Cultured meat has gone through numerous rebrands since its early positing as ‘vat meat’, which triggered unappealing visions of high-tech Spam. Now, ‘cultured meat’ has evolved to ‘cultivated meat’ which is the preferred term used by CEOs.
A vegan growth medium
Until recently, about 20% of the growth medium used to be foetal bovine serum, drawn from the blood of a cow foetus.
- The serum is expensive and not vegetarian, but all the major players now claim to have developed an alternative, called precision fermentation.
How different is cultivated meat from the real thing?
Cellular farming doesn’t grow cuts of meat, with bone and skin, or fat marbled through it like a succulent ribeye steak
- Muscle cells require different conditions and nutrients to fat cells, so they must be made separately
- When the pure meat or fat is harvested, it is a formless paste of cells
No-hunt exotic beasts
Start-up Primeval Foods sees the next logical step in culturing meat cells as a chance to taste exotic, off-limits animals such as lion and zebra
Mass Production
You need to be churning out “a minimum of 15 million pounds [6.8 million kilos] per year at a facility, which is sort of a rule of thumb for national distribution across the US or Western Europe.”
- This will necessitate bioreactors that hold at least 200,000 litres, which has never been done in cell culture.
Ethically, can everyone eat it?
Vegetarians could eat it if they have an appetite
- There is some disagreement on whether cultivated meat is halal
- Cultivated meat is set to trigger lively debates among religious leaders around the world
- Would cultivating meat from kosher or halal meat cells solve the problem?
How is lab-grown meat made?
Cells are acquired from an animal by harmless biopsy, then placed in a warm, sterile vessel with a solution called a growth medium, containing nutrients including salts, proteins and carbohydrates.
- Every 24 hours or so, the cells will have doubled.
Is lab-grown meat as nutritious as regular meat?
The nutrient profile will be similar, but it will also be possible to enhance or even personalize it
- As there are so few cultivated meat products on the market requiring food labelling, we’ll have to wait to get a better understanding of the nutritional value
Is it better for the environment?
We can’t know until mass production is happening
- One 2019 study from the University of Oxford warned that the energy used to make cultivated meat could release more greenhouse gases than traditional farming
- The study doesn’t take into account the lower land use of cultivated meat
- For a lower carbon footprint than conventional meats, it is crucial that renewable energy sources are used in its production, including in the supply chain
What would happen to farmers and their animals if cultivated meat takes off?
Small-scale conventional farming will still be used for premium meat cuts and dairy products for years to come
- Cellular agriculture has the potential to create a more balanced and symbiotic relationship between small-scale farmers, consumers and the planet
Dairy, without the cow
Perfect Day’s milk protein is already available in over 5,000 stores across the US.
Texture
Gelatine fibres being produced to be added to cultivated meat to improve its texture
- To achieve the texture of steak, scaffold technology will be necessary, as a way of building structure inside the vessel. This scaffold will most likely be made using vegan collagen.
Egg whites, without the chicken
Every Company uses fermentation to make egg white, a soluble version of the protein that even the fussiest palate would be hard-pressed to taste or see.
- This makes it an ideal additive for protein-boosting drinks and other products.
Bluefin tuna, but no fishing
Finless Foods is creating animal-free fish by using bluefin tuna cells in what it calls a microbrewery-style production facility
- Experiments showed that the fish tasted subtly of a sea in which the cells had never swum
When can people buy it?
In Singapore, GOOD Meat can be bought for home delivery via the Foodpanda app
- Other producers say that Western countries are still ironing out the details of how regulatory approval will work, but say they’ll be ready to scale up as soon as approval is given in the coming years
