The Food Chain

Life on Earth began with thermophiliac organisms powered by heat from the Earth's core. Later, surface life evolved. It was powered by the energy from the sun, and then in layers of prey and predators. This page is a description of the energy transfer system known as the food chain and a look at some more esoteric issues surrounding the nature of this system, including discussions of genetically modified food.

1. The Sources of the Energies That Fuel the Cycle

1.1. From the Thermal Origins of Life to Photosynthesis and Trophic Levels

Life started deep in the crust of the Earth, where the oxidation of sulphur was powered by the intense heat from below. These ancient thermophiles eventually multiplied, diversified and evolved to cope with colder and colder climates. When a chance mutation resulted in the production of light-sensitive chemicals, life eventually emerged on the surface and floated in the cooling oceans.₁. Micro-organisms are still the most diverse and successful forms of life on the planet.

“A spoonful of good quality soil may contain ten trillion bacteria representing 10 000 thousand different species! In total, the mass of micro-organisms on Earth could be as great as a hundred trillion tonnes - more than all the visible life put together.”
"The Origin of Life" by Paul Davies (2003)₁

Forgetting the ancient thermophiles, the Sun is the engine that has since kept surface life on Earth sustainable. Photosynthesis converts radiation from the sun into chemically stored energy, creating organic molecules in the process, and expiring oxygen into the atmosphere. The rate of plant growth is called 'production'. Production is measured in grams per meter squared per year. For example, shallow waters produce 2500g/m²/yr. By dividing living creatures into layers, we can examine how energy from the sun makes its way up the food chain in the form of biological chemicals. These 'layers' are called trophic levels:

“The fate of energy can be followed through a consideration of a simple energy transfer model, called a food chain. Each stage in the chain is called a trophic level. Plants are the first level in the chain and are called producers. [...] Herbivorous animals are the second trophic level and are called primary consumers. They in turn are eaten by the third trophic level. [...] At each trophic level a conversion to heat takes place, which means that less energy becomes biomass at the succeeding trophic level. [...] This explains why most food chains are limited to four or five trophic levels, and why the animals at the end of the food chain, for example lions, have to roam over large areas to obtain their food, because one small area cannot support many of them.”
"The Nature of the Environment" by Prof. Andrew Goude (1993)₂

Depending on how you count, bacteria makes up nearly 50% of the biomass of the whole Earth₃. That's right - nearly half of all life is bacterial (and over half is microscopic₁). This provides a massive first-layer, primary food source for slightly complex multicellular life forms. Consumption, like all mechanical engines and chemical pathways, is not 100% efficient. Far from it. At all stages, energy is lost to inefficiency, wasteful digestive systems, and heat production. Prof. Dawkins, the foremost evolutionary biologist, informs us that only ten percent of the energy from one trophic level makes it to the next level up₄.

This implies that at most trophic levels, the total biomass must decrease, the feeding/hunting area must be bigger, and the digestive systems have probably evolved to be more complicated in order to digest more complicated fats and sugars. It turns out to be true. Bacteria feed over a very small area, plants and primary producers feed over a wider area but in total, less biomass is held in plants than in bacteria (that make up 50%), and eventually, the predatory animals hunt over wide areas, and are massively fewer in number than their prey.

1.2. Improving the System: Why Do Humans Cook?

Dr Richard Wrangham of Harvard University notes that cooking is a behaviour found universally in human societies. Only very few single individuals attempt to live without it. Some have theorized that this radical behaviour formed a major factor in our rise to stardom. Dr Wrangham investigated the effect it has on food, and finds that it hugely improves the efficiency of the energy gain from the food cycle. Commentary was published in The Economist:

“Cooking alters food in three important ways. It breaks starch molecules into more digestible fragments. It "denatures" protein molecules, so that their amino-acid chains unfold and digestive enzymes can attack them more easily. And heat physically softens food. That makes it easier to digest, so even though the stuff is no more calorific, the body uses fewer calories dealing with it. [...] Cooking increases the share of good digested in the stomach and small intestine [...] from 50% to 95%.”
The Economist (2009)₅

The improved food-consumption efficiency that is gained through cooking, and the learning curve of dealing with fire, and tools, are three things that set humankind on a radical new evolutionary path.

