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Cultured meat

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In vitro meat, also known as laboratory-grown meat or cultured meat, is animal flesh that has never been part of a complete, living animal. As of May 2003, some scientists are experimentally growing in vitro meat in laboratories, but no meat has been produced yet for public consumption. Potentially, any animal could be a source of cells for in vitro meat.

As with most experimental products manufactured on the laboratory scale, the current cost of in vitro meat is prohibitive, but industrial production would be much cheaper. For in vitro meat, costs only apply to the meat production, whereas for traditional meat, costs include animal raising and environmental protection (meaning there are fewer negative externalities associated with in vitro meat). However, it is not yet known whether in vitro meat is possible to be made economically competitive with traditional meat.

In vitro meat should not be confused with imitation meat, which can be a vegetarian food product produced from vegetable protein, usually from soy or gluten. The terms synthetic meat and artificial meat are synonymous, as they may refer to either.

Process and patent

Meat essentially consists of animal muscle. There are, loosely, two approaches for production of in vitro meat; loose muscle cells and structured muscle, the latter one being vastly more challenging than the former. Muscles consist of muscle fibers, long cells with multiple nuclei. They don't proliferate by themselves, but arise when precursor cells fuse. Precursor cells can be embryonic stem cells or satellite cells, specialized stem cells in muscle tissue. Theoretically, they can be relatively simple to culture in a bioreactor and then later made to fuse. For the growth of real muscle however, the cells should grow "on the spot", which requires a perfusion system akin to a blood supply to deliver nutrients and oxygen close to the growing cells, as well as remove the waste products. In addition other cell types need to be grown like adipocytes, and chemical messengers should provide clues to the growing tissue about the structure. Lastly, muscle tissue needs to be trained to properly develop.

In 2001, dermatologist Wiete Westerhof from the University of Amsterdam and businessmen Willem van Eelen and Willem van Kooten announced that they had filed for a worldwide patent on a process to produce in vitro meat (patent number WO9931222). A matrix of collagen is seeded with muscle cells, which are then bathed in a nutritious solution and induced to divide. Jon F. Vein of the United States secured a patent (US 6,835,390 B1) for the production of tissue engineered meat for human consumption, wherein muscle and fat cells would be grown in an integrated fashion to create food products such as beef, poultry and fish.

Arguments in favor

Reduced animal suffering

In vitro meat may appeal to animal welfare advocates and others concerned about animal well-being. Replacing traditional meat with in vitro meat has the potential to reduce or eliminate food-animal suffering. Advocates such as Peter Singer and Ingrid Newkirk have endorsed the idea. Some ethical vegetarians may consider it an acceptable part of their diet, whereas some may still see the duplication of cells donated from otherwise unharmed animals as abuse. See "Animals are still used", below.

Health

In vitro meat may be cleaner and less prone to disease than animals, provided that donor cells are not contaminated. With relatively simple isolation procedures, economically damaging culls could also be avoided. The in vitro meat would also be free from the growth hormones and antibiotics that are fed to many animals in intensive factory farming.

In part because the fat content of meats could be brought more fully under our control, and also because other chemical constituents could be altered to produce the best nutrient balance, meat could be made a healthier product than at present.

There is also the benefit that there are no bones involved in this form of production, which are often removed from real meat for convenience. This also reduces the risk of choking.

Environment

The negative environmental consequences of traditional meat production, such as nitrate contamination and methane production, are reduced. While there will be some byproducts in the process of creating the nutrients to grow the cells, the environmental damage should still be lessened. Less of the animal would be wasted.

Space food

On long space voyages or stays, in vitro meat could be grown alongside hydroponic vegetables.

Increase in consumer choice and reductions in cost of production

Many kinds of animals are far too expensive to produce by the conventional agribusiness industries, even through factory farming (lions, for example). In part, this is due to some of these animals being "secondary consumers" — this denotes an animal that generally relies on other animals for sustenance. The energy in the flesh of their prey comes from the vegetation it ate while living, which in turn came from sunlight. Each transfer of energy from one living being to another is inefficient; only a small fraction of the available energy is carried over. To farm these kinds of animals would mean farming enough vegetation to feed the primary consuming animals to feed the secondary consuming animals to feed us, which is expensive. Yet with in vitro grown flesh, it is possible to greatly increase the variety of flesh available on the market, since the energy is supplied directly via a "perfusion system", as described above.

