The “ick factor”

There was an interesting article last week in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists titled “The ick factor won’t stop alt meat,” a review of a new book by cultivated-meat advocate Bruce Friedrich.

The Bulletin review describes Friedrich, founder of the Good Food Institute, and the visceral resistance many people feel toward meat grown from animal cells. That reaction frames his central argument: global demand for meat continues to rise despite decades of alarmists preaching about health and environmental costs.

It’s hard not to read a bit of disappointment in those passages, if not outright surprise.

The article then contends that only technological substitution—plant-based and cultivated meat that matches the taste and experience of animal meat—can realistically meet future demand without severe consequences for land, climate, and animal welfare.

He situates meat consumption within a wider web of risks touching public health and food-system stability, and he confronts the “ick factor” of engineered meats by noting that modern meat production already relies heavily on science and industrial processes hidden from view.

The piece caught my attention in part because it arrives roughly a year after Gov. Jim Pillen—himself one of the nation’s larger pork producers—backed LB 246, Nebraska’s 2025 law banning the production and sale of cultivated meat.

In an admirable expression of free-market confidence, some Nebraska ranchers and farm groups opposed the ban, arguing that conventional producers did not need government protection from an emerging technology. Their view was simple: consumers, not lawmakers, should decide what succeeds. Markets, after all, are the original form of crowdsourcing, and the collective judgment of buyers and sellers is usually wiser than any single interest group.

Fredrich’s handwringing, unintentionally, supports the free market view.

You may recall that about a decade ago, much of the alternative-protein conversation centered on insects as the food of the future (that’s a serious“ick factor”), so I’m not surprised to learn that industry has only partly materialized, and mostly out of sight. Insect farming is expanding as feed for fish, poultry and pets, but Western consumers remain reluctant to eat bugs themselves.

In other words, the market has responded, at least for now, with a collective, “no, thank you.”

What I find interesting is that the plant-based segment of the alternative-protein sector that now occupies grocery store shelves and even a few fast food menus continues to cling to the imagery of traditional meat products. Even when they are not overt attempts to imitate a specific meat product, like the famously faux turkey, they at least invoke the image by calling it sausage or a burger.

Why do they do that? If we listen carefully, we hear the free market talking. In the 18th century Adam Smith observed “The quantity of every commodity brought to market naturally suits itself to the effectual demand.” He may not have had cricket powder or Tofurky on his mind at the time, but 200 years later, the same principle applies.

Any discussion of alternative meat also arrives during a difficult period for conventional livestock. Nebraska’s cattle sector has faced herd contraction, drought-driven forage strain and volatile costs that have tightened margins and slowed rebuilding. While I carefully avoid the word “protect,” our livestock producers are an economic backbone, and we must take all necessary measures to see that our producers have a level playing field with access to markets and are free of unnecessary regulation.

At the same time, we should also have some faith in our world-class beef products and the power of a free market. I don’t see sauteed mealworms overtaking a Nebraska fillet anytime soon.