2. Why Aliens Probably Won't Eat Us

Aliens couldn't digest us (or any other life on the top trophic levels) efficiently enough to have become natural prey to us.
Energy Efficiency (assuming alien life is a little similar to ours): Life on alien planets could also be dividable into trophic levels; that the greatest abundance of biological chemicals is contained within unicellular lifeforms is great pressure for hungry multicellular species to evolve in a direction that involves digesting single-cell lifeforms. The result is a trophic system. It is also likely that on other planets, as on Earth, the evolution of digestion isn't optimal. The jury-rigged nature of evolution does not mean that the most-efficient routes are always evolved. What works, may survive. In short, there is a maximum limit to the amount of trophic levels you can have. Humans, who shop for food over massive distances (the whole planet), exist at the top level alongside other big omnivores. The footprint of the top hunters is huge, and by and large it is too inefficient for hunters on the top layer to spend time hunting each other. If plankton only process 10% of the sun's energy efficiently, and millions are eaten by fish at only 10% efficiency, etc, it is more efficient for predator fish to eat the next layer down in order to 'collect' the same quantity of plankton-food-mass. To eat each other would result in no net gain of energy into that trophic layer; so, much energy must be obtained from the layers below. At each layer, the storing of fats and sugars gets more complicated. The more complicated the biological chemicals, the harder it is to digest them. That's why bacteria doesn't eat chocolate, but we can. At the top trophic layer, our digestive systems can break-down chocolate into the smaller chemicals prevalent in lower trophic layers, and digest it. We then reassemble it into complex proteins, etc. If aliens visited Earth, they would be unlikely to eat us because the digestive or processing time would be very large (if, of course, they could digest us at all).
Alien biological compounds could be comprised of different chemicals to ours, meaning we cannot obtain useful chemicals from eating each other, and probably don't have the right enzymes to digest each other.
Incompatibility (assuming alien life started-out its evolution with different chemicals in the atmosphere to what we had on Earth): Proteins, carbohydrates and sugars all 'make sense' to animal digestive systems because all life on Earth has evolved from common sources, in an environment rich in their constituent molecules. On an alien planet where advanced life has evolved, if the starting-point was different, the nature of life's building-blocks will be different. Duplicating molecules, the stuff that causes evolution, grows up to use the molecules that are available. The environment shapes the resultant structure of life. We cannot eat silicon-based chemicals, but we can digest carbon-based ones. If a hot planet produces aliens that eat silicon, they might find all life on Earth to be far too insubstantial, and all but inedible. Given the fussiness of what we can eat, and even the dangerous nature of eating food that is too far removed from our historical diets (i.e., fish, plants, small animals, etc), we could probably not eat life that didn't evolve on Earth, nor could they eat us.

But despite these formidable problems, there is another possibility. We know that life can evolve on planets where carbon and other CHOMSP chemicals are abundant and available. It might be that this particular combination is the only efficient way for life to evolve. Of all the planets, life might only evolve on those with the right mix of chemicals. These means that all life could be comprised of many similar chemicals to ours. Not only might there be aliens that can digest us... but all aliens might all be able to digest each other, including us! Although this means that universal cuisine is going to be much more fascinating than planet-by-planet dishes, it also means we haven't quite finished our examination of whether aliens will eat us.

Sometimes, Humans eat each other. We tend to be a food-orientated species. Meals, cooking, meats, sauces, all kinds of plant life and fish, are palatable to us. It might be that we see no reason why we can't eat aliens. Some of us, I dare say, would strive to do so. Some aliens might be similar to some Humans: They would love to find out what an alien tastes like! And, legal or illegal, moral or immoral, they might proceed to do so! What if, then, the first aliens that discover Earth are a species, or even just a group of rogues, who are searching in particular for things to eat? And what if life in the universe is largely carbon-based, and we're edible? Perhaps we would engage in some prisoner exchanges, where instead of cremating criminals who have been executed, we part-exchange them for alien meat!

But, rogues aside, I think it more likely that the more organized alien species are the ones likely to find us, and also these species are less likely to have rogue spaceships wondering around. The foremost evolutionary biologist, Prof. Richard Dawkins, points out (2006) that as species-bias decreases in advanced species, we will seek more and more to avoid harming all other animals. This process is of course evident in Earth history. Alien neurology will lead them to understand that animals and foreign species have feelings like theirs, and will eventually evolve culturally to a point where they seek to avoid pain and harm to others. As a result, the chances are alien governments will not try to eat us. Observe the way that the most advanced countries are the least barbaric, and have the most processed, unnatural foods. If this continues, we will stop eating anything that comes from living material. If aliens continue to evolve technologically, they will likely arrive at the same point. Space travel, especially, requires long-term sustenance on non-living food. Advanced space travellers will probably not eat us, after all, and their governments will probably reign-in any rogue aliens that do try to, just like Human societies monitor their own cannibals and bloodsports practitioners.

