In November of 2022, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) deemed lab grown meat to be safe for consumption. This was from a company called Upside Foods. All that was left was for the U.S Department of Agriculture (USDA) to approve it. This is similar to how they approve things from farms. Well on June 29th 2023, they approved the sale of stem cell meats in the United States. These come from the companies Upside Foods, Eat Justs, and Eat Justs subdivision, Good Meats.
I mentioned in a previous video that Singapore was the first country to approve the legal sale of stem cell meats. One reason is a cultural trait known as Kiasuism, which is partially a fear of missing out, but also a desire to project the image of trying new things. I said that it was only a matter of time before approval started in other countries. Now that it’s happened in the United States, approval around the world will spread faster due to the U.S’ size and influence.
First, let me review what stem cell meat is and clear up some misconceptions. When animals develop in the womb, they have ‘blank slate cells’ called stem cells. These can develop into any type of cell. Skin cells, heart cells, brain cells, liver cells, etc. However, adult animals have these too. Once you take some, you don’t have to keep returning to the same animal, because you can keep replicating them. The stem cells from a single animal can potentially feed the entire planet multiple times over.
The first stem cell hamburger sold in 2010 was 250,000 dollars. The products in Singapore are chicken and are around fifty dollars. Still very expensive, but a massive price drop. The decrease in price should continue as more time passes.
Currently in America, only chicken is being sold, but other products will eventually be approved. The general process is the same, but meat from different animals require different combinations of nutrients to grow. Approval for future products should be faster now that there’s precedent.
The meat won’t show up in grocery stores immediately. It will first be sold in high end restaurants. Unfortunately, profit driven societies cater new things to the wealthy first before they’re making them available to the general public.
One issue will be infrastructure. Upside currently has the capacity to produce fifty thousand pounds of meat, but has plans to raise this to 400,000. While this is only a tiny drop in the market, this is still significant considering how new the product is. With further development, they could make a dent.
People question whether this would help with the environment. If you’re looking at it from a tiny scale, comparing methane emissions from cows versus emissions from laboratories, it’s not so clear. But forcefully overbreeding billions of animals to meet consumer demand clearly harms the environment. It uses up land, food, and water which could be used for humans. This puts an incredible strain on the environment. Lab grown meat can create more food using less resources. If this were to become widely adopted, it would massively help with the impending climate crisis. Even mitigating future harm would be of some benefit.
Veganism and vegetarianism are important boycotts. Meat and animal products not eaten over time results in less demand, and therefore, less animals being bred for ‘next quarter.’ Vegans and vegetarians make up ten percent of the U.S population. The increase to this number grows faster each year. The switch to stem cell meat won’t be instantaneous. It won’t happen overnight. Tyson Foods started funding research on stem cell meat several years ago; likely in recognition that the growth of the Animal Rights Movement could harm their bottom line.
Currently, lab grown meat vastly lowers the amount of animal death, but doesn’t completely eliminate it. The problem is growing the stem cells. We can do this via drugs or genetic modification, but this is expensive and potentially undesirable for consumers. Often, we use something called animal serum. This is made by draining blood from embryos in pregnant animals about to be slaughtered. This method has a huge range of ethical issues, including suffering, death, and loss of reproductive control for the animal.
However, Upside Foods is working on animal free growth media. They’ve done this by supplementing their growth media with ‘purified bovine serum albumin’ (a protein.) However, they’re working on moving to fully recombinant albumin. Essentially, this ‘recombinant’ albumin can be made via microbial fermentation. We can ‘engineer microbes to express the proteins in fermentation tanks.’
Part of the challenge is to not only figuring out what the right nutrients are, but to introduce them during the right part of the cultivation process. Demonstrations have worked with chicken products, however, Upside is working to integrate the feed across its entire product line. Put simply, cells from different animals require the same basic things, the difference is the balancing of nutrients, and the timing, which varies from species to species.
I mentioned in one of my previous videos that scientists in Singapore were testing a way to be able to culture stem cells by manipulating them with magnetic pulses. Tests showed even a few minutes of this increased productive proteins. If this method is fully developed, not only could we eliminate animal serum, but lab grown meat would become incredibly cheap. This new tech would also have huge ramifications for medicine.
So the question is, will I be buying lab grown meat? Only if there is no animal serum or other similar animal components in it. I thought about this issue for a long time. I wouldn’t be paying the Factory Farms with the slaughterhouses. I’d be paying the companies with the laboratories. However, I don’t need to eat meat, and it’d be better if someone like me boycotted the slaughter of animals altogether.
On the other hand, if you already eat meat, purchasing lab grown meat greatly reduces harm. We DO need people to purchase this not only to support this research, but also to show that the public is comfortable with it. Those who aren’t really that aware about all the different violations of Animal Rights, don’t pay much attention to the issues, simply haven’t changed their diets, or don’t take the concept as far as I do could still see the value of this work. I HEAVILY encourage those people to purchase these products from time to time, even if it’s a little expensive. I think it’s worth it for the mere novelty, and will help ensure that this work continues to receive support.
Currently, the amount of people in America likely to try lab grown meat is low. It’s only eighteen percent. There is a bit of stigma around things produced by science. However, it was inspected and approved by the FDA. Then it was approved by the USDA. Stem cell technology also has to receive approval from teams of scientists, who’ve spent years being trained on what to watch out for. Typically, if something is dangerous, we scope it out using prior knowledge and empirical evidence. This is better than just guessing, which is what you’d be doing if you’re willing to accept all the tech we have nowadays; like the internet, antibiotics, cars, and airplanes, but reject other technology out of hand. Selectively breeding animals is also unnatural, and it changes them at the genetic level. It just does so more slowly.
As for lab grown meat being weird, the way we make meat currently is weird. 99 percent of farm animals live on Factory Farms. We forcefully breed them and cram them into dark spaces too small to stretch or move. They sleep in their feces which turns to ammonia gas. Then they’re killed and turned into meat. That’s weird.
Some people say it doesn’t benefit them. It does. The amount of strain animal agriculture puts on the environment is one the biggest contributors to the climate crisis. If we set up the right structures we can produce so much more food using so much less. Stem cell research improving and becoming cheaper would not only increase food, but revolutionize medicine. It would vastly reduce disease. Less pandemics means less disruptions and less shutdowns. This is all around good for us, and something we should invest in.
Anyways, it’s just a thought. Have a good day everyone.