The population is increasing drastically. Analysts expect it to surpass 9 billion and the food needed to sustain us to go up by 70%. This detrimental shift will challenge the current food supply of the earth, and it is obvious to realize that changes must be made in the industry to maintain our natural need to be nourished. A promising way of countering this issue is lab-grown meat. Not to be confused with vegan meat, lab-grown meat is formed by naturally dividing sample cells from an animal in a controlled medium. It is theoretically a replica of normal animal meat. Though, currently, the cons outweigh the pros. It also should be noted that there is still much research to be done.
The first cultured meat sample was a beef patty made by a research team under the direction of Mark Post in 2013. Since then, many related start-ups have risen. In addition to beef, they have the goal of selling chicken, duck, and seafood too.
The way this method works isn’t too complicated. A biopsy is taken of an animal. The sample is separated to collect the stem cells. Stem cells have the ability to transform into other types of cells and, therefore, play a crucial role in creating the complete muscle. When put in a sufficient medium, the culture starts to divide and get bigger. The optimal environment for this case is a serum made from the blood of a calf, further disapproving vegans of eating it. When they grow, the cells naturally form myotubes, which are then placed in a circular pattern to shape them into a small muscle. This muscle contains trillions of fibers that are mechanically stretched to “exercise” to grow them larger. Though we are far away from real meat—organized fibers, blood vessels, nerves, connective tissue, and fat cells. A complete transformation from real meat to lab-grown meat requires much more research on the topic.
Now to compare natural and lab-grown meat. Current developments limit lab-grown meat from scaling up because it produces more CO2 than if you were to raise an animal. Furthermore, the serum used to grow these cells is expensive and not slaughter-free. The goal is to limit killing animals, so it would contradict the idea itself. The serum used being expensive also caused most start-ups to spend most of their resources on discovering a cost-efficient method. On the other hand, the research is relatively new, so there are many areas to expand on. One clear benefit of lab-grown meat is that it does not require acres of land. Not only does this open spots for agriculture, but it also makes it easier to monitor the progress of the meat. It is also claimed that once we can create lab-grown meat, eating it will probably be safer since it is produced in a completely controlled environment without bacteria like E. coli and Salmonella.