So in summary: It is unlikely that aliens would be able to obtain enough energy from us efficiently in order to need to eat us. In addition, if life evolves under various conditions in the universe, aliens will probably have a biochemical make-up so different from ours that we are mutually inedible and potentially very poisonous to each other. But, if life all over the universe is carbon-based and can not evolve elsewise, we might find aliens can digest us (or us them). However, as advanced society relies less on living food and increasingly processes its food, and continue towards non-violence and non-harm towards an increasing range of animals (apes, baboons, Yorkshiremen, etc), and space-travel is (probably) only possible if you can survive on such processed food, it is very likely that space-faring aliens will not be seeking to eat us. Especially as advanced species probably watch out for transgressions amongst themselves, just like advanced moral countries prevent animal cruelty and bloodsports. In short, if we find aliens they probably can't eat us, and wouldn't.

Now, enough about aliens, and back on to purely Earthly and Human concerns, although concerns that are of no less a spurious and otherworldly nature.

3. The Design of Earth's Food Chain is Evil

Many single-cell lifeforms survive off of sunlight, water, and transient chemicals found in the oceans. These simple lifeforms are a Buddhist ideal: They harm no other creatures and feed on nothing living. In a perfect world, all life would have evolved to survive in such a way. With modern technology, we can produce energy to make digestion mostly unnecessary if only we'd have evolved in a way that didn't evolve eating-other-life. All animal life has evolved in a way that makes killing other things necessary. I think that not a single multi-cellular species on Earth survives without directly harming other living life. The Buddhist author Ken Jones describes this as 'ecological violence' and states that it is problematic for Buddhists, who do not want to harm any living thing, that life itself requires violence:

“Ecological 'violence' can equally be seen as ecological 'harmony' and balance. One animal supports the life of another by becoming its prey. 'Violence' harmoniously sustains the life-affirming food chain. Humankind, [...] was part of this harmonious balance of violence-and-peacefulness. [...] Taizan Maezumi, a contemporary Zen Master has observed that if we think of the Buddhist First Precept 'on a common sense level of "Do not kill" or "Do not take any form of life", how could we survive? [...] Survival of life itself depends on killing other forms of life. [...] 'Violence' and 'harmony' [...]. When each disappears, what is there then?"”
"The Social Face of Buddhism" by Ken Jones (1989)₆

The author then states that Buddha-nature in us is the cure to this inherent problem, that ethical enlightenment and a Middle Way solves the problem of Human nature. However... all religions think that they have the answer to the problems of Human evil. In the case of Buddhism, it could be said that its solution is exactly the same as common-sense would dictate: Intelligence, moral thinking and societal training are the solutions to redirect out-of-date and antisocial instincts. The best intentions, however, do not change the fact that it is not just Humans that hunt and kill for food and fun, but animals too. Ecological violence is a fundamental part of the cycle of life. All life dies, and all life requires the death of others, in order to live. This 'victory of death' is hailed by Satanists as a supreme sign that if there is a God, it is an evil one:

“If life was created, and not simply the result of undirected unconscious evolution (as seems sensible), this is surely the worst possible way to have created life. It appears very much that life cannot survive without causing suffering for other life. A god could not have created a more vicious cycle if it tried: Tying the very existence of life with the necessary killing of other life is the work of an evil genius, not of an all-powerful and all-loving god, that could choose if it wanted to sustain all life immediately and forever with manna from heaven. But it seems such an all-powerful good god doesn't exist.”
"Evidence that if there is a God, it is an Evil One" by Vexen Crabtree (2003)

This desperate, deadly struggle for existence was agonized over by the father of evolutionary theory, Charles Darwin.

“I cannot see as plainly as others do, and as I should wish to do, evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly create the Ichneumonidae [wasps] with the express intention of their [larva] feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice.”
Charles Darwin (1860)₇

It is clear that if the system of life was "designed" at all, it was by someone with no morals and not much foresight. For a comprehensive look at this issue see my "Evolution and the Unintelligent Design of Life: Inherited Traits, Genetic Dysfunction and Artificial Life" by Vexen Crabtree (2007).

