karthik Sekar PhD brilliantly explains why animal technology to breed and produce food, drugs, clothes, shoes, and cosmetics is a terribly inefficient technology that will become outdated like horse technology became outdated when cars were invented. In 2021's After Meat: The Case for an Amazing Meat-Free World, which I listened to on audiobook, is fascinating. Information generation has throughout our history greatly improved not only travel, but communication, education, health services, entertainment, housework, and the list goes on. How we eat and clothe ourselves is no different.

The change to making and enjoying animal-free food and clothes has already swept the world and progress is made everyday. Sekar knows why. Not only are plant-based foods yummy, but microbial and yeast fermentation processes using diffusion yield delicious, nutritious, safe food in a fraction of the time it takes animals with their circulatory systems to mature. The former method will feed billions more hungry people, be much more sustainable, taste better, and not cause disease from pathogens like COVID-19 did..

It will also be more ethical or humane. It becomes unethical to use suffering, defenseless, farmed animals for food and clothes when a more efficient and humane technology is available.

I have happily been vegan for 21 years. Sekar has been one for slightly less since her first year of college. In four of the fourteen chapters she explains why animal technology is such bad technology and the rest on why and how it'll be replaced.

She makes an impassioned plea for us to practice meditation to better focus our minds on our futures and problem-solving, which can offer purpose in our lives.

She also posits convincingly that a meat-free world will happen much faster if we will realize that genetically-modified food is not to be feared and fought against out of our ignorance. All foods eaten today are either very recent additions to our food supply or, like with bananas and apples, are nothing like they originally were a century ago. They're significantly sweeter and bigger. This makes sense to me.

I often wished I had the print book instead because the science seemed a bit overwhelming at times. If you've never thought of why veganism, which isn't just limited to plants, is a viable option, you might prefer reading the book with its appendices.

Highly, happily recommended!

[Sarina · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is refreshing as many (most?) vegan books out there are depressing; but After Meat is full of HOPE. The book is packed with scientific facts yet remained accessibly educational, empowering, and entertaining.

There is a lot to be excited about: a shift away from
animal consumption won’t just be kinder, it will be far better for the environment, for our health, and for anti-poverty measures. You might know that already from the other vegan books out there but what Dr Sekar contributes is new: it’s a peak at the cutting edge technology that will improve upon the taste, texture and nutritional experience of plant-based food. This book will show you why plant proteins aren’t alternatives to meat, they are successors!

I recommend this book to vegans and non-vegans; read this to get excited about the future of food!

[Tatiana VRh · Rating 5 out of 5]

The title might be a bit misleading because the book doesn’t speak so much just about food and animal products but it is a very good book looking at past and present case studies.