For most people, meat is a central part of their diet and provides vital macronutrients, such as protein, that are difficult for many to obtain otherwise. However, traditional methods used to produce meat can be environmentally damaging and ethically questionable when implemented on the mass scale necessary to provide the world’s population with meat. Although many have advocated for the world to leave meat behind for a variety of reasons, a different alternative to traditional farming recently began its embryonic stage; an alternative that may have the potential to entirely replace the current industrialized meat economy, while still allowing the world to enjoy their beloved meat products. This alternative, growing meats in a lab environment, has advanced enough that these meats may be ready to enter the market soon.
Growing meat in a lab is a multi-step process that requires precision and expertise from all involved, as well as significant funding to obtain the necessary equipment. However, once these requirements are met, the process of growing meat is not quite as complicated as it may seem. The first step is the careful extraction of tissue from a live animal, or, in the case of poultry, from an egg. This extrication causes minimal harm, especially to large animals, and is far less ethically flawed than livestock farming, as the animal from which the cells are extracted continues to live without any noticeable damage whatsoever. The selected tissue is comprised of muscle and fat cells, which are then separated from each other. The most vital part of the extracted tissue is the muscle cells, which are dissected and undergo a process called cell culturing. Cell culturing is the procedure by which selected cells, whether they be from a plant or an animal, are placed in an optimal artificial environment, which provides them the ideal conditions to multiply. The main component of the aforementioned environments is the essiental nutrients that they contain—often carbohydrates and amino acids—that stimulate growth among the cells. The singular muscle cells can then divide, multiplying to such a massive degree that a virtually limitless amount of new cells (trillions) can be grown. The clusters of cells gravitate towards each other and form millions of myotubes, one of the basic muscular structures, which are approximately .3 mm in length. The myotubes are then placed in a gel ring, where the natural tendency of contraction in muscle fibers pushes the myotubes together, finally forming distinct muscle tissues. When numerous muscle tissues are layered on top of each other, they begin to form the final product: meat.
Although cultivating meat is currently an expensive process, the cost of production has already dropped massively since the truly experimental days of the procedure. The first lab-grown hamburger in 2012 cost about $325,000 to produce, but estimates now suggest that large-scale production, if optimized with current technology, could lower that cost to as little as 38 dollars per kilogram of beef, meaning the average burger, weighing about 6 ounces, would cost slightly less than $6.50. As with any newly developed procedure, the cost will likely continue to fall as the technology involved in the process evolves. However, the cost of lab-grown beef and other meats has fierce competition: a kilogram of traditionally grown beef is estimated to cost about $4 to produce, a mere 10% of the production cost of lab-grown beef. And, while $38 per kilogram does not seem absurdly expensive, the actual cost for consumers would be heavily graduated: traditional beef in the U.S. sells at about $15 per kilogram, so lab-grown beef would likely sell around $150 per kilogram at its initial entrance to the market, a price that may doom the product from its very release.
So what are the implications of lab-grown meat? Will it ever be able to compete with traditional meat, in the realms of both production cost and consumer appeal? Can lab-grown meat ever gain the momentum necessary to dominate the market, and is it even worth pursuing a shift away from conventional meat?
Currently, it is difficult to predict how well lab-grown meats will fare in gaining footing in the consumer market, largely due to the fact that none of these meats are currently available to the average buyer in the United States. However, a San Francisco startup called Upside Foods recently received FDA confirmation that their lab-created chicken breast is suitable for consumption. Assuming the company gets the necessary USDA approval, this chicken could be the first lab-grown meat widely available to consumers. Therefore, the U.S. may be seeing the potential future of the meat industry in markets at an earlier date than expected.
A major factor that could play into the success of lab-grown meats in the future is the near lack of animal exploitation and mistreatment involved in the process. In the current meat market, billions of animals are killed annually to feed the insatiable appetite of the consumer, and that aspect of the industry is criticized extensively by opponents of meat consumption. When growing meat in a lab, minimal harm comes to the animals from which the necessary cells are extracted, making the process inherently more ethical.
Additionally, the process of livestock farming has serious environmental implications such as water and industrial pollution and soil degradation. Beef production in particular has considerable impacts on climate change, arising from the excess of greenhouse gasses—including methane, nitrous oxide, and carbon dioxide—that are released during the conventional livestock farming process. Additionally, the water consumption of the industry is shocking: a study conducted by the University of Nebraska Lincoln estimates the livestock industry alone requires around 74 trillion gallons of water each year. On the other hand, lab-grown meats, as estimated by a 2011 study by the University of Oxford, would consume as little as 4% of this water—or under 3 trillion gallons—annually. Therefore, those who are uncomfortable with the reputation of animal and environmental exploitation surrounding the current meat market may be willing to spend the extra money required to obtain lab-grown meat, once it enters the market.
On top of its environmental implications, lab-grown meat, if cultivated correctly, has the potential to be healthier than traditionally farmed meat. In the current market, livestock is often subject to disease-infested, cramped, and unnatural living conditions, which, beyond the ethical concerns surrounding this issue, often result in poorer quality meat and potential zoonotic disease contamination, which can be a severe health risk for those eating the meat. If following proper sterilization procedures throughout the cultivation process, there is essentially no risk of similar diseases contaminating lab-grown meat. Sterilizing a laboratory is simply more feasible, especially financially, than attempting to maintain high standards of livestock life quality, so lab meat producers are more likely to actually enforce these procedures than are livestock owners in the current meat industry. Additionally, there is an intense public objection among some groups against the use of artificial growth hormones in livestock, but these supplements are completely unnecessary in the process of cultivating meat, so this ethical argument against meat consumption is not applicable to lab-produced meat.
Although some may be willing to pay the heavily graduated price for lab-grown meat over traditionally produced meat, it is highly likely that this new industry may struggle once this product is widely available. For an average consumer, the combination of the hefty price tag and the unfamiliarity surrounding the production of this meat may be discouraging. Moreover, creating the necessary infrastructure to produce the sheer volume of meat to meet the world’s ever-growing demand would be a long, arduous, and arguably unfeasible process. Therefore, several decades may pass before lab-grown meat is largely accepted and largely available, as that will allow time for the cost of the meat to drop and the consumer base to recognize it as the same product that they are used to, but produced with more ethical methodology.
As the population of the world continues to grow exponentially, the demand for meat follows it. However, the size of the Earth is not infinite, and the traditional meat market demands extensive tracts of land, a luxury that will not be realistic in the coming decades. Simply put, our resources are diminishing rapidly; soon, traditional livestock farming will begin to struggle to garner those resources. The matter of fact is that producing meat in a lab requires 99% less land and produces 96% less greenhouse gas emissions than conventional farming, all for the same yield of product. Therefore, growing meat in labs or a similarly less environmentally demanding alternative to the traditional method is almost destined to assume the role of the meat supplier to the world in the coming year, but it is highly likely that decades will be required for the consumer market to adjust to this reality.
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