Cultured meat
Cultured meat, also known as lab-grown or cell-based meat, is produced through cellular agriculture by harvesting muscle cells from live animals, such as cows, and nurturing them in a nutrient-rich environment until they form muscle tissue. This innovative approach aims to address the sustainability challenges associated with conventional meat farming, as it has the potential to significantly reduce the environmental impact of livestock agriculture. The journey toward cultured meat began in the early 20th century, but a pivotal moment occurred in 2013 when Dutch scientist Mark Post unveiled the first cultured hamburger at a press event in London, sparking public interest and research funding.
Advocates argue that cultured meat could alleviate future food shortages driven by population growth and could produce more meat using fewer animals, potentially offering a more humane alternative to traditional livestock farming. Additionally, it could mitigate issues like greenhouse gas emissions and land use associated with conventional meat production. However, challenges remain, including high production costs, the need for improved taste and texture, and public perception around consuming lab-grown products. As of 2024, cultured meat was available in limited markets but had not yet achieved widespread adoption, leaving researchers hopeful for its future as a mainstream food source.
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Cultured meat
Cultured meat is a form of cellular agriculture that creates meat products by collecting muscle cells from live cows. The cells are then provided with nutrients to help them grow. When this happens, they become muscle tissue. This muscle tissue is just like the meat that comes from slaughtered cattle and can be eaten. Scientists involved in the creation of cultured meat believe that it could be a solution to more sustainable farming practices.
Background
The cultured meat process can be traced back to early twentieth-century cellular agricultural practices used in food production. Cellular agriculture has been a part of scientific development since the 1920s. In 1922, researchers Frederick Banting, Charles Best, and James Collip used insulin from pig pancreases to treat patients with diabetes. In more recent years, doctors have begun growing tissues in labs for medical procedures. For example, attempts have been made to grow new organs for organ transplant patients and new skin for skin grafts on burn victims. Medical pursuits like these inspired the idea of growing meat from cells.
In 2004, Jason Matheny founded New Harvest, an organization that researches how to use cellular regeneration for agricultural purposes. Matheny developed the idea after reading a paper published in Acta Astronautica about creating fish meat in laboratories to feed astronauts on long missions. In 2005, the government of the Netherlands funded a multi-million dollar project to harvest stem cells, tissues, and other biological cultures to create laboratory-generated meat.
Cultured meat research developed slowly, but in 2013 scientists made a breakthrough. In August of that year, University of Maastricht’s Professor Mark Post appeared at a television event in London to present the first hamburger created from cultured meat. The burger cost more than $280,000 dollars to create—the money was funded by Google co-founder Sergey Brin—and took three months to make. Because of the high cost and length of time required to create the meat, Post’s experiment was said to only serve as proof that cultured meat could be created. In late 2018, however, an Israel-based organization called Future Meat Technologies was given more than two million from Tyson Foods to develop cheaper ways to create cultured meat so that it can be purchased in the grocery store or at restaurants. World governments have begun taking notice of cultured meat production, too. In March 2019, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced plans to oversee US production of meat products grown in laboratories from harvested cells. As a means for organizing efforts to safely and responsibly advocate for cultured meat and ultimately get it into the market, five food companies came together to establish the Alliance for Meat, Poultry, and Seafood Innovation in the summer of 2019. The start-ups BlueNalu, Finless Foods, Memphis Meats, JUST, and Fork & Goode created the coalition with the goal of coordinating lobbying for the industry and working with regulatory groups like the USDA and FDA. Additionally, as skeptics continued to voice concern over the ability for cultured meat to have a texture and taste similar to natural meat, researchers at Harvard University reported in October of that year that they had discovered a way to mimic meat texture by growing the animals' muscle cells around gelatin microfiber structures.
Overview
Supporters say cultured meat has several benefits. It can help with future food shortages created by a growing world population. According to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), demand for meat due to population growth will continue to increase. According to CulturedBeef.org, by 2050 the need for meat will increase by 73 percent. The process used to create cultured meat could make about 43 million pounds of meat from just one cow. In comparison, normal beef production would require 440,000 cows to make the same amount of meat.
Additionally, supporters say that cultured meat would lessen agriculture’s environmental impact. The use of livestock in the meat industry contributes heavily to global climate change because livestock produce methane, a greenhouse gas. Greenhouse gases absorb and release radiant energy, which then heats up the atmosphere. The mass production of cultured meat would result in fewer livestock, which would decrease the amount of methane released into the air. Cultured meat also requires less land use than farming practices, which would cut down on deforestation.
Also, cultured meat is seen by some as an answer to animal cruelty and the poor conditions in which livestock sometimes are forced to live. Some people argue, however, that the potential for animal cruelty still exists because live animals are used to harvest cells. They point out that the living conditions of animals used for cell harvesting must be examined when thinking about whether cultured meat production prevents animal cruelty.
Lastly, supporters of the cultured meat industry believe that lab-grown meat could be healthier than traditionally farmed meat. Because the meat is grown from cells, it does not come into contact with the infections and bacteria that can develop within an animal’s stomach. As a result, cultured meat does not carry bacteria like E. coli and salmonella. It also cannot spread bovine spongiform encephalopathy, which is more widely known as mad cow disease.
Before cultured meat can become a staple of the human diet, some problems must be addressed. Perhaps the most challenging is the cost associated with the process of creating meat from laboratory-harvested cells. The nutrient-rich liquid that is required to make the cells grow is extremely expensive. That liquid was a serum made from the blood of unborn calves. Scientists are attempting to replicate the serum using plant-based products, but those products create another challenge of introducing allergens into the lab-grown meat. The public’s perception of eating meat grown in a lab may be another problem. Some individuals at Post’s demonstration who sampled the cultured meat commented that it was not juicy enough and did not have enough flavor. The cultured meat industry might have to improve the product’s taste and texture before many consumers buy it. Also, no actual branch of research is specifically aimed at studying cellular agriculture and the development of cultured meat. This lack of discipline means that not enough funding is going toward discovering cheaper and better ways to create cultured meat. Until these problems are addressed, scientists say that cultured meat cannot be made widely available to the public. By 2024, cultured meat was available in limited markets in certain countries, including Singapore. However, it had failed to move towards widespread adoption. Despite this, scientists remained optimistic that cultured meat might one day serve as a viable replacement for traditional meat.
Bibliography
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