At the busy intersection of high-tech and the public’s health

An assistant professor of public health policy and administration in the Zilber School of Public Health, UW-Milwaukee’s Linnea Laestadius focuses on the intersection of public health, technology and behavior. She looks at the impact of new food technologies as public health interventions, as well as e-cigarette content on social media.

What about meat consumption and the environment?

I’ve been thinking a lot about how technology might be a means of getting around some of the negative environmental impacts of meat consumption. I just finished a project studying “in vitro” meat, which is lab-grown meat where you take stem cells from an animal and then culture them in a lab. It’s supposed to be much more sustainable because it bypasses the raising of the animal, but it also raises a host of ethical questions.

Are there other meat alternatives?

With plant proteins as meat alternatives, you’re taking something like pea protein or soy protein isolate and making that into a meat-like substance. One of the challenges is getting people, particularly in the Western world, to let go of or cut back on meat consumption.

Is that what these attempts are about?

Yes, that’s why the technological options are so interesting. Rather than getting people to learn new dietary habits, if you can engineer something to take the place of meat on the plate, it makes it a lot easier for people to change their diets. Silicon Valley investors have taken a real interest in food because of this.

Have companies brought products to market?

Not in vitro meat, but for the plant-based stuff there are cutting-edge companies like Hampton Creek.

Their goal is meat substitutes people will accept?

Right, they want it to be for everybody, not just vegetarians, and want to make it accessible to everybody right down to your local Walmart. I think we have to be careful to not put technology on a pedestal as this magic fix for all our problems. It doesn’t get at food insecurity caused by inequality in the U.S, and it doesn’t necessarily get at our public health problems related to unhealthy eating. It’s not necessarily clear that all these companies are ethical actors. We’re not sure where they’re sourcing their products or if they are paying people minimum wage. Hampton Creek was just sued for labor violations.

How is in vitro meat produced?

This a huge simplification of things, but you take a biopsy from an animal and then put the cells in a bioreactor, which contains a growth medium like fetal calf’s blood – they’re looking for something more humane and cheaper than that. Obviously, people have concerns. If we can culture animal cells – why wouldn’t we culture human cells? The problem is that there is very little precedent for how you regulate something like this because it’s not cloning and it doesn’t necessarily involve genetic engineering.

When will these products be on the market?

Probably about 10 years for in vitro meat. Plant-based products are already out and getting better every year. Increasingly, the consensus is that people should be eating less meat, and people who do eat meat are branching out to buy these products – it’s not just vegetarians.

How do social media and e-cigarettes fit in?

It’s that intersection of public health and technology. That project was  trying to understand how people are talking about e-cigarettes online. We went onto Instagram and searched for everything with the hashtags “vape” or “ecig.” We found a good amount of people documenting their e-cigarette use. That poses a real concern in that it can’t be regulated because it’s a free speech issue. One problem is that it gives the impression that a lot more people are vaping than actually are. So you get the sense that everybody is doing it, which is certainly not true. The other thing is that it’s easy for companies to mine this data.

We hope to talk to to people who post this content. Why are you documenting your vaping? Is it because you think it’s cool, you want to share information with your peers, you’re showing off a new expensive device, or you’re just documenting every part of your life? We could develop some behavioral interventions to get people to think before they post. So, if your 14-your-old cousin follows you on Instagram, do you really want to be posting about your e-cigarette use? There’s also plenty of work to be done about youth access to e-cigarettes since it’s clear that more and more teens are vaping.

Top Stories