For nearly a decade, lab-grown meat has been a contentious topic amongst the scientific community, environmental activist groups, and animal rights supporter circles. Now, it’s finally becoming a reality. On June 21st, the FDA approved lab-grown meat, also known as cell-cultured meat, for sale to consumers. In the coming months, restaurants specializing in cell-cultured meat will begin offering dishes made from lab-sourced chicken. Consumers can expect to find cell-cultured meat in grocery stores within a matter of several years.
The process of producing lab-grown meat involves extracting cells from live chickens. Cells are then cultured in a bioreactor and supplemented with all of the compounds necessary for proper growth, including amino acids, sugars, vitamins, minerals, salts, and growth factors. Scaffolding structures are used to trigger cell differentiation into muscle and fat tissues. By carefully controlling the composition of the growth media and scaffolding structures, cell-cultured meat meat can be tailored to closely resemble traditionally farmed chicken in terms of nutrient composition and structure.
The motivation behind the development of cell-cultured meat is its potential to address various environmental, animal welfare, food safety, and food security concerns. Farm-harvesting of meat is a resource-intensive process, consuming large amounts of water and contributing to significant greenhouse gas emissions. The vast amounts of land required to raise livestock contributes to deforestation, and runoff from agricultural processes is a major contributor to water pollution. Lab-grown meat offers a way to reduce society’s reliance on large-scale factory farming, thereby mitigating resource consumption and pollution. Moreover, a shift towards cell-cultured meat greatly reduces the need to raise and slaughter animals, providing a more ethical and humane source of meat. As the global population continues to grow, meeting the demand for meat - almost 300 million tons of meat per year at present day - is becoming increasingly unsustainable. Producing meat from cell culture holds the promise of providing a more efficient and scalable method of meat production. It may even provide a shift back towards localized production, as meat cultured in labs under controlled conditions can be produced independent of space constraints and climate factors specific to each geographical location. Finally, lab-grown meat may provide an additional layer of protection against foodborne illness, as sterile conditions in the labs where meat would be cultured would minimize exposure of the meat to pathogens. As a result of reduced pathogen exposure, less antibiotics would be required in meat production, which may slow the effects of antibiotic resistance, a significant problem in conventional animal agriculture.
Despite its many advantages, the integration of lab-grown meat into everyday life faces challenges due to the costs associated with scaling up laboratory production. Proponents of the technology, however, draw a parallel with the initial high costs of renewable energy sources compared to traditional fossil fuels. They argue that with increased awareness, research, and public acceptance, cell-cultured meat has the potential to revolutionize the way that we produce meat. Approval of lab-grown chicken for sale to consumers has set a precedent for future growth of the lab-grown food industry. Lab-sourced beef, with its intricate fat marbling structure that is more difficult to imitate in a lab, is also on the horizon. Various companies are using genetically engineered bacteria to produce artificial milk proteins in bioreactors, working towards lab-based production of dairy products like milk, cheese, and yogurt. These advancements are also being rapidly explored for potential applications in space, enabling astronauts to reduce payload weight by cultivating food in bioreactors while in space. Overall, the FDA’s approval of lab-grown meat is a significant milestone towards more sustainable, efficient, humane, and safer production of meat.
Source:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/21/us/lab-grown-meat-sale-approval.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare