Would You Buy Lab-Grown Pet Food?

H ere’s a question for all the pet-owners out there: Would you buy lab-grown pet food? Slate’s podcast “What’s Next: TBD” asked me that, as well as whether slaughter-free dog food could be considered sustainable. My answers may not make the welfare advocates thrilled, but there’s a lot of nuance to consider—like, where else would all that waste from the meat industry go? Probably in landfills, which are already filled with meat, fish and other food products. Give the conversation a listen, and let me know what you think.

Want more? I’ll be moderating quite a few conversations around Climate Week here in New York City. Catch me moderating a few panels at Food Tank’s event “Food and Agriculture as a Solution to the Climate Crisis” on Thursday, Sept. 14. Then find me the week after at Pier 60, where Forbes will host its second-ever Sustainability Leaders Summit on Wednesday, Sept. 20th. (Streaming the programming live is free if you register!)

I hope to see you soon, and welcome to September!

— Chloe Sorvino, Staff Writer

Order my book, Raw Deal: Hidden Corruption, Corporate Greed and the Fight for the Future of Meat, out now from Simon & Schuster’s Atria Books.

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What’s Fresh

Congratulations: You Just Survived The Hottest Summer On Earth

June, July and August was Earth’s hottest three-month period ever, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, causing leaders across the globe to sound the alarm on worsening climate conditions.

Temperatures have consistently risen the past three months, with the average temperature being 62 degrees Fahrenheit for the summer season. “Leaders must turn up the heat now for climate solutions. We can still avoid the worst of climate chaos—and we don’t have a moment to lose,” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said in a press release from the World Meteorological Organization.

Free School Meals Are A Moral Imperative. End Of Story.

Our failure to feed our future and provide school meals to all children is a choice that’s being made. That’s unconscionable.

How Essential Workers Are Fighting For Safer Grocery Stores

Amidst a wave of violence in grocery stores and pharmacies, retail workers are demanding greater safety measures.

Questions For OMeat’s Cow Plasma Extraction Farm

Omeat’s new product purports to be an “ethical alternative to fetal bovine serum” for cell-based meat by extracting plasma from adult cows on a farm. But is it really?

Veggie Grill: Shrinking But Building A Path To Success

Meet the chef who is searching for soul food around the world and to gain a deeper understanding of food born out of resilience.

Field Notes

The baan salad at Thai Diner in Manhattan’s Nolita neighborhood is my power lunch go-to. And it’s only complete with a slice of the menu’s newest addition, a pineapple cake that I’m happy to call my favorite cake in New York City.

Thanks for reading the 83rd edition of Forbes Fresh Take! Let me know what you think. Subscribe to Forbes Fresh Take here.

Chloe Sorvino leads coverage of food and agriculture as a staff writer on the enterprise team at Forbes. Her book, Raw Deal: Hidden Corruption, Corporate Greed and the Fight for the Future of Meat, published on December 6, 2022, with Simon & Schuster’s Atria Books. Her nearly nine years of reporting at Forbes has brought her to In-N-Out Burger’s secret test kitchen, drought-ridden farms in California’s Central Valley, burnt-out national forests logged by a timber billionaire, a century-old slaughterhouse in Omaha and even a chocolate croissant factory designed like a medieval castle in northern France.