Lab-Grown Meat, Is It In Your Future?

Scientist Holding Raw Artificial Grown Meat In Laboratory Test Tube

In the 21^st century, we have numerous options for nourishment. We can choose to be a vegan or a carnivore, or somewhere in between.

Those who choose to be a carnivore have always thought their options were restricted to chicken, beef, pork, seafood or wild game. Up until recently, those choices were raised on farms, caught in waters, or ran wild in nature. But not anymore. Get ready for the new way to get your meat…from a lab!

Lab-grown meat is in development and coming to a grocer near you. Several companies such as Memphis Meats, JUST and MosaMeat are key players in what’s called tissue engineering. These start-ups have created the technology to take tissue from an animal or fish and grow consumable meat without the impact on the environment and ethical issues that come along with traditional meat production.

This clean meat, as it’s referred to, has the texture of meat taken directly from an animal. What has yet to be revealed is the taste. Taste tests have not been made available to anyone outside of the emerging businesses.

Researcher Inspecting Meat Sample In Laboratory

These companies predict clean meat will be on the shelves in the next few years. In fact, Tyson and Cargill, investors in this new technology, believe clean meat will be in grocery stores in the next three.

BILL GATES AND THE NEW FRONTIER

Bill Gates is also behind this technology stating he believes we will not have the ability to produce enough meat for the nearly 10 billion people expected on this planet by 2050 using traditional meat production. He feels raising animals takes a lot of land and water and has a devastating impact on the environment like increased deforestation, which would increase greenhouse-gas emissions by nearly 80 percent in the next 30 years. For him, clean meat allows for more options.

In the U.S. alone, 26 billion pounds of beef is consumed annually. All that livestock is a part of a huge industrialized livestock system that is overwhelming the planet. For example, one cow can consume 11,000 gallons of water a year.

Clean meat can potentially grow large amounts of meat with a handful of cells. These cells, under the right conditions, can divide like they do in the body. “Theoretically from one little piece of meat you can create an unlimited amount,” says Mike Selden, CEO of Finless Foods in an interview with Wired.

There is still the issue of price and scale for clean meat to make it to market. In 2013 a burger made from clean meat cost $330,000! The price to produce a burger with this technology has decreased, but still not enough to bring it to market because of the serums and other factors that go into creating lab-grown meat.

HOW TO MAKE CLEAN MEAT

The first step to creating clean meat is a biopsy from an animal. These muscle cells are grown and developed in a lab just like they are done on a living organism. In order for the growing process to happen, there needs to be a ‘growth media,’ a concoction of amino acids, sugar, minerals and vitamins. This is what promotes cell development. The method of growing meat will resemble a meat brewery.

The developers of this new technological advancement in meat processing believe once they develop the infrastructure and scale like traditional meat processing, there will not be as great a need for the land, feed, farmers, slaughterhouses and transportation of dead animals.

Clean meat may eventually be a more efficient process and more cost effective overall, but until the mechanisms needed to get it where it needs to be are in place, clean meat will be significantly more expensive.

Lab-grown meat may have a way to go before it comes to market, but be assured, it’s coming. I just hope it’s labeled so we know the difference.