Normally I am not very interested in food-related biotech. However, this is definitely an exception.
Currently, the production of meat is approximated to account for 15-20% of total greenhouse gas emissions, 30% of ice-free terrestrial land and 8% of global freshwater usage (1,2). Besides any of those numbers, a large amount of animal suffering is created. Despite these facts, global meat consumption is not expected to decrease just yet, it is even expected to increase instead (1,2).
There is a lot of potential here. In the previous decade, many alternatives to meat have been and are being developed and have gone a very long way. Unlike these meat-alternatives, cultured meat has not gone as far yet. However, this may be expected to change as large amounts of money have recently been invested in companies developing processes to produce cultured meat (3).
One interesting question is about the reason and justification for the development of cultured meat: ‘If meat production is such a large burden on the world, why should we invest in producing meat in complex ways when we could just stop eating meat?’
In my opinion, the average meat consumption should be quite drastically reduced. The development of meat-alternatives and even possibly a ‘meat-tax’ are required. However, the world population is expected to increase and we cannot expect people to stop eating meat throughout the world just because we want them to.
Cultured meats may have similar problems to meat-alternatives. People may not want to try them and are opposed to the idea of ‘lab grown meat’. However, the environmental benefits of cultured meat are substantial when compared to conventional meat production (4). Besides, many aspects of cultured meats are still to be improved, like the nutritional and sensory profiles to make them resemble 'real' meat better. Therefore, I think investments in the development and marketing of cultured meat are justified and necessary.
The process of cultivating, sustaining and upscaling stem cells to develop cultured meat is an exciting process to me. I expect cultured meats to make giant leaps in the coming decade.
PS. Even though the science may be very different, the technology of cultivating, sustaining and upscaling stem cells may be used in clinical applications as well. Imagine if artificially produced blood can be used to save lives?
1. https://lnkd.in/eXKwB4av
2. https://lnkd.in/eYyEWjaU
3. https://lnkd.in/eiyZJtTR
4. https://lnkd.in/e7-DmugP
Where science and cuisine "meat" 🥩 Tim Olsen, cultured meat expert, shares how cultured meat is made in the video below.
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