Inventive producers in Silicon Valley and other innovations sectors are going beyond the simulated animal products of plant-based proteins and cellular technologies to produce a third generation of protein products, making protein the leading edge of high tech food innovation. Since innovators draw on sources not generally recognized as food these products are speculative as both foods and investments. Building on scholarship that examines edibility formation of so-called alternative proteins, we show the deployment of three interlocking narratives that make novel protein products both edible and investible: protein is ubiquitous and protean, which provides myriad opportunities for technological transformation; its longtime associations with vigor, strength and energy, along with current day obsessions with the negatives of fats and carbohydrates, renders it the one remaining macronutrient that it is unequivocally good; and widely circulated discourses of both future shortages and the problems with contemporary livestock production makes producing more an almost indisputable solution. While innovators and investors act as if protein needs this sector to solve an impending crisis and bring its possibilities to fruition, we suggest the inverse—that without protein the sector would be nearly barren of novelty and food, much less the disruption and impact routinely claimed.

硅谷和其他创新领域的创意生产商正在超越植物蛋白和细胞技术的模拟动物产品，生产第三代蛋白质产品，使蛋白质成为高科技食品创新的前沿。由于创新者利用的来源通常不被认为是食品，因此这些产品作为食品和投资都是投机性的。基于研究所谓替代蛋白质的可食用性形成的学术研究，我们展示了三个相互关联的叙述的部署，使新型蛋白质产品既可食用又可投资：蛋白质无处不在且千变万化，它为技术转型提供了无数机会；它长期以来与活力、力量和能量联系在一起，再加上当今人们对脂肪和碳水化合物的负面影响的痴迷，使其成为仅存的一种绝对有益的常量营养素；广泛流传的关于未来短缺和当代畜牧生产问题的讨论使得生产更多成为几乎无可争议的解决方案。虽然创新者和投资者表现得好像蛋白质需要这个行业来解决迫在眉睫的危机并实现其可能性，但我们建议相反的做法——如果没有蛋白质，这个行业将几乎没有新奇的东西和食物，更不用说常规声称的破坏和影响了。