For the first time, the public has been treated to the spectacle of lab-grown meat cooked and eaten via live Webcast.
Backed by Google billionaire Sergey Brin, Dutch tissue engineer Mark Post unveiled his “cultured beef” at a press event on August 5, answering the question posed by a 2011 Scientific American feature: “When Will Scientists Grow Meat in a Petri Dish?”
The verdict? “It is close to meat,” said nutrition scientist Hanni Rutzler. “It is not that juicy.” But British chef Richard McGeowan said the lack of fat didn’t affect his cooking of the five ounces of minced “meat” in a frying pan, thanks to lots of butter.
In addition to a lack of fat with the meat (tissue biologists just haven’t gotten that union down yet), the in vitro meat features heavy antibiotic use to keep the cells alive and growth on serum from the blood of unborn cows gathered from slaughterhouses (as well as the less gruesome sugars, proteins and fatty acids). As synthetic biologist Christina Agapakis noted in a blog critique in 2012: “Cell culture is one of the most expensive and resource-intensive techniques in modern biology.”
Then the meat requires “exercise” on a scaffold. There are questions about its nutritional value as well, such as how much iron it might contain compared with traditional meat. The lab meat has to be colored red after all, by adding beet juice because it is composed of 20,000 or so thin strips of muscle cells rather than the complicated mélange of muscle, fat, blood vessels and bone found in meat from an animal.
Despite all this, the lab beef is being cultured (and feted) because of its potential to reduce the environmental impacts of the human taste for meat. As Post notes, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that demand for meat will swell by more than 70 percent by 2050. Already 30 percent of the world’s ice-free land is devoted to feeding animals for meat thanks to the fact that cows and pigs convert only roughly 15 percent of the plants they eat into edible meat. Then there’s the problem of the greenhouse gas emissions, particularly potent methane, from all those ruminant belches and their waste, often stored in massive, stinky lagoons. The FAO estimates that livestock are responsible for nearly 20 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions from human activities—more than all cars, trucks, ships and airplanes put together.
Of course, to reduce those emissions, the lab meat would have to be grown on a diet of algae, something that has never been accomplished. If that can be done on a big scale (and that’s a big if), the lab meat would reduce methane pollution by 95 percent, as well as reduce the need for farmlands to feed livestock by 98 percent, according to a 2011 study by the University of Oxford published in Environmental Science and Technology. Or we could just eat the algae directly.
The other reason for the hoopla is ethical: philosopher Peter Singer and groups such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals extol such efforts for eliminating human cruelty to animals. Why not harvest muscle cells from a single cow to culture millions of hamburgers rather than slaughtering hundreds of thousands of cattle?
The Latest Bing News on:
Cultured Beef
- Global Lab Grown Meat Market: Cultivating Sustainable Solutions for the Future of Food; A New Report Published by TNR, The Niche Researchon May 15, 2024 at 4:25 am
Additionally, technological advancements improved the taste and texture of cultured beef, making it more appealing to consumers. Companies also focused on beef due to its significant market share ...
- What MAGA’s Beef With Lab-Grown Meat Says About the G.O.P.on May 15, 2024 at 2:04 am
Governor DeSantis of Florida has signed a bill that bans both the production and the sale of lab-grown meat, or cultured meat. Take your fake, lab-grown meat elsewhere. We’re not doing that in the ...
- Alabama Follows Florida in Banning Sale of Cultured Meaton May 14, 2024 at 3:59 pm
Alabama is now the second state in the nation to ban the sale of cultured meat. Last week, Governor Kay Ivey signed SB23 into law, making the manufacture, sale, or distribution of food products produc ...
- Alabama follows DeSantis' lead in banning lab-grown meaton May 13, 2024 at 5:20 am
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has attacked the "global elite's plan to force the world to eat meat grown in a petri dish." ...
- Cultured Meat Could Be Sold In Switzerland In Three Years' Timeon May 10, 2024 at 7:15 am
Bell acquired a stake in the Dutch cultured beef producer Mosa Meat in 2018 and expanded this holding in 2020. The original goal of offering a burger made from cultured meat for CHF10 ($11 ...
