Lab-grown meat, or cultured meat, is where animal cells are grown in vitro, or outside their environment. It is a form of cellular agriculture, which is agriculture from cultures of cells, and it is used to make anything from silk to eggs. Cultured meat is produced in a controlled environment free of outside factors, such as disease, and the ethical argument of meat consumption is eliminated.
Process
Cultured meat is made using stem cell lines. These cells can grow into many types of cells throughout the body. Specifically, pluripotent stem cells are used. These cells can mature into different types of cells except for cells located in the placenta. Cell lines are cells from an animal that have been immortalized to be used for research. Cell lines are collected via a biopsy on an animal under anesthesia or from cryopreserved cultures. Once these cell lines are obtained, they are placed in a culture media, which is a material that allows cell lines to flourish by providing food to the cell line. Then, once enough stem cells are grown, they are isolated into muscle tissue. Once the muscle is fully grown, the meat is prepared like normal.
Implications
Due to the process of creating cultured meat, many criteria used to control the environment of the meat aren’t needed. Things like growth hormones, and antibiotics, among others aren’t even beneficial anymore due to the sterile environment of cultured meat. Looking directly at the meat industry, land used to grow meat and animal feed takes up roughly 40% of the U.S. This can even have ramifications outside of the meat or general food industry. Antibiotic use in meat and agriculture is one of the main drivers of antibiotic resistance in humans.
Cultured meat is a very interesting topic that, like most things, has pros and cons. On one hand, studies suggest that growing meat in a lab produces more carbon emissions despite the lack of methane production from cattle farming. On the other hand, the production of lab-grown meat decreases the amount of space needed to create the same amount of naturally produced meat. However, there are overall more pros than cons with lab-grown meat, and because of that the future of cultured meat is looking bright. Eventually lab-grown meat will become the main way of producing meat throughout the entire world and maybe even beyond.
References
Datar, Isha, and Mirko Betti. “Possibilities for an in Vitro Meat Production System.”
Zenodo, Zenodo, 15 July 2024, zenodo.org/records/7469618.
“Answers to Your Questions about Stem Cell Research.” Mayo Clinic, Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, 23 Mar. 2024, www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/bone-marrow-transplant/in-depth/stem-cells/art-20048117.
Macintyre, Ben. “Test-Tube Meat Science’s next Leap.” TheAustralian, 2 Nov. 2011, web.archive.org/web/20111102144404/www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/test-tube-meat-sciences-next-leap/story-e6frg8y6-1111112859219.
Kerr, Dara. “Lab-Grown Food: It’s What’s for Dinner!” CNET, 19 Feb. 2016, www.cnet.com/science/lab-grown-meat-in-vitro-meat-sergey-brin-bill-gates-climate-change-cultured-beef/.
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