Terrific, fun, humane, and inspiring. Friedrich shows that a better future, with alternative meats, is coming — and that we’re going to love what we eat.
Cass R. Sunstein, Robert Walmsley University Professor, Harvard University; author of How Change Happens
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Bruce Friedrich’s Meat is an engaging treatise on using science to make meat far more efficiently. If it works, and Friedrich is convincing that science is up to the challenge, these alternative meats will slash humanity’s adverse impact on our natural world, including our oceans, forests, and climate. Friedrich includes fascinating observations in every chapter, including his analysis of “ultra-processed foods” that are actually super-healthy and a final chapter that is a compelling and practical guide to what each of us can do to help.
George Church, professor of genetics, Harvard Medical School; lead for synthetic biology, Wyss Institute of Biologically Inspired Engineering; author of Regenesis
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Today billions of animals are raised to provide us with meat. This harms the environment and is often unspeakably cruel to farmed animals, yet for many the idea of a main meal without meat is unthinkable. The good news, as Meat explains, is that you can now enjoy real meat that was made without killing any animal. Please read this book: it is engaging, informative and gives us hope for a kinder future.
Jane Goodall, PhD, DBE, founder, Jane Goodall Institute; UN Messenger of Peace
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Alternative proteins offer a promising path to addressing global challenges including hunger, climate change, and pandemic risk. Meat highlights the case for how science, innovation, and smart policy can help bring these solutions within reach. It contributes to an important and timely global conversation.
Michael Kremer, University Professor, University of Chicago; co-recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2019)
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The history of progress is a history of passionate people forging new paths for the betterment of all. Bruce Friedrich’s Meat is a fascinating dive into a domain that has faced little radical change since the domestication of animals. For a field sheltered from scrutiny, Meat is a fascinating exploration of the consequences of modern meat production and a roadmap to a better future for meat manufacturing. With clarity and conviction, Meat charts a path toward a world where our appetites and our ethics can finally align.
Steve Jurvetson, founder & managing director, Future Ventures; board member, SpaceX
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In Meat, Bruce Friedrich makes a compelling case for alternative proteins as a globally scalable solution to some of our most urgent public global health and ecological crises. He also shows how we get there: by focusing on the economic and food security benefits of protein transition. The best global health policy book of the decade turns out to be about remaking meat. Essential reading for policymakers, and for anyone who eats.
Michael Greger, MD, founder, NutritionFacts.org; author of How Not to Die & Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching
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This book is an eye-opener that could help save the world. This gets said a lot. This time it’s true! The topic is crucial, and Friedrich’s presentation is clear, persuasive, and entertaining. Meat of all kinds will never look or taste the same.
Kim Stanley Robinson, winner of the Hugo, Nebula, & Locus awards; author of The Ministry for the Future
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Today globally, 3.1 billion people can’t afford a nutritious diet. Meat offers a bold reimagining of how we can make the “meat” people love—more affordably, more sustainably, and more equitably. With insight and wit, Bruce Friedrich explores diverse solutions that preserve cultural traditions and taste while confronting the urgent challenges of climate change, global health, and food insecurity.
Ertharin Cousin, founder & CEO, Food Systems for the Future; visiting scholar, Stanford University Center on Food Security and Environment; former executive director, UN World Food Programme (2012-2017)
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Our food system is both an overlooked national security vulnerability and a powerful catalyst for the next wave of American innovation. In Meat, Bruce Friedrich reveals the fragile underpinnings of global meat production and the immense risks it poses to geopolitical stability, public health, and the environment. With rigorous research, sharp economic analysis, and real-world stories that span boardrooms and battlefields, Friedrich rightly reframes the problem as a generational opportunity. This is the rare book that speaks to investors, policymakers, technologists—and anyone who eats.
Matt Spence, global head of venture capital & managing director, Barclays; former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (2012-15); National Security Council (2009-2012)
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An unflinching case for reinventing meat, so that we can feed a growing world without feeding the climate crisis.
Christiana Figueres, chair, Earthshot Prize Foundation; co-founder, Global Optimism; former executive secretary, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (2010-2016)
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I really love that Meat invites everyone to the table. The alt meat scientific challenge has support from a broad array of Republicans and Democrats in the US, as well as from policymakers globally across the range of ideologies. What’s more, the current meat industry will be, according to Bruce Friedrich, a big part of the solution. Equal parts urgent and optimistic, Meat is meticulously researched, fast paced and fun to read, and full of the kind of ideas that could actually work. A landmark contribution to the future of food.
Paul Wesley, actor, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds & The Vampire Diaries
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The world is running out of time to save the climate and running out of land to raise livestock. Making meat without killing animals is an ingenious solution that would help with both, and lessen animal suffering. Friedrich tells an engaging story of the visionaries who are inventing a new way to produce meat by combining proteins, fats, and nutrients. The idea might sound far-fetched today, but as he shows in a quick tour of past breakthroughs—cars, airplanes, computers, smartphones—what once seemed unimaginable can soon become commonplace.
Kathryn Aschheim, deputy editor, Nature Biotechnology
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In 2018, I accidentally heard a talk by Bruce Friedrich that fundamentally changed my eating, teaching, philanthropy and investing. Bruce provided compelling logic on how we can improve the environment, our health, and animal welfare, as well as how to feed the world’s population. This book provides broader access to his vision on how to make the world better. But, be careful; reading this book could change your life.
Max Bazerman, Straus Professor, Harvard Business School; author of Inside an Academic Scandal & Negotiation: The Game Has Changed
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In this important book, Bruce Friedrich shares his expertise and his passion for making meat better. He makes a powerful case that, with innovation and investment, we can meet the world’s growing demand for meat that is delicious, nutritious, and affordable while also protecting human and planetary health. A fascinating and inspiring read!
Charlotte Pera, executive director, Stanford University’s Sustainability Accelerator; senior fellow, Bezos Earth Fund
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Bruce Friedrich has a unique talent for making radical change feel not only possible, but inspiring and near at hand. Our future depends on people like him, and books like this.
Jonathan Safran Foer, Lillian Vernon Distinguished Writer-in-Residence, New York University; author of Everything is Illuminated & Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
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Bruce Friedrich is a close friend of mine. Years ago he took me out to dinner to persuade me that plant-based meat is just as succulent as beef, and is the inevitable future of haute cuisine. We did a blind taste test. His contention fell apart, miserably, and I joyfully wrote about it in The Washington Post. I am now convinced he wrote this book entirely to prove to me that I was a blind, ignorant, cynical, arrogant fool who understood nothing about alternative meats and their potential. So I just read it. He is right.
Gene Weingarten, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner for feature writing, Washington Post; author of One Day: The Extraordinary Story of an Ordinary 24 Hours in America
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The heart of this book is a fascinating story of scientific and entrepreneurial exploration. Trying to alter ancient eating habits is hard, but perhaps not impossible. And it would be extremely useful for the world if they can bring this tale to a successful climax.
Bill McKibben, author Here Comes the Sun
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Bruce Friedrich shows why, if we are to avoid pandemics, feed the poor, and mitigate the severity of climate change, we need to scale up the production of meat that does not come from animals. He also gives us hope that this is possible.
Peter Singer, emeritus professor of bioethics, Princeton University; author of Animal Liberation