4. What Vampires and Zombies Teach Us About Ourselves

“Small animals feed on insects. Large animal predators feed on small predators. This is natural. This is normal. We are not surprised when, one level up, we find that we eat "lower" animals, such as rabbits. It's how it is. Our intelligence and development has made us the arbiter of life on this planet. We value Human lives much more than animal life. So, we side strongly with the survivors of zombie plagues and we feel they have every right to survive by killing zombies, because the living are so much better than them. Through several levels of the food chain, we are happy to admit that it is normal for the higher species to use lower species. But why, then, do we draw the line at our level? Vampires, and the elite, are a level better than the untermensch, so why are we appalled when "they" use us according to the natural laws that we accept? We accept natural laws to justify our using of lower species, so how come we find it so repugnant when higher species use us? The reason is that our justification for the food chain is fake; the real reason is necessity. We will do what it takes to keep on top. Likewise, so will vampires. And so will the human survivors of zombie films: They will kill, in order to keep in power.
Zombie and vampire films therefore, teach us much about humanity and the will to power. We learn that the 'natural laws' that we use to justify our existence at the top of the food chain are not the real justifications, and that we are simply self-interested, species-biased and paradigm-biased. Anything better than us we fight against, and anything weaker than us we exploit.”
"Zombies and Vampires" by Vexen Crabtree (2006)

Prof. Richard Dawkins, a foremost biologist and expert in evolution, explains that Human culture has a history of species-ism:

“The feeling that members of one's own species deserve special moral consideration as compared with members of other species is old and deep. Killing people outside war is the most seriously regarded crime ordinarily committed. The only thing more strongly forbidden by our culture is eating people (even if they are already dead). We enjoy eating members of other species, however. [...] We cheerfully countenance the shooting without trial of fairly mild animal pests. Indeed we kill members of other harmless species as a means of recreation and amusement. A human foetus, with no more human feeling than an amoeba, enjoys a reverence and legal protection far in excess of those granted to an adult chimpanzee. [...] The foetus belongs to our own species, and is instantly accorded special privileges and rights because of it.”
"The Selfish Gene" by Prof. Richard Dawkins (1976)₈

5. Genetically Modified Food

5.1. Synthetic-Natural Meats

“Meat grown in vats, rather than in the form of animals, could soon be on the menu. It might even be healthier and better for you. [...] Researchers believe it will soon be possible to grow cultured meat in quantities large enough to offer the meat industry an alternative source of supply.”

The Economist(2006)₁₀

Meat in vats, grown in culture from a chemical source derived from animal genetics, will result in meat being grown more like plants than livestock. "A NASA-funded team led by Morris Benjaminson, at Touro College in New York City, took the first steps toward what may culminate in 'Lab meat' on your dinner menu. The aim of the project is to enable astronauts on long voyages to grow their own meat"₉, but, the scope is clearly much greater than just space missions, and The Economist newspaper hails it as a future industry₁₀. Animal farming as an industry is in distress in the modern world, and is criticized for its heavy use of water and inhumane nature.

The European Barometer poll in 2005₁₁ asked respondents across all 25 European countries (and a few prospectents), whether they approved of growing meat from cell cultures so that we do not have to slaughter farm animals. Over half disapproved (54%), and only 6% of EU citizens thought that such meat should be grown for general use.

The popular press has never reported on the potential benefits of this type of natural-synthetic meat. Here they are:

No livestock needs to be kept in captivity, so, no animals suffering or slaughter.
The meat can be kept sterile and completely free from diseases and contamination, "avoiding Salmonella, E. coli, Capylobacter and other nasties"₁₀.
Nutrients can easily be added to the meat (i.e., more iron, more vitamins, omega-3 fatty acids, etc) and the meats bad contents (fat, etc) can be closely controlled.
It allows a complete range of meats to be offered as "you could even take a cell from an endangered animal, and, without threatening its extinction, make meat from it"₁₀.
Vegetarians who abstain from meat because of their revulsion of the treatment of animals, could eat synthetically grown meat₉.
Food production can be predictably matched to demand, and, it will help alleviate malnourishment in overpopulated areas.

