The Ezra Klein Show

When I first met Bruce Friedrich, he was running PETA's awareness campaigns. Yeah, those campaigns — the ones where naked people stuffed themselves in saran wrap and cages, and where wounded chickens limped outside KFCs.He was also one of the smartest, most informed, and most thoughtful experts I'd found on animal suffering. He had immersed himself in a subject most of us — myself very much included — would prefer to ignore, and he had learned some surprising things, including that vegetarianism was probably worse for animal welfare than cutting out eggs but keeping beef.Since then, Friedrich has become director of the Good Food Institute, as well as a founding partner in New Crop Capital, an investment fund that backs companies creating alternatives to animal-based protein. In this podcast, we talk at length about:- Why you can't trust the humane labels on eggs- Friedrich's path to becoming a food-tech investor- Why Bill Gates and the Google founders are investing in lab-grown meat- How the market for plant-