HWN Suggests

Let’s Launch a Moonshot for Meatless Meat

My reason for optimism is technological: There have been remarkable strides made in plant-based meat — witness the success of Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods — and milks. And the next step is cultivated meat, which is meat grown directly from animal cells. This isn’t science fiction. Unsurprisingly, it tastes like chicken, because that’s what it is...

We are living, right now, with the true costs of cheap meat: a world of pandemics, climate emergency and suffering both for human beings and the creatures we consume.

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  Nobody asked me, but I think I’m still straddling the fence on cellular agriculture

Apparently, you can have your meat and eat it too without a stop at the slaughterhouse.

 Is Lab-Grown Meat Really Meat?

After centuries of a veritable monopoly, meat might have finally met its match. The challenger arises not from veggie burgers or tofu or seitan, but instead from labs where animal cells are being cultured and grown up into slabs that mimic (or, depending on whom you ask, mirror) meat. It currently goes by many names—in-vitro meat, cultured meat, lab-grown meat, clean meat—and it might soon be vying for a spot in the cold case next to more traditionally made fare. To put it bluntly: the kind that comes from living animals, slaughtered for food.

 Lab-Grown Meat Is Full of Contradictions (and Other Things, Too)

If lab-grown meat could take over the meat industry, there would be a significant reduction of corn and soy. That would lead to less water pollution, less soil erosion, pretty big deal. But with any of these alternatives, there are big trade-offs. People really still think lab-grown meat is this perfect climate food, but there’s nothing perfect. Lab-grown meat facilities take up enormous amounts of energy.

 The Cow That Could Feed the Planet

Even as it sets out to change everything about meat production, cellular agriculture, as the nascent industry is called, will in theory change nothing about meat consumption.

 The Problem With Lab-Grown Meat

Lab-grown meat could end up replicating some of the existing problems with our industrial food system.

 USDA Approves First Lab-Grown Chicken in the United States

Lab-grown, or cell-cultivated, meat is made by feeding a mix of nutrients to animal cells in stainless steel tanks, writes Vox’s Kenny Torrella. Companies hope the product can be an alternative to meat produced by killing animals, which has a large carbon footprint.

 What Happened to Lab-Grown Meat?

Readers discuss the viability of the flailing industry.

Articles of Interest

'No kill' meat, grown from animal cells, is now approved for sale in the U.S.

For all of human history, eating meat has meant slaughtering animals. But scientists behind cultivated meat say that's no longer necessary. They produce meat by growing cells extracted from an animal's body. And, today, the U.S. Department of Agriculture gave its first clearances to sell meat produced this way.

A Taste Of Lab-Grown Meat

The idea came to Uma Valeti while he was working on regrowing human tissue to help heart attack patients: If we can grow tissue from cells in a lab, why not use animal cells to grow meat? Valeti founded a company called Upside Foods, which joins more than 80 other start-ups developing "cultivated meat."

Are You Ready to Eat Meat Grown in a Lab?

We should try to get beyond our disgust about “lab meat,” argues the journalist Chase Purdy, who is in the rare position of having actually tasted it. In a fast-paced global narrative, Purdy follows the various cell-cultured meat companies that are currently competing to get their product to market first. The front-runners are in Israel, the Netherlands and (no surprise) Silicon Valley. The results of what Purdy calls this “edible space race” may shape the future of meat eating around the world. Meat that is grown in a vat doesn’t taste as bad as you might expect, according to Purdy.

I tried lab-grown meat made from animals without killing them – is this the future of ethical eating?

A ‘harmless’ sample of cells from one pig can produce millions of tons of ‘cultivated meat’ and is touted as far better for the climate.

Inside the fantastical, pragmatic quest to make “hybrid” meat

Hybrid cars gave way to electric vehicles. Could “hybrid meat” do the same for beef and pork?

Inside the Struggle to Make Lab-Grown Meat

FDA says cultivated chicken grown by Upside Foods is safe to eat. Bringing it to market still faces many hurdles.

Is lab-grown meat actually worse for the environment?

The idea that we should get our hamburgers from a lab and not from a slaughterhouse — the basic premise of the “cultured meat” or “clean meat” movement — tends to get people excited for two main reasons: It could save billions of animals from immense suffering, and it could fight global warming by reducing the number of methane-producing cattle. But a new study suggests that the second reason may be wrong, and that lab-grown meat could actually be worse for climate change.

Lab-grown meats and cow-free dairy can meet the demand for protein and help address climate change

A combination of public awareness and technological advancement in areas like cellular agriculture have given us an opportunity to think about how we can change our food systems for the better.

Meat no longer requires animal slaughter

You can grow it in a laboratory.

Nobody's Gonna Eat Lab-Grown Meat Just Because It's Better for the Planet

Ever since the world's first lab-grown hamburger debuted back in 2013, the industry of in vitro meat production has been accelerating at a breakneck pace. We're closer than ever to having lab-grown meat on grocery store shelves, but as the barriers of technology and cost are broken down, one significant hurdle remains: How do we convince people to eat it?

Out of the lab and into your frying pan: the advance of cultured meat

To a certain extent, the science of culturing meat is relatively well understood. The process begins when a cell is taken from an animal and grown up in a lab to permanently establish a culture (called a cell line). The cells can come from a range of sources: biopsies of living animals, pieces of fresh meat, cell banks and even the roots of feathers, which JUST has been experimenting with. Cell lines can either be based on primary cells – for example muscle or fat cells – or on stem cells.

People Keep Saying We'll Eat Lab-Grown Meat by 2040, But We've Heard That Before

For decades, we've heard that lab-grown meat is just around the corner. So what's the hold up?

Please Don't Call This Cultured Nugget "Lab Meat"

Inside the race to make cell-grown meats mainstream.

U.S. Approves the Sale of Lab-Grown Chicken

The Agriculture Department granted approval to cultivated meat producers for the first time in the United States, representing a watershed moment for the alternative protein industry.

What Exactly Is Cultivated Meat, and When Can We Eat It?

To produce it, companies take a sample of stem cells from an animal, often through a biopsy from a live animal or a fertilized egg. Those cells are grown in vessels of varying sizes aimed at maintaining the right temperature, along with a mixture containing amino acids, sugars and other nutrients needed for the cells to grow. The process produces just meat—not complete animals with bones and nervous systems.

Will Lab-Grown Meat Save the World?

Lab-grown meat could be our answer to world hunger and climate change.

Would you eat ‘meat’ from a lab? Consumers aren’t necessarily sold on ‘cultured meat’

Because cultured meat doesn’t involve livestock, and thus avoids the associated environmental impacts and ethical issues, it’s been highly anticipated by environmental groups, animal welfare advocates and some health conscious consumers. Producing cultured meat, it’s claimed, could consume fewer natural resources, avoid slaughter and remove the need for the growth hormones used in the traditional meat industry.

Resources

Good Meat

GOOD Meat is real meat made without tearing down a forest or taking a life.

UPSIDE Foods

It takes a big appetite to tackle big challenges. At UPSIDE Foods, we’ve spent nearly a decade working together to create cultivated meat that’s good for people and our planet.