There are two common criticisms of such food, listed below; none of them are correct:

It is unnatural: The meat is perfectly natural, produced from natural genes found in natural animals, which produce the same natural proteins that they'd create in live animals as well as in cell cultures.
It is dangerous, or, there are unknown risks. Scientists have been growing cell cultures from stem cells for a long time, and, the scientific tests done on this meat have far outstripped the amount of testing we've ever done on livestock meat. Grown synthetic-natural meat is, due to the lack of diseases and natural contaminants, safer than livestock meat. Also, the demonstrated risks of highly processed food (junk food) are quite high. "As Ingrid Newkirk of PETA, an animal-rights group, puts it, 'no one who considers what's in a meat hot dog could genuinely express any revulsion at eating a clean cloned meat product' "₁₀. It makes no sense to continue to eat and drink risky foods (crisps, alcohol, fatty foods) that are known to cause ill health, while protesting against theoretical and unknown risks in healthy food.

5.2. Genetically Modified Food

The Skeptical Inquirer magazine is famous for its careful facts-only analyses. Their summary of the state of GM food in Europe reads:

“In Europe, only one genetically modified (GM) plant variety is cultivated: the insect-resistant Bt GM maize. Even so, its cultivation is still very controversial. [...] Opponents to the use of biotechnology in agriculture are still very aggressive, particularly in France. They seek to ban all GM food for humans and animals. Greenpeace and the well-known neoluddite José Bové are heavily lobbying both the French government and European commissioners. [...]
More than 500 scientists from French and European public research organisations [signed a declaration to] affirm that any new plant variety, genetically modified or not, should be considered only on a case-by-case basis. They note, and specialized committees throughout the world agree, that the insecticidal active compound present in Bt GM maize has been exploited for decades by conventional and organic gardeners without any observable toxic or allergic response. [...] These signatories state that the "No to GMO" campaign is based only on imaginary or false uncertainties.”
Skeptical Inquirer (2008)₁₂

The opposite to GM food is 'organic' food. For the record, GM food is still organic and still composed of natural biological molecules. Organic foods bring with them higher chances of poisoning, salmonella, disease and impurities. There is an outcry against GM food not by the scientists themselves, but from the farmers and the popular media. When Tescos decided to remove GM food a few years ago, it was due to pressure from activists, not as a result of health issues. Despite known health issues, Tescos and other supermarkets have not removed organic food!

“Organic farming raises risks of faecal contamination not only of food but also of waterways, food poisoning, high levels of natural toxins and allergens, contamination by copper and sulphur-containing fungicides, production of diseased food, low productivity, and creation of reservoirs of pests and diseases. Cars, cigarettes, stepladders and playing sports are dangerous - eating GM food is not. Deliberately pejorative language is obscuring the debate and encouraging people to pre-judge the issues before they have heard all the facts.”
Professor Hillman (2000)₁₃

5.3. God's Will Versus Genetics

Text in section 5.3. taken from:

"Evolution: Evidence, Unintelligent Design, Inherited Traits and Artificial Life" by Vexen Crabtree

Many religionists, especially conservative Christians in the USA and fundamentalists around the world, oppose Humankind's intervention in genetics. "Some, like Leon Kass, the former head of President Bush's bioethics council, regard genetic interventions as humankind's contemporary replay of the Tower of Babel episode"₁₄. They say we 'shouldn't play God', that genetic engineering is a Promethean seizure of God's power. A poll in 1997 revealed that 70% of Americans said only God should have the power to interfere with inherited traits, following on from polls in the 1980s that saw two-thirds of Americans declare that the altering of human genes was against God's will₁₄.

I will now offer four arguments that genetic engineering is in accordance with God's will - and also offer one cheeky argument that at the very least, genetic engineering foils the Devil's plans! So for those of us who don't believe in such dualisms, take the following with a philosophical pinch of salt:

