Meat the Future: Would you eat a stem cell steak to save the planet?
Juicy, chargrilled perfection, nestled between saucy layers of ketchup and mustard, half-hidden behind a veil of lettuce, its tomato cap cocked to one side. Ahh, the burger of your dreams….but wait. Like most dreams, this burger isn’t what it seems.
Far, far from the fields you imagine your burger once roamed, far, far from the dinner table it ended up on is reality. Your burger was grown in a lab. Yes, “in vitro” – grown in a Petri dish — meat. Sounds yummy, right? Well get ready to see it in a supermarket near you because, according to a recent study by Hanna L.Tuomisto, a researcher at the University of Oxford specializing in the environmental impacts of food production, and M. Joost Teixeira de Mattos, a microbiologist with the University of Amsterdam, in Environmental Science and Technology, “cultured meat” could revolutionize the way we eat.
Though it’s still a work in progress, supporters are optimistic. Replace cruel feedlots and antibiotic-riddled meat? Eliminate the pollution and waste associated with trying to keep up with the world’s ever-growing appetite – a demand which the United Nations Food and Agriculture report says has the largest negative environmental impact of any human action? The data says it can be done.
“Livestock raised for meat,” say Tuomisto and Teixera de Mattos, “use 30% of global ice-free terrestrial land and 8% of global freshwater, while producing 18% of global greenhouse gases.”
It’s been hard to convince the public of this though, as popular opinion holds that this is more the fault of transportation than animals. Mark Post, a vascular biologist at the University of Maastricht and one of the front runners in the race to create man-made meat, set this misconception straight at the first ever IF conference for future innovations this past November in London.
“A vegetarian with a hummer,” he preached, “is much less damaging for the environment than a meat-eater on a bicycle.”
In fact, if we were able — and willing — to leave our diet of steak and burgers behind and switch to a one of cultured meat, we could lower our greenhouse gas emissions by between 80 and 95%. We could slash our water usage by between 80 and 90% and we could all but eliminate the need for land, using just a measly 1% of what was needed before. (Labs take up a lot less room than herds of cattle and the factories you need to process them.)
This is especially important considering that as the world’s population grows, its appetite for meat has too. Tuomisto bleakly summarized the situation: “According to my calculations, if meat consumption trends continue and if we don’t change the way we produce meat, by 2050 all of the world’s remaining forests would need to be converted to agriculture.” So long Amazon, hello Big Mac.
But that’s a big if. Will the public go for a test-tube burger? “If the taste is good and price is lower than conventional meat, then it is very likely that most people will be happy to buy it,” asserts Tuomisto.
It may be awhile before cultured meat is pocketbook friendly, though. With the forecasted total cost hovering around $345,000 per burger with current technology, it’s not exactly in everyone’s range at the moment. As the process becomes less specialized and more mechanized, however, that price will drop.
So, how exactly is this messiah of meat made? It all begins with stem cells. Mark Post, a vascular biologist at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands, raises them on a cocktail of sugars, amino acids, lipids, and other nutrients they need to grow into a “real animal flesh product.”
The resulting transparent strips of tissue, which he says look a little like scallops, are then stretched between Velcro tabs to build up strength and muscle tone, hand layered with more strips, and tossed together with a little lab-grown fat to give them some flavor.
Will the public forget that their next meal was made in a Petri dish? Will cultured meat ever make it from the lab on to our dinner plates? With big name animal rights groups like PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) sponsoring a $1 million competition for the first scientist who can create lab-grown chicken and sell 2000 pounds of it in the US by 2016, and growing recognition of the impact our diet is having on the planet, one thing is certain –cultured meat is on its way.
Laura can be reached at laura.m.mitchell(at)gmail.com
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