Are There Problems with Lab-Grown Meat?
by Aarushi Gurnani
Lab-grown meat, sometimes called cultured meat, clean meat or slaughter-free meat, is meat that is produced in vitro cell culture of animal cells. Lab-grown meat is intended not as a complete alternative to eating animals, but as a method of severely reducing the number of animals that need to be force-fed and slaughtered for our consumption. By taking a sample of cells from just a few animals, technicians can produce vast quantities of meat in cultured vats.
Lab grown meat is still meat, and thus it should theoretically share the same taste and texture as conventional meat, if developed correctly. The only real difference is the process by which the quantity of meat expands. In farms, this process is encouraged by feeding animals large amounts of food and encouraging reproduction. In labs, thisprocess is replaced by encouraging cells to multiply within carefully created cultures.
How Is This Meat Grown?
The first step is to isolate a small number of satellite muscle cells from an adult animal. These cells have regenerative properties. The satellite cells are grown in bioreactors, which are sterile enclosures containing nutrient liquids, under stimulation with growth factors to induce rapid proliferation. They are then transformed into muscle cells and mechanically assembled into muscle tissue and then a consumable artificial meat.
According to the website of Mosa Meat, the Dutch company founded by Mark Post, the production of cultured meat would significantly reduce the environmental impact of meat production as well as the risk of infectious diseases transmitted from animals to humans. Moreover, the company asserts that the taste of cultured meat is close to that of conventional meat.
First Approval of Lab Meat
The “chicken bites”, produced by the US company Eat Just, have passed a safety review by the Singapore Food Agency and the approval could potentially pave way for a future where all meat is produced without the killing of livestock as per the company. This recent announcement that lab-grown meat has been approved for sale in Singapore is being described as a victory for scientific innovation, animal welfare, human health, and environmentalism. As impressive as this innovation may be the question to ask is could there be problems with it?
Food chemist and molecular biologist Christy Spackman wrote an article in 2019 challenging the entire idea of “improving” food on a molecular level. Sure, this innovation has indeed led to a lot of great uncovering such as the discovery of vanillin and the usefulness of vitamin supplementation to reduce disease, however she argues that it’s not necessarily a beneficial thing to view food as something that can be ‘‘deconstructed, fiddled with, and put back together in a new-and-improved version.’’
While these improved or functional foods may have longer shelf lives and boosted health properties and more intense flavor, nevertheless they come with a higher price tag. This means they’re only accessible to those who can afford to buy them. Spackman writes, “The presence of these foods on the market — with their carefully engineered extraction and concentration of ingredients understood as having significant impact on health — reinforces the idea that access to healthful eating requires going through the technological and scientific expertise found in the industrial food laboratory.” Spackman argues that due to its higher price, this functional meat will not be accessible to the less privileged members of the society.
Further, in an article published in the Guardian written by author Jenny Kleeman, she expresses her doubts about Eat Just’s decision to seek approval in Singapore, for their ‘‘cultured chicken bites’’ rather than the United States, based on its CEO Josh Tetrick’s claim that the Food and Drug Administration is behind the times. Kleeman argues that this raises red flags for her, she wrote. “Instead of waiting for it to be ready, the company found a country with more amenable standards to give it the green light to put its product on sale. That’s problematic for the entire cultured meat industry: consumers care more about the provenance of food now than ever before, and any producer of a new food needs to be seen to take regulatory standards seriously.”
While I understand the allure of lab grown meat, I think what is necessary is changing one’s lifestyle in a more holistic manner than just push for this new innovation. Because as tempting as it is, it is still new, a unknown territory with little research done on the health and environmental impact of this cultured meat once its large scale consumption starts. As Katherine Martinko wrote and I agree ‘‘The push for cellular agriculture wouldn’t be so strong if it weren’t for the disastrous meat production system that has been established over the past half-century and for people gorging themselves on quantities of meat that would’ve been unheard of in our grandparents’ time.’’
Therefore, as with so many environmental issues that have sprung from chronic overconsumption, a return to old-fashioned and more traditional ways of living may come as a relief to the planet, as well as one’s bodies, and wallets. Holistic living in India can be similar to the idea of holistic living in Western countries. In India as well to beat the monster of over consumption, there needs to be a check on the amount of meat being consumed, and to ensure sustainable agricultural practices.
