What I don't get about fake meats is that they even exist. There is absolutely no reason why humans need to eat meat. 20+% of India's population is vegetarian and has been for generations. They have full lives without meat.<p>People don't have to be 100% vegetarians. The real game changer is to get the world's population to reduce their meat intake by eating more vegetarian meals. Vegetarian meals can be very tasty and satisfying. There's no need for synthetic meat.<p>Fake meats take a lot of resources. It's just another way to make a buck by getting people to consume something they don't need. In the same way, as soda is nice to have but you don't want to get behind it as a way to save the world. Fake meats are equivalent to snacks not world saviors.
It is unlikely they will get radically worse, but its possible they won't get radically better.<p>However, on-the-hoof meat production has some ideas which can be remarkably transformative: the seaweed additive would reduce methane burp burden immensely.<p>Nothing much alters the water burden of different organisms. Beef is high. Almonds are amongst the highest in plant foods. Sustainable fake meat will want to be significantly lower than Almonds. Its already significantly lower than beef.<p>(skimmed TFA)
It takes 8 gallons of water to produce cow milk 1 gallon. It takes 48 gallons of water to make almond milk 1 gallon.<p>The same with the plant burgers take more water to make than meat. When water gets scarce there will be shortages.