Nice To Meet You, Clean Meat
In front of you sits a harmless-looking plate of luxurious foie gras. You wish you could savor the rich, buttery, and decadent taste of goose liver, but your conscience prevents you from digging in. Which unfortunate goose was force-fed this time so you could enjoy this sinful delight? Just as you start to feel sick, you suddenly remember: this is clean meat! Without further ado, you dig into the innocent foie gras that didn’t come from an actual goose; it came from a petri dish.
[su_pullquote align=”right”]Scientists can cultivate muscle cells and grow them in a lab the same way the cells grow in an organism.[/su_pullquote]Clean meat. Cultured meat. Synthetic meat. In vitro meat. These terms refer to meat that is produced in a laboratory from cell cultivation rather than from slaughtered animals. Scientists can cultivate muscle cells and grow them in a lab the same way the cells grow in an organism. This straightforward process begins with a muscle sample that is collected from an animal. Technicians then extract stem cells from the tissue, multiply them by placing them in “growth media,” a mixture of sugars, amino acids, vitamins and minerals, and allow them to differentiate into primitive fibers that gradually burgeon into brand new muscle tissue.
[su_pullquote]If no acceptable meat production alternatives are established by then, the environment might just be doomed.[/su_pullquote]The extraordinary process of growing meat in a scientific laboratory may initially sound bizarre or unnatural, but numerous start-ups and millions of dollars of funding into clean meat research have already been given the green light. Why? Scientists estimate that the world population will increase to 9.6 billion by 2050, with more of the population living in urban areas and increasing middle class size, both trends that point towards more meat consumption. With this enormous surge in population size, the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations predicts that there will need to be a 70% increase of world food production in order to feed the planet. There are major consequences that result from feeding 9.6 billion people using traditional meat production methods; the deforestation rate will double, resources will decrease at an alarming rate, and greenhouse-gas emissions will increase by 77%. If no acceptable meat production alternatives are established by then, the environment might just be doomed.
Start-ups such as Finless Foods, Mosa Meat, Memphis Meats, SuperMeats, and JUST, Inc., work on developing different lab-grown pork, poultry, beef, and fish, but they all have a common goal: make clean meat commercially viable. The race isn’t predominantly against each other; rather, it’s a race against time because with each passing second, more and more resources such as land, energy, and water are being used to support cattle, poultry, pigs, and other traditional meat production sites that drain the Earth and release immense amounts of harmful greenhouse-gases. In fact, a 2011 Oxford study indicated that making 1,000 kg of clean meat takes 7%-45% less energy, 90% less water, 99% less land usage, and 78%-96% lower greenhouse-gas emissions. While these estimates may not perfectly predict the impact of clean meat—it’s too soon to be able to really determine the environmental impacts of clean meat production—it can certainly be concluded that the environmental consequences of switching from factory farming, slaughterhouses, and large-scale farming to lab-grown cultured meat should have positive impacts in the long-term.
The term “clean meat” isn’t only applicable to its environmentally friendly implication: clean meat can be much healthier for our consumption since it can be engineered to include certain amino acids, healthy fats, vitamins, minerals, and bioactive compounds that can exceed the amount found in natural meat. Unhealthy compounds, such as cholesterol and saturated fats, can be reduced and made less effective. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that pathogens in conventional meat are the most likely cause of deadly food-related illnesses, but clean meat is completely free of dangerous bacteria because it’s produced in a sterile lab environment. Furthermore, clean meat doesn’t require the use of antibiotics or hormones, which makes consumption even safer.
[su_pullquote align=”right”]There is still much to explore in this area of culinary intrigue that can only be done so over time.[/su_pullquote]Of course, there are many possible drawbacks in producing clean meat. The amount of electricity and heat required to power a large-scale clean meat industry can be enormous and therefore not completely benign. While animal welfare will be significantly bolstered, clean meat production does not entirely eliminate animal suffering because the techniques required to obtain muscle tissue can be invasive, especially if done on a massive, global scale, though it is arguably still much better than the current slaughterhouse process. Unemployment could become a major issue if the livestock/slaughterhouse industries are depleted. Since 2013, the first $330,000 clean meat burger has come a long way; research efforts have helped produce much more economically feasible results, but unfortunately, there is only so much to predict about the positive and negative consequences from clean meat production. There is still much to explore in this area of culinary intrigue that can only be done so over time… if our planet allows us this luxury.
Caron Song ‘19 studies in the School of Engineering & Applied Science. She can be reached at songcaron@wustl.edu.