Animal activist discusses cultivated meat

Dani Linavi is a certified personal health coach and animal activist. They currently run a newsletter, veganworldnow.online, where they post hopeful vegan news. They also do street outreach and coach veg-curious folks to go and stay vegan. They’re currently finishing their master’s in nutrition science at Florida State University and will be a registered dietitian by 2025. If you’re interested in being interviewed for Slaughter-Free America or writing something for the site, send an email to JonHoch87@aol.com.

SLAUGHTER-FREE AMERICA: When and how did you first learn about cultivated meat?

DANI LINAVI: I first learned about cultivated meat back in 2022, when I was most lonely as a vegan. Despite being vegan for 2 years, I had no vegan friends nor any connection to the vegan movement as a whole. I wanted to be more informed, so I started subscribing to a bunch of vegan-focused newsletters, including some food science-focused ones since I was already interested in that. One of these was Cult Food Science, a Venture Capital fund with many cellular-agriculture-based portfolio companies. GOOD Meat was one of these companies, and after looking through their website, I was sure that this was the future of our food system.

SFA: How did you come to support cultivated meat?

DL: I support cellular agriculture companies that have found methods of creating their food products without the use of Fetal Bovine Serum (FBS). GOOD Meat is supposedly one of these companies. In the early days of this research, it was unfortunate that many of them were using this cruel material - FBS - in their research. If I had discovered cellular agriculture just a few years earlier, I can confidently say I wouldn’t support it. Even now, supporting it knowing what the researchers had to do to get here… irks me a little - I can only hope that they had the bigger picture of our future in mind…

Nonetheless, the industry as it stands today is in, what I believe, the inflection point of mass adoption. This stuff has been researched for decades, and we just got approval for sale in the US and a few other countries. We often underestimate what exponential growth looks like, so if company claims on taste and scalability are true, then it is only a matter of a decade or less before we’re all eating it.

SFA: Once cultivated meat is cheaper than and indistinguishable or superior in taste to slaughtered meat, what sort of impact might it have on animal agriculture?

DL: Right now, humanity is addicted to meat. We value pleasure and convenience over the suffering of species far removed from our empathetic and moral circle. Thus, we will make many justifications to excuse the atrocities committed by traditional animal agriculture. However, once our palates are sated by an objectively more ethical, efficient, and cleaner alternative, we will be able to see traditional animal agriculture a lot clearer. We will condemn this form of animal slavery, just like we condemn human slavery today. Is what I wish to say…

Unfortunately, I believe mass adoption of cultivated meat will come before laws to protect farm animals, since it’s been proven time and time again that capitalism moves faster than compassion. This means we will have learned nothing, and there will be many consumers of cultivated meat that never expanded their moral circle to include beings of other species. We will continue to oppress others, because we never learned why we shouldn’t put our own desires over the rights of others. Every day, I pray that I am wrong about this.

SFA: What would you say to progressives who are skeptical about cultivated meat?

DL: I think progressives that are opposed to cultivated meat are simply still believing the propaganda that the animal agriculture industry pays millions to propagate. I would invite them to read my own essays on veganworldnow.online, where I explain why cellular agriculture is important, what it is, and how it works. However, some progressives are also vegan, and are opposed to flesh of all types. Whether it’s for health reasons or disgust from similarity, I understand them. Fortunately, we can live healthy lives on plants and supplements, so I’m with them, as long as they don’t attempt to support policies against cellular agriculture.

SFA: Would you eat cultivated meat, or is it just something you want available for others?

DL: I’ve decided I would try cultivated meat. I’ve already tried dairy milk and ice cream made from yeast (precision fermentation), so I’m not too far off. It does mildly disgust me, as plant-based products that feel too real do as well. However, I may get over it if the products’ health and nutrient benefits are far superior than anything else that exists (e.g. no cholesterol, low saturated fat, all essential vitamins & minerals within reason, etc.) which I predict will take a lot longer than retail release.