The Meat of the Future: How Lab Grown Meat Can Save Our Environment
By Science and Environment Editor Leah Moynihan
Meat has an enormous environmental impact, with 14 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions emitted by livestock. It is a carbon intensive way of producing protein, adding to Irelands carbon footprint. 50 kilograms of greenhouse gases are emitted per every 100 grams of beef consumed. Methane has caused half a degree of the warming that the world is now experiencing. Therefore, beef is simply not efficient. There is also a huge land requirement to raise cattle. Fields are drained and they are not being reforested leading to biodiversity loss in this homogenous landscape. The product is overconsumed in many higher income countries, such as Ireland, and it is clear that we need to switch to lower-carbon diets.
There is a solution that is becoming more popular throughout the world. Lab grown meat or ‘cultured meat’ is when meat is created through culturing animal cells in an artificial setting. This has a far lower environmental footprint as the cells are grown in vats. Tissue engineering techniques taken from regenerative medicine are used. Muscle stem cells are obtained from an animal through a biopsy. These cells allow the body to repair itself by replicating and they produce muscle tissue when we provide them with favourable conditions. From one piece of muscle, we can produce 10,000 kilos of beef. This will allow us to reduce the global herd by more than half.
The terms ‘slaughter-free meat’, ‘artificial meat’ and ‘clean meat’ have all been used to describe this product. This innovation could transform the global food system. Cultured meat addresses issues such as food security, animal welfare, and climate change. Most importantly, the land used to feed cattle can be restored to its natural state. Additionally, we can increase the health of the product by reducing fatty acids and incorporating more Omega 3 acids. Meat will therefore be a much healthier dietary choice in the future. Furthermore, the cultured product can be creative with its appearance or shape so that it is more palatable for children. However, the products need to be made efficiently, sustainably, and it must taste like ‘real’ meat.
Cultivated meat products need government approval before delivering the potential environmental and health benefits. Novel food products in the European Union must go through an 18-month test period. The food must be proved to be safe to the European Food Safety Authority. In 2022, companies tried to gain regulatory approval for cultured meat products. However, this is a complicated and long process for EU startups. Yet cultivated meat has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration as safe. The fact that cultivated meat has passed other countries rigorous approval processes, demonstrates that lab grown meat in the EU is likely to be introduced commercially in the next few years.
The first lab grown hamburger produced in Maastricht University, Netherlands and served up in London.
The first lab grown hamburger was produced in 2013. This burger was created from 20,000 strands of muscle tissue and it cost $325,000 to produce. It was tested on live TV, with the critiques stating that “this is meat to me”. They added that it would have tasted more like meat in a blind trial than soya alternatives. Since then, there have been many startups created all over the world. Companies have been established in Silicon Valley, the Netherlands, and Israel. A range of foods have been cultured from beef meatballs to duck. One company has invested in creating high-end meats such as bison, lamb, and elk, while other companies produce cultivated fish and other seafoods. Notably, in Singapore in 2020, cell-cultured chicken burgers were allowed to be sold to customers in a restaurant.
In 2018, there was another breakthrough in the field as a Dutch startup grew meat using stem cells from animal umbilical cords. This is significant as it allows the producer to bypass fetal bovine serum (blood sourced from unborn cow fetuses), leading to no animal needing to be killed to create the product. This will also lead to a reduction in the global herd. Additionally, recent developments have allowed fat and iron to be added to the product. Even though cultured meat is not yet widely available, new technologies are constantly emerging allowing the production to become cheaper and more sustainable.
Plant-based sources of protein such as peas and quinoa grow in Ireland, however there is currently not enough research on their environmental impacts. The best solution to reducing our methane output and land use is alternative protein sources, such as cultured meat. However, there are still many objections to this system of food production in Ireland. The main argument is that it is uneconomical. Our Minister for Agriculture claimed that Ireland is the “sustainable food capital of the world”. This could not be further from the truth. Ireland is one of the largest global beef exporters, emitting startling amounts of methane. Subsities make up a massive 139 per cent of cattle rearing farm incomes. This means that a farm receives €4,000 in direct payments per year to cover operation losses. There is a similar situation with sheep farming, leaving our uplands in a broken ecological condition. These subsidies for beef and lamb create unsustainable systems, harming the climate and biodiversity. Hence, it is our current agriculture systems that do not make sense economically. To compare, cultivated meat companies made $140 million in 2021.
Humans do not need animal proteins to survive. 2 billion people on earth today are vegetarians, the majority involuntarily, however they live happy productive lives. Yet, as a species, humans simply love meat. It is part of our evolutionary history, allowing us to grow larger brains and to dominate over other species. Therefore, due to meat’s place in human culture, most people do not want to give it up. This is why a lab grown sustainable meat product is so important. Not everyone wants to become vegetarian, and that is acceptable once there are alternative meat products.
Fear of the unknown is a major obstacle to introducing these products commercially, as our entire concept of what meat is will have to change. However, a survey carried out in Britain found that 60 per cent of people would eat cultured meat. We do not know what is in most of the foods that we consume, while these meats have gone through rigid safety procedures and tests. If people are worried about control over their food, there is new technology emerging allowing households to grow their own meat, similar to a vegetable garden. The meat can be cultured for the family in microwave-type equipment that can sit in the kitchen. It may sound like science-fiction, but most new inventions always sound strange at the beginning.
Scaling up production is essential to ensure efficiency as cultured meat can be highly energy intensive. When the products were emerging, it cost $65 per kilogram of cultured meat. Now, thanks to new technology, it costs $9-18 for a burger. The aim is to create a cheap bulk product to serve the world, and therefore the majority of people need to be on board for this to be a success. Cultured meat could be a choice for everyone, and we will have the freedom to make ethical and healthy dietary decisions. There will be no more need for antibiotics in our meat, as the cultured product will be grown under sterile conditions. This will help in the battle against antimicrobial resistance. The healthier fats can be added to the lab grown meat, reducing cholesterol. The environment that we live in will be healthier and cleaner, benefiting everyone. Decreasing your meat consumption is the biggest way to reduce your impact on earth. Cultivated meat allows us to achieve this. If Irish people consumed meat at medically safe levels, 20 per cent of emissions from the agriculture sector would be cut, possibly avoiding the worst effects of climate change.
