Random Thought: Mushroom Shortage?
If mushrooms are key to fake meat, won't the demand exceed supply pretty soon, if not already?
In my lexicon, a random thought is one that seems valid but for which there is no data to validate it. I’ve been having random thoughts for decades. Since they can’t be validated, the thoughts tend to be short and punchy. And worthless until proven.
We are all wondering just how far this fake meat thing is going to go. Will we actually evolve to The Jetsons where all food is fake, and we get served finished meals from a machine in the wall?
Will it replace all proteins, including fish, chicken and game? Will fake meat “just” replace real meat entirely? Or will it become “just” an alternative to the real stuff and relieve the environmental pressure of only growing and harvesting actual cows?
The LA Times published a story that posits that Mushrooms are the next big weapon in the war against conventional meat. That’s when this random thought occurred to me: If that’s true, then mushrooms will become a commodity in much higher demand than they are today! Does that mean invest in mushroom farms (or whatever they are called)? Current mushroom revenue forecasts don’t seem to take into account this as a demand factor and call for 6-9% annual growth with no hockey sticks in sight.
Certainly the value of Impossible Foods (reportedly $10B as a private company) and Beyond Meat ($6B as a public company, BYND) indicates that investors think fake meat is a big deal. And more companies are raising lots of capital to make more fake edibles, including other kinds of proteins like pork, chicken and fish. I know that “fake” vegetables are in the works. I even checked out a fake whiskey company some time ago. (Endless West calls it molecular whiskey; I couldn’t tell the difference in either taste or price, but making whiskey isn’t threatening the future of the world either.)
Remember when there was a movement to make gas out of corn, called corn ethanol? A lot of people jumped to the conclusion that this would solve our problems getting and making gasoline (financial and environmental), and it is true now that corn is used to produce ethanol, a component of gasoline. But the primary effect of this innovation was to make corn a lot more expensive than it had been as just a food.
If corn became more expensive by making “fake” gasoline, wouldn’t it also be possible that mushrooms will become a lot more expensive by making fake meat? Just a random thought… (Did I mention that I love mushrooms and make a killer mushroom soup, thanks to NY Times Cooking.)
The "banned by Elon Musk owning a Tesla" thing got me here.
One question for you: Do/have/are you ever own/owned/allowed to own a Tesla as of 2021?
After reading your mushroom post, I got why you were (maybe still are) banned by Musk: your writing is pompous, whimsical instead of instead of factual-based, and full of strong loaded words. I can assure you that this style sicks Elon Musk and it's probably why he "banned" you.
Such style apparently attracts some readers, but not many, probably your reader counter, in any media/format combined, has never/will never pass 6 digits. Also, it reflects how your mind works and let me guess: you're an underachiever. But rest assured that you've already achieved all you could possibly achieve if you keep the way you do your writing/thinking/working.
And change is hard, like really hard. And that's after you really want to change.