The Fall 2013 Issue 20, “The Future of Meat,” is the last issue for this journal of meat culture, which began seven years ago in San Francisco. For it's final publication, Meatpaper editors interviewed meat industry experts, vegan activists, restaurant industry leaders, and food thinkers like Michael Pollan, and scientists like Dr. Bruce German to get a picture of what the future of meat would look like.

Journalist and Meatpaper editor Nathanael Johnson interviewed Dr. German as the central piece on “Meat Futures.” Dr. German spoke about milk, which Johnson notes, exists in a liminal space; milk lives at the threshold of not-meat, but still-an-animal-food. Johnson believes that Dr. German’s expertise in the interdisciplinary study of milk can provide some “wide-angle predictions on the ways meat will continue to evolve.”

In the interview, Dr. German discusses milk and meat consumption, health outcomes, nutrition, sustainability, microbial bacteria, fermentation, and cultural tradition. Dr. German imagines the future as one where we all take control of our health through our diet. Dr. German is excited about the future of foods that have the greatest diversity and biological complexity, and which also contribute to overall human health. 

Read the entire interview with Dr. German in the most recent issue of Meatpaper.  Visit the Meatpaper website to learn more about this journal. The journal examines cultural questions about meat production and consumption, but also visual art, philosophy, social justice, and personal narrative. According to its editors, the journal expresses a playfulness and whimsy while asking fundamental questions about the role of meat in our lives that stretch from sustainability to artistry.