logologologo
  • Home
  • About
    • Contributors
    • Guide for contributors
  • Themes
    • Roadmapping
    • Open Innovation
    • Managing the R&D pipeline
    • Technology Strategy
    • Managing international R&D
    • Ideation and creativity in R&D
    • Impact of digital technologies
    • The resurgence of frugal innovation
    • Design Thinking
    • Penetrating the fog of Agile
    • China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a new model for Open Innovation
  • Tools
  • News
    • R&D Today newsletter archive
  • Resources
  • Papers
  • Case Studies
  • Events
  • R&D Conference
  • Contact
  • Home
  • About
    • Contributors
    • Guide for contributors
  • Themes
    • Roadmapping
    • Open Innovation
    • Managing the R&D pipeline
    • Technology Strategy
    • Managing international R&D
    • Ideation and creativity in R&D
    • Impact of digital technologies
    • The resurgence of frugal innovation
    • Design Thinking
    • Penetrating the fog of Agile
    • China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a new model for Open Innovation
  • Tools
  • News
    • R&D Today newsletter archive
  • Resources
  • Papers
  • Case Studies
  • Events
  • R&D Conference
  • Contact

If you are what you eat, is what you eat what you think?

Ben Wurgaft

Ben Wurgaft (Credit: Lydia Daniller, lydiadaniller.com)

When a Dutch scientist unveiled the world’s first laboratory created hamburger, the idea of producing meat, not from live animals but from carefully cultured tissues, has ignited imaginations, and created a vision of sustainable protein. While cultured meat is a new development in food technology, it also presents us with challenging philosophical questions about the nature of animals, humans, and the limits of technology.

Benjamin Aldes Wurgaft, independent scholar and ethnographer of the future of food, is one of the keynote speakers at the R&D Management Conference 2022 and he will be exploring the implications for the future of food.

Ben is a prolific writer and his recent article in MOLD Magazine has particular resonance for innovation management.

Innovation in cultivated meat is a growing market

South Korean start-up TissenBioFarm, an offshoot of Thyssen Biopharmaceuticals which focuses on tissue engineering, has secured $400,000 USD (April 2022) to further develop a manufacturing platform that can produce cultivated and plant-based meats with realistic marbling.

If you are what you eat, is what you eat what you think?

Cultivated and plant-based meats with realistic marbling. (Credit: TissenBioFarm)

If you had a new technology to design a new food product would you create something new or slavishly produce a replica of a familiar dish?

This is a conundrum explored by Ben in an article for MOLD Magazine, where he explores the disconnect between form and function when cultured meat – cells grown in a laboratory – is presented as pork chop.

He explains how a pork chop gains its taste and structure from the lifestyle of a living thing, the origin of the food it was fed, the exercise it gained, the stress of slaughter. Lastly, the chop itself is a product of how it was butchered, the tools used and the culture where it will be eaten.

Cultured meat in the form of a pork chop, is therefore a skeuomorph, an object created from a different material to the object it attempts to replicate.

Lab grown meat may philosophically provide an alternative for a carnivore who would prefer something not to lose its life, or for marketing purposes, to provide a more palatable option for the consumer, but is this missing an opportunity to rethink food? To turn flesh into a building material with the ultimate form not determined by the animal body but instead to reflect the conventions of culture.

Ben explores the relationship between technology, design, and cultural expectations in many of his writings and his talk at the conference will definitely provide ‘food for thought’.

Further information

More about Benjamin A. Wurgaft can be found on his website: benwurgaft.org

His books include: Thinking in Public: Strauss, Levinas, Arendt (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016) and Meat Planet: Artificial Flesh and the Future of Food (University of California Press, 2019). His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation.

The MOLD article can be read here

 

R&D Management Conference 2022R&D Management Conference 2022 – University of Trento 11-13 July 2022

www.rnd2022.org

Benjamin Aldes Wurgaftskeuomorphsustainable protein
Previous PostInnovation by experimentation
Next PostStrategic leadership and new pathways for rad...
Search R&D Today
Search
Generic filters
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Search in excerpt
Filter by Article Type
Papers
Events
Tools
Funding Articles
Case Studies
Resources
Opportunities
Theme Editor Blogs
Filter by Categories
Business model innovation
Ideation and creativity in R&D
Latest news
Managing international R&D
Managing technology platforms
Managing the R&D pipeline
Open innovation
Outsourcing R&D
Project valuation and selection
R&D strategy
Roadmapping
Stage gate processes
Technology intelligence
View our newsletter archive
Theme Editor Blogs
  • Digital disruption in the lab: The case for R&D digitalization in chemicals – a review
  • Accelerating product development: the tools you need now – a review
  • Using good practice R&D management to create new innovations in malodour control
Resources
  • Coffee Time Conversations: Brainstorming
  • Innovation Management: Learning for the experiences of companies in European countries
  • How to write and publish your research
Tools
  • Green Check Your Idea
    “Green Check Your Idea” – assess the environmental impact of innovation ideas
    The Green Check Your Idea tool helps innovation managers prepare an initial assessment of...
  • Valuing and comparing small portfolios
    Many of the tools used in valuing and selecting projects are only really applicable...
  • Would an analogy help?
    nalogies are a useful tool for creative problem solving, to help one move away...
  • Paired comparison
    Techniques for Effective Prioritisation
    Gut feeling may be a valid basis for making decisions about your personal life...
  • Radar-Roadmap-feat
    The Halo-Effect: Creating Impact Through “Good-looking“ Roadmaps
    Content is the essence of roadmapping. But the impact of impressive, professional visuals that...
Have Your Say…

Have Your Say / Follow Us

R&D Today is the outreach site for the Research and Development Management Association, a charitable organisation that supports research, best practice and innovation.  www.radma.net

Click here to sign up to our newsletter, and click here to view our newsletter archive.

Copyright R&D Today 2020. All rights reserved.