Have you tried plant-based meat and dairy? Not as good as the real thing is it? But that will change.
Anyone concerned about the terrible, unsustainable impacts of livestock production, will welcome major changes to farming industries. Rearing animals so that we can eat them emits 18% of all anthropogenic greenhouse gases and is a major cause of water shortages and deforestation. However, even if no-meat products are brilliant for sustainability, nutrition and affordability, they will not sell if taste, smell or texture is not up to the mark.
So, a next generation of cultivated meat is now undergoing approval around the world. The Dutch company Meatable is a pioneer in cultivated meat products. Their products have the potential to recreate the tastes, smell, texture, appearance and nutrition of meat cut from animals. How do they do this?
Meatable grow their products just like an animal does. They take cell samples from a living animal whilst doing no harm to the creature. They mix muscle and fat cells, then grow these cells in a bioreactor in a new but entirely natural process. The cells grow just as if they were inside an animal – but we get the benefits – delicious and healthy foods – without the animal losing its life, without vast quantities of land lost to farming, without enormous amounts of climate change emissions, without the transport and mistreatment of livestock and without the potential to create another animal-transmitted pandemic. The whole Meatable process takes about three weeks to grow the same amount of meat that would take a cow three years to grow. Is this all too good?
Perhaps, but there are obstacles – mainly you and me. Markets need educating about the true natural nature of cultivated meats. This is by no means an easy task. It is complicated and many factors are involved such as awareness, risk-benefit perception, ethical and environmental concerns, emotions, personal factors and product properties. Knowledge, perceptions and personal traits are likely to be more salient than environmental and ethical concerns in this respect.
In addition, cultivated meat will have to compete against other meat substitutes such as those that are plant based. There are also economic aspects for the processes are expensive, but scaling will reduce costs; since first prototype production processes, cost have already been reduced by 99%. Even so, billions of dollars will be needed to scale cultivated meat production up to supplying just 1% of global needs. So far, some 100 cultivated meat start-ups have secured $600 million in funding from some of the world’s largest animal protein companies and investors such as Tyson, Nutreco, Temasek and Softbank.
Also consider the resistance, the lobbying, the protests and marching that a threatened livestock industry and millions of its employees will embark upon. Social media will be bombarded with arguments, misinformation and fabricated data sets to “prove” that cultivated meats are unhealthy, Frankenstein and disgusting foods. You might counter such arguments by exploring the horrors of existing livestock “production” and “harvesting” methods in factory and other farms, but many others will not do so.
Reliable, certified approvals for cultivated meats coming from respected, third-party agencies, will guarantee their safety and health benefits. Singapore is an island city with no land available to house a livestock industry that would meet the needs of their citizens. It is not surprising then that Singapore has already approved and marketed cultivated meat. It approved sales of cultivated meats in 2020 and by 2030 the city plans to produce 30% of its meat consumption locally and sustainably by this method. The USA is fast on their heels however and their cultivated meat companