By Jim Mundorf
Memphis Meats is a business…well, I don’t think I can call them a business if they aren’t selling anything or making any money besides the donations they get from billionaires. So, Memphis Meats is a group of animal rights activists working in a lab trying to grow meat from livestock cells. Their goal is to destroy the livestock industry, and because of that they have become media darlings. They have been in many major national publications and last October they made the cover of Inc. Magazine. The reason for all the hubub is because many people in the National media are idiots who think a world where animals aren’t raised for food would be wonderful, goody, goody, gumdrop kind of place.
No matter how giddy these writers get over a world without a livestock industry they still have trouble explaining how it is actually going to work. The funny thing is nobody seems to have tasted this lab grown junk. They did have someone taste a meatball, but according to Newsweek, "The company’s first choice for an independent taster canceled at the last minute, so Stephanie, a friend of a friend of an employee, stepped in." Ha, well isn't that convenient. Actually the more I read the more confused I became. I'm not sure if they can prove they've really done anything at all. Its line after line of, if this works out and if they can just figure that out, then maybe they could get this product, that there is actually very little demand for, to market in a few years. It seems like a handful of animal rights activists that are working in a lab on a pipe dream, but the problem is they've just been handed millions of dollars from other activists.
They claim to have a lot of reasons for doing this, but if you look into the people running the operation it is obvious they have one goal and that is to put an end to raising animals for meat. The first words you will read on their website are, “A world without slaughter.”
Uma Valeti- Founder of Memphis Meats and former cardiologist. His favorite story is telling how as a kid in India he was at a buddies house and saw folks chopping up a goat in the backyard. He was so traumatized that he continued to eat meat for another 10 years. It wasn’t until he was in Med. School in the states when he realized what a monster he was for eating meat and then became a vegetarian and animal rights cookoo. My favorite quote from the Inc. article, "If I continued as a cardiologist, maybe I would save 2,000 or 3,000 lives over the next 30 years, but if I focus on this, I have the potential to save billions of human lives and trillions of animal lives." Apparently he thinks eating meat is killing people so he decided to start making meat that vegans can eat? To save lives?
Nicholas Genovese- Co-Founder sponsored by PETA. That’s all you really need to know to understand this guy. The organization that compares chicken farms to concentration camps and livestock producers to Nazis gave this guy a three year fellowship.
Why would smart people with an interest in making money invest in this Memphis Garbage? That's what I was wondering, but the truth is, they don’t see it as an investment, they see it as a donation. One of the biggest backers and cheerleaders of the whole thing is of course PETA, but the lab meat people try to distance themselves from that fact, since PETA is known worldwide as being a bunch of nut bags. They would much rather talk about these guys.
Bill Gates- Huge nerd, started Microsoft. He also once wrote on Facebook, “In my late twenties I went vegetarian. It didn’t stick. But I have learned a lot about whether eating meat will wreck the planet.” Makes you wonder if the guy who tried to be a vegetarian in the 70’s, long before animals were seen as a threat to the environment, has any biases towards meat when it comes to its effect on the planet?
Richard Branson- Founded the Virgin Group which owns over 400 companies. One of those companies is Virgin Atlantic Airlines. He lives on his own private island where he is completely detached from the real world. Although he's not vegan or vegetarian he has, or at least claims to have given up beef because of its environmental impact. Just so we’re clear, the guy who lives in a giant mansion on his own island and owns an airline is concerned about the carbon footprint of beef.
Jack Welch- This one had me scratching my head for a second. Jack made his money as the CEO of GE when the company grew like a weed in the 80s and 90s. He’s a hardline free market capitalist. He's openly questioned the idea of man made global warming. He does not seem like the type of guy that would be handing out money to animal rights nuts, but upon closer examination you’ll find that Jack’s wife Suzy has removed his balls and got a hold of his checkbook. I'm pretty sure she was the one behind this donation.
Suzy Welch- Suzy was a reporter for the Harvard Business Review when she went to interview Jack Welch. She then grabbed on to his filthy rich coat tails and never let go. She’s written books with him and news articles, they even had a TV show together for a short time. She describes herself as a Veganista and is on the board of directors for the Humane Society of the U.S. The HSUS is another organization dedicated to destroying the livestock industry.
Cargill- Ag Industry giant. These sons a bitches. They recently sold their cattle feedlots, and invested in Memphis Meats. It seems that they are positioning themselves to go all in on Lab meat immediately, even though it doesn't exist. They claim to be the, “the largest producer of ground beef anywhere” and now they've invested in "a world without slaughter?" I think sometimes a stuffed suit shows up at a large corporation and just starts making bonehead decisions and saying bonehead things. That stuffed suit is Sonya Roberts who apparently was in charge of the investment and said this about it in the Wall Street Journal, “For people who want a product from an animal welfare perspective, we want this to be there for them.” What the hell! You are part of a company that just a few months ago raised cattle and cared for their welfare! It seems Cargill now has more in common with her new partner from PETA than she does with every single Farmer and Rancher in America that depends on her corporation to stand up for them.
The news articles that have come out about Memphis Meats act as if the second their product hits the shelves every cow in the country will just disappear. None of them actually write what would happen to agriculture if Memphis Meats and other lab grown meat companies are successful in getting meat eaters to buy their product instead of actual beef. What would happen is the demand/price for meat would go down and livestock producers would reduce their numbers or go out of business. This would make the demand/price for grains that are used for feed go down and grain farmers would raise other grains or produce that would over supply those markets and agriculture as a whole would suffer greatly.
The reason they don't report on what would happen to the farmers and ranchers is simple, they don't give a damn. Can you imagine what it would feel like to be a farmer or rancher working your ass off to feed the people of this country and somebody comes along that wants to destroy your business and the national media falls all over themselves in excitement? And then one of the biggest companies in agriculture, Cargill, jumps right into the pep rally and writes these assholes a check? What a bunch of bullshit!
Truth is I don't understand any of this. I don't know if they will get a product on the shelves or if anyone will buy it. After reading all I could find, I don't think any of them know either. I do know one thing for sure, people will always raise cattle for beef. If they have to do it for less, they will figure out how. Always have, always will. How do I know it? I know something that none of the other writers or investors promoting this know. I know cattle people. I know that raising cattle is not a business. It’s not about meat, its about life. Its about living and breathing. It cannot be put into words. You cannot create it in a lab. It has come from generation after generation after generation of men and women who love working and caring for the land and the animals. They don’t do it for money. They do it because it is deep in their bones, it is in their blood and it pours through their veins. They do it because they watched their parents do it and their grandparents and they listened to stories of how they did it in the old days and they want nothing more in the world than to be a part of that. They have weathered droughts, blizzards, fires, floods and anything else that has ever been thrown at them. They will continue because that is what they do. It is their life and it will continue and there is no one and no thing that is ever going to stop it, not Memphis meats, not Bill Gates, nobody.
Update 1/29/2018: This morning it was announced that Tyson Foods has also announced an investment in Memphis Meats.
The following video is not a paid for ad. It is the best description of everything the people at Memphis Meats and all their investors want to put an end to.