Today at your local food markets it is likely that you have one of two options if you are craving meat - get the real thing or get a vegan facade of meat. If you go for the real McCoy you typically have additional options, like choosing between meat that was not produced using hormones or other unnatural enhancers versus meat that did use such things.
A third option is on its way.
I've been keeping an eye over the past few years over cultured meats. Its fascinating, really. When I was first introduced to the idea I wasn't sure what to think myself; I mean, meat grown in a lab? However, I'm definitely warming up to the idea.
The basic idea is that you extract a certain number of cells from a live animal (using the needle might be a little painful, but not nearly as painful as death as you might imagine). Those cells are then taken to a laboratory where they are fed the nutrients required to divide and grow. Then, at some point, you prepare and eat the meat.
Many of these cultured meat companies are also looking at using this process for creating leather.
As someone who is looking to the stars, just waiting for the breakthrough that will enable us to travel beyond our own solar system (here's looking at you, David Pares) I have come to the realization that it would be difficult to maintain livestock on a space craft. In addition, while I wouldn't stop enjoying meat it would be nice if we could have our cake and eat it too, not having to kill an animal for it.
I myself have come also to accept that it isn't unnatural; the meat isn't synthetic nor is it a facade like the veggie burger. Its the real deal, produced from cells that were taken from a live animal but simply grown outside the animal from which they were taken.
The cost to produce just one burger a few years ago was well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Recently, a researcher in the Netherlands I believe said they've brought the cost of that same burger down to $10.
That's a huge change for just 3 to 4 years.
I was skeptical a few years ago when I heard we might see cultured meat in our (the United States) supermarkets within 10 years; now it looks like its almost a certainty.
I'm not a biologist, so I can't speak to the many environmental benefits claimed by these researchers and companies, but it sounds logical and reasonable that it takes far less resources as well as a much lower environmental impact to grow these things in a lab rather than out on the pasture.
So what do you think? Would you eat cultured meat? What assurances would you need to have from the producers?
Links:
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultured_meat
Memphis Meats: http://www.memphismeats.com/
New Harvest: http://www.new-harvest.org/
$325,000 to $12: https://www.fastcoexist.com/3044572/the-325000-lab-grown-hamburger-now-costs-less-than-12
I've been in line with your thinking for a while and I see the cultured meat industry as one of the biggest potentials for exponential growth in market size in the next couple of decades. It will of course be met with incredible opposition by the corporate agriculture lobby as well as by the petrochemical lobby since traditional farming methods will be completely disrupted by the cultured meat industry. Not only will consumers not be needing to buy meat from traditional farming methods, the crops used to feed the livestock and the associated chemicals used on the live stock will not be needed as well as the fertilizer/insecticides that is used on the crops grown for livestock consumption. I would imagine Bayer/Monsanto will be the biggest roadblock to the growth of the cultured meat industry.
I wholeheartedly agree. I think there will definitely be opposition but I also think its a going to end up being a freight train that cannot be stopped. I think with how fast information (and thus education about new stuff) can get out there today to the general population corporations don't have as much power to subdue stuff like this, although for the moment they are certainly still fairly powerful.
This one of those trends that were incredible previously, but are quickly becoming reality. I think the real obstacle will be the ick factor, whether people will eat it or start calling it a Frankenbuger. Will we see protests about it the same way as for GM food?
That's a good question; I'm not sure. I have friends that have looked at me and said no way will I eat a burger that used meat produced in a lab. I think it will take time, since there is no genetic modification in this case; its live cells, from an animal, that are simply growing outside of the animal. That didn't change my friend's minds though, the "unnaturalness" of it was too much for them at the moment.