For this and other reasons, it is predicted that in vitro flesh would cost much less to produce than factory or free-range farmed animal flesh, and the production industries would not need to be given the massive subsidies that are given to many agribusiness industries in the west today.

Arguments against

Animals are still used

Animals are still used as tools in multiple steps. For example, current cell and tissue culture almost always use newborn or fetal calf serum (or other animal sources, such as pituitary extracts) to provide the growth factors the cells need to signal them to divide. However, animals would not have to be killed in the process, which greatly reduces the ethical implications of eating meat.

Artificiality

Consumers whose preference is whole and unprocessed food may find such a high-technology approach to food production distasteful, for reasons aesthetic, cultural, or ethical. On the other hand, some may prefer the consumption of in vitro meat to the slaughter of live animals, and it may be argued that the current industrial meat production infrastructure is "unnatural" and puts a bigger strain on the planet's natural resources than does growing meat cells artificially. Moreover, a range of highly processed non-meat food products, such as textured vegetable protein, has been available to many Western consumers for decades.

Quality, safety, health

People may be concerned that in vitro meat is of lesser quality than traditional meat, and that there are unresolved health risks. However, like any food product, in vitro meat would be required to pass through many safety and health trials before it could be sold. Also, this question is one of the main focuses of scientists working on in vitro meat, and they aim to produce healthier meat than conventional meat, most notably by reducing its fat content and controlling nutrients. For example, most meats are high in saturated fat, which can cause high cholesterol and other health problems. With in vitro meat, saturated fat might be replaced by Omega 3, which is more healthful.

Differences from traditionally produced meat

If in vitro meat is different in appearance, taste, smell, texture and other factors; this may reduce its appeal. The lack of fat and bone may also be a disadvantage, for these parts make appreciable culinary contributions. Many food items, such as surimi, designed to substitute for other ingredients (for reasons from morality to expense) have become independently sought out for their own properties.

Research

Challenges

At the moment, hardly any serious research has been made on the subject of in vitro meat. There are several obstacles to overcome if it has any chance of succeeding.

  • Proliferation of muscle cells: Although it is not very difficult to make stem cells divide, for meat production it is necessary that they divide at a quick pace. This requirement has some overlap with the medical branch of tissue engineering.
  • Culture medium: Proliferating cells need a food source to grow and develop. The growth medium should be a well-balanced mixture of ingredients and growth factors. Depending on the motives of the researchers, the growth medium has additional requirements.
    • Commercial: The growth medium should be cheap to produce.
    • Environmental: The production of the growth medium shouldn't have a negative impact on the environment. This means that the production should be energetically favorable. Additionally, the ingredients should come from completely renewable sources. Minerals from mined sources are in this case not possible, as are synthetically produced nutrients which use non-renewable sources.
    • Animal welfare: The growth medium should be devoid of animal sources, although they may initially be more useful than other sources.
  • Bioreactors: Nutrients and oxygen need to be delivered close to each growing cell, on the scale of millimeters. In animals this job is handled by blood vessels. A bioreactor should emulate this function in an efficient manner. The usual approach is the creation of a sponge-like matrix in which the cells can grow, and perfusing it with the growth medium.

Initiatives

Probably the first research into in vitro meat was performed by M. A. Benjaminson from Touro College. His research group managed to grow muscle tissue from goldfish in a laboratory setting with several kinds of growth media.

In 2004, a group of researchers started the non-profit organization New Harvest, with the goal of promoting research into in vitro meat. Among the founders are Jason Matheny and Vladimir Mironov. According to their website cultured meat in a processed form, like sausage, hamburger, or chicken nuggets may become commercially available within several years.

In April 2005, a research project into cultured meat started in The Netherlands. It is carried out under the lead of Henk Haagsman at the University of Amsterdam, the Eindhoven University of Technology and Utrecht University, in cooperation with sausage manufacturer Stegeman. The Dutch government granted a two million euro subsidy for the project. In Amsterdam the culture medium is studied, while the University of Utrecht studies the proliferation of muscle cells and the Eindhoven university will research bioreactors.

Fiction

See also

External links

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