Firstly, God doesn't have control over inherited traits. If there is a God, and it designed the way nature works, then it relinquished its control of inheritability when it chose to create genes. Genes are subject solely to the deterministic laws of physics and chemistry. These laws run without God's interference; the genes that we inherit result from natural cause and effect in accordance with fixed physical laws, not from God's will. There is only one reason why God would create such roundabout way of facilitating the inheritance of traits: because it wanted to place genetics within the grasp of human biological sciences. If it did not want us to consciously examine and improve our genes, then God would not have made them accessible. Traits would be picked by god and bestowed upon individuals by magic, without a physical intermediary (DNA) doing the job. If God is all-powerful and all-knowing, then DNA exists in the physical world (rather than the spiritual one) for a reason: God has placed DNA within our reach to see what we will do.
This argument is related to theodicy, 'the problem of evil' - if God is good, why are so many elements of the created world bad? - see my collection of essays on this subject on www.vexen.co.uk.
The desire to eradicate disease is the desire to help others; it is a moral impulse derived from our best social instincts. The expression of this desire through advanced science provides us with new methods of preventing disease. If God's test is to see if we will do the right thing, then, my bets are with the geneticists. Those who wish to let disease run its course, and let mutant genes continue to cause disease, are the ones who are interfering with God's will. It is God's place to punish humankind for transgressions, not our place to punish ourselves (and those around us) by failing to fight disease and biological dysfunction.
Thirdly, exegesis: Christians will remember that in their 'Old Testament' it implores humankind to govern nature. God has placed DNA within the realm of nature, the same as it placed seeds and plants within our grasp. We took those seeds and plants and selectively bred them to create many crops that over thousands of years, have become intensely genetically modified by us. Consider that the Bible grants us "animal husbandry". There was no phrase in the Hebrew vocabulary for genes or evolution, but husbandry is a sexual term that implies the act of mixing male chromosomes with those of a female egg, to produce life. This is genetic in nature. The next section on this page details advances we have already made with crops and with our creation of domesticated species such as cows, pigs and cats. These animals did not originate in nature - we created them without causing the heaven's to rain fire on the Egyptians or Indians.
“The same Genesis narratives that many read as a source of the prohibition confer on human beings the task of governing and tending to nature. Throughout the Bible, agriculture, animal husbandry, metalworking, and many other technological interventions in nature are permitted and even approved.”
"Babies by Design: The Ethics of Genetic Choice"
Ronald M. Green (2007)₁₄
Human achievements with crops and domesticated animals are much more extreme that the simple genetic engineering changes we would implement now, such as removing genes mutations that cause certain diseases, and adding vitamin-producing genes to common crops. This is small fry to what we have already achieved. It's not that the religionists are opposed to the results, it's just that they perceive continued scientific achievements to be a threat to their general religious worldview.
Finally, genetic engineering may aid in the fight against the Devil! Genetic engineering will eventually absolve us of the need to kill livestock to feed ourselves. Researchers have already grown meat in laboratories, from germlines extracted from animals₁₀. Such meat is the real thing, but is grown without the need for a living organism surrounding it. It is maintained by the laboratory as fresh, non-living meat. Manufacturing on reasonable scales in so far impossible, but in the future it will be possible, and the barbaric era of animal slaughter will start to enter history for good. This underlines our final argument. The food chain is designed so that in order to survive, living beings have to kill and destroy each other. The whole food chain is based on blood and death. This is the design of an evil genius, not of a good god. Likewise for gene mutations (which cause the suffering of many innocent and unborn children) and other biological dysfunctions. No good God would have created such a flawed biological world. If it genetics is a chance at dashing the devil's (apparent) designs, then, we should give no hesitation!

5.4. The Fear of New Food: Neophobia Trumps Rationalism

More: "General Neophobia in Everyday Life: Humankind's Fear of Progress and Change" by Vexen Crabtree (2009)

People claim to be risk-averse when it comes to highly-tested synthetically grown meat, and genetically modified plant produce, which is known to be safe, but, continue to eat foods that are known to have bad risks. Cancer Research UK report that "experts think that about a quarter of all cancer deaths are caused by unhealthy diets and obesity"₁₅. It is not, therefore, that people mind the risks of meat grown in vats, but, that they don't like new foods. Therefore the opposition to synthetically grown meat is at least partially (or greatly, given the difference between normal risk-taking and GM risk-taking) a result of neophobia. The best course of action against neophobia is simply to slowly introduce the new foods, and let people get used to them over a generation or two.

Another hint that something psychological is going on is the correlation between those in the Eurobarometer poll who said that Humans have a duty to protect nature, and those who think that we should grow synthetic meats so that we no longer have to slaughter (or keep) farm animals. There isn't a correlation between the two groups₁₁. Those who want to protect nature, and animal-rights activists, are largely against the growing of synthetic-natural meats. It would make sense that in order to protect nature, end farm captivity (even if not completely), and end animal slaughter, we should grow food that surpasses the need for those things. The fact that those people are against vat meat must mean that there are additional, psychological components to their opposition. You would think that, given the massive alterations to natural species we have engineered in cattle, and the painful and distorted lives that they lead as a result, would mean that we would wish to change the status quo in food production. Neophobia beats rationalism.

6. The Food Industry's Manipulation of News Media

You cannot trust much of the news when it comes to issues that have commercial impact, not even when it comes to the reporting of scientific studies on nutrition and food. Some of these studies were funded and managed by scientists supplied by the food industry itself!

“The food industry in Europe recently has been funding groups to protect its position against public and government alarm over obesity, junk food, misleading food labelling, diabetes and the advertising of fatty foods to children. British newspapers routinely carry reports and quotes on diet from the Social Issues Research Center, the British Nutrition Foundation and the International Life Sciences Foundations and routinely fail to point out that all three have received significant funding variously from Cadbury Schweppes, Nestlé, Kelloggs, the Dairy Council, Kraft and the Sugar Bureau. In 2003, Fleet Street reported the comments of a nutritionist called Dr Susan Jebb who attacked the Atkins Diet as 'a massive health risk', without explaining that her research into the low-carbohydrate diet had been funded the Flour Advisory Bureau. This kind of research may or may not be accurate; but it is the hidden hand of PR which is paying for it to happen and promoting it into the news.”
"Flat Earth News" by Nick Davies (2008)₁₆

My page which criticizes the mass media explains why such lobby groups find it so easy to insert content into the news:

“Modern journalists work at breakneck speed to process stories as fast as possible. Therefore most news services rely heavily on public relations (PR) material in order to rapidly produce the stream of news. Much of this news comes from trusted wire agencies, but these also rely on PR input. Because of these pressures, public relations firms and commercial companies are having a heyday and find it easy to insert material into news media. In general, over half of all news stories are mostly PR or contain substantial PR-sourced material. Journalists themselves do not check the facts or figures of such inputs, nor admit in the articles themselves that PR material is the true source of the information, so the news often appears unbiased. Powerful commercial lobbies use this weakness to pervert public opinion.
For example in the 1950s the smoking lobby created a waft of innocent-sounding and scientific-sounding groups in order to discredit government information about the dangers of smoking. Oil and petrol lobbies have spent fortunes on the same PR tricks, as have food industry lobbies. They produce scientific reports engineered by their own scientists, which serve to boost their own industries by deceiving the public. In short, don't trust the news media directly even when they are reporting on scientific-sounding research groups. Always check facts with long-standing scientific bodies such as the Royal Society. Rich and activist commercialist lobby groups have a set of well-practised and efficient methods for manipulating the news and public opinion. The scientists and welfare groups who wish to get real scientific worries about certain industries out into the open are not funded or equipped to run public relations campaigns. Only multinational information campaigns, legal agreements and inter-national political bodies such as the EU have the oomph to be able to fight back against such powerful industries.”
"Modern Mass Media: The Bane of Human Cultural Evolution" by Vexen Crabtree (2009)

7. Conclusions

What appears at first to be a purely technical matter; studying the rise of energy from basic single-cell life forms through the trophic levels to the predators that gather food over massive areas, can lead us to some serious exobiological, philosophical and even theological debates. Firstly, advanced alien life is likely to find it hard to gain enough energy to survive from digesting us alone, so probably won't be inclined to try. But alien life may well use different metabolic pathways and different biological chemicals so we may find each other utterly inedible and potentially very poisonous. If life in the universe is generally carbon-based, then, it is possible aliens could digest at least parts of us. But they probably won't, as space-faring advanced species have probably out-grown genuine carnivorous diets, as perhaps we are doing by relying on increasingly processed food (eventually grown in vats) coupled with increasing care for animal rights. Now, dietary exobiology aside, the very fact that life evolved from its unconscious, automatic beginnings, to rely on a cycle of life and death (where life survives by killing other life) indicates that if the cycle of life has a 'designer', such a God is an evil one. Only an evil God would design life so that to stay alive, animals have to kill other animals. This 'victory of death' is the exact opposite of what a good god would have designed, where all animals and plants survive on mystical energy from heaven without need for killing or competing for food (a mythical 'victory of life').