Billion Dollar Burger
Chase Purdy Piatkus £14.99
What is meat? An odd question, you might think, for we are all familiar with steaks, chops and sausages and the animals from which they come. But what if the meat on your plate came not from an animal but from a laboratory, and what if you couldn’t tell the difference? Would you want to eat it?
These aren’t academic questions, for as Chase Purdy explains in this up-to-the-minute survey of the latest trends in food technology, we are on the brink of a revolution that could transform not just what we put on our plates but how we see and manage the world around us.
The global meat market is worth more than $ 1 trillion a year, and putting all that food on our plates involves the slaughter of 65 billion animals, not including fish. These animals consume more than their own weight in plant matter before they can be eaten and they are responsible for 14 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions.
The global meat market is worth more than $ 1 trillion a year, and putting all that food on our plates involves the slaughter of 65 billion animals, not including fish
With the UN forecasting that agricultural production will have to rise by 70 per cent by 2050 just to keep pace with rising populations, something’s going to have to give.
This revolution will happen sooner than we think. Back in 2013 it cost more than $1 million to grow a pound of ‘cellular meat’ in a laboratory, but the price has now fallen to $50 and it will continue to drop rapidly as investment increases and research advances.
Cells taken from living animals are grown using liquid nutrients in bioreactors, which resemble large beer vats. The finished product doesn’t yet taste as good as the real thing, but it’s getting there.
The existing meat industry isn’t happy about this. In America powerful lobby groups are agitating against what they disparagingly call ‘fake meat’. Food regulators may also delay the arrival of lab-grown products on supermarket shelves, but so much money is being invested, and the potential economic and environmental benefits are so huge, that it’s bound to happen.
And there’s another very pressing reason why we should take it seriously. Cellular meat grown in sterile laboratory conditions is free of harmful pathogens. With the world in the grip of a deadly pandemic, that is surely something worthy of attention.
Defiant: The Untold Story Of The Battle Of Britain
Robert Verkaik Robinson £20
Rating: 
This summer marks the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Britain. Most people will be familiar with the exploits of the Spitfires and the Hurricanes pitted against the enemy’s Messerschmitts and Stukas; this book aims to resurrect the reputation of a third aircraft, the Boulton Paul Defiant.
It is a story of incompetence, political machinations, military mismanagement and top-brass ineptitude, but also one of outstanding bravery and sacrifice, an important contribution to the war effort that has been largely overlooked.
The Defiant, while slower than the more fêted Spitfire, was a two-seater aircraft with a gunner at the rear, in a swivelling turret with four machine guns, which gave formidable firepower.
The Defiant (above), while slower than the more fêted Spitfire, was a two-seater aircraft with a gunner at the rear, in a swivelling turret with four machine guns
It was seen as essential against the threat of German bombers. It performed heroically at Dunkirk and the two Defiant squadrons served with distinction during the Battle of Britain: 264 Squadron holds the record for the most number of confirmed ‘kills’ in a day; 141 Squadron, on the other hand, suffered the greatest loss of life and aircraft in a single combat.
History appears to have judged the Defiant a design failure, best forgotten. It is, however, Robert Verkaik’s well-argued contention that the Defiant was misused and mismanaged: deployed to frontline fighter stations as an independent fighter instead of a bomber destroyer working in tandem with the Hurricanes and Spitfires, it was marred by production delays and design flaws (why no bulletproof-glass canopy?) and a malfunctioning radio system.
Verkaik is an excellent guide, making his case with a restrained passion, taking us through the inter-war rearmament before cataloguing the muddled thinking, the political infighting, the inter-service and personality rivalries.
His research was clearly a labour of love, leaving no Whitehall paper or airman’s letter unturned in his search for the truth, and he never forgets the human dimension behind the losses.
Simon Humphreys