- Alabama second state to ban lab-grown meaton May 10, 2024 at 6:21 am
Alabama has become the second state in the nation to ban the sale of cultured meat. On Tuesday, Governor Kay Ivey signed SB23 into law, making the manufacture, sale or distribution of food products ...
- Cultured meat could be sold in Switzerland in three years’ timeon May 10, 2024 at 12:53 am
The retiring CEO of Bell Food Group, Lorenz Wyss, expects burgers made from cultured meat to be available in Switzerland in around three years' time. “However, you probably won’t be able to buy the ...
- Florida’s ban on cultivated meat sacrifices conservative principles for culture war pointson May 9, 2024 at 5:56 pm
It is not yet clear whether the alternative protein products known variously as “lab-grown,” “cell-cultivated” or “cultured” meat will deliver the environmental ...
- MIT Technology Reviewon May 7, 2024 at 6:25 am
Let’s stop inventing reasons to reject cultured meat and other protein alternatives that could dramatically cut climate emissions.
- The cultured wars: Why lab-grown meat is inspiring bipartisan hateon May 6, 2024 at 11:00 am
This is something the governor of Florida — a Republican who was previously, and perhaps fittingly, dubbed “Meatball Ron” by former president Donald Trump — has made clear for months, first while ...
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- Florida Says No to Lab-Grown Meat: 3 Stocks That Could Take a Hiton May 19, 2024 at 5:00 am
Lab-grown meat has been a growing part of social and political debate for several years now. Given the ethical concerns around factory farming and the reservations some people have toward eating meat, ...
- US lab-grown meat bans criticised as culture war ‘own goal’on May 19, 2024 at 3:00 am
Efforts by US republican lawmakers to ban lab-grown meat are an “own goal” that will give Asia a competitive advantage, just as with semiconductors, according to one of the few producers with an ...
- Commentary: Florida’s meatheaded ban on lab-grown meaton May 19, 2024 at 2:30 am
Passing a law banning customers from eating a burger that they cannot buy from supermarkets that cannot sell the burgers because there is not yet an industry to make the burgers is peak ...
- Newsletter: The planet needs lab-grown meat, no matter what Ron DeSantis sayson May 18, 2024 at 4:00 am
There isn't enough lab-grown meat in the U.S. to supply a dozen restaurants, yet two Republican governors are scared enough to ban it.
- Lab-Grown Meat Is on Shelves Now. But There’s a Catchon May 16, 2024 at 1:36 am
Matt Reynolds Sell Lab-Grown Meat in Alabama and You Could Go to Jail Anyone found guilty of selling or manufacturing cultivated meat in Alabama will face up to a three-month jail sentence and $500 ...
- What MAGA’s Beef With Lab-Grown Meat Says About the G.O.P.on May 15, 2024 at 2:04 am
Governor DeSantis of Florida has signed a bill that bans both the production and the sale of lab-grown meat, or cultured meat. Take your fake, lab-grown meat elsewhere. We’re not doing that in the ...
- Why states are suddenly making it a crime to sell lab-grown meaton May 14, 2024 at 7:51 am
Florida and Alabama have banned lab meat, but some in the livestock industry fear the precedent of states deciding what goes on store shelves, and what can’t.
- Alabama bans lab-grown meat, joining Florida among US states outlawing alternative proteinson May 13, 2024 at 6:28 pm
Alabama became the second U.S. state to ban lab-grown meat, joining Florida which earlier this month outlawed the alternative protein.
- Lab-grown red meat for the base: GOP governors have a new culture-war scapegoaton May 13, 2024 at 12:50 pm
The culture wars have a new scapegoat, the only difference is this red meat for the GOP base is quite literally meaty. Alabama just became the second state to ban cultivated, or lab-grown meat after ...
- Alabama follows DeSantis' lead in banning lab-grown meaton May 13, 2024 at 5:20 am
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has attacked the "global elite's plan to force the world to eat meat grown in a petri dish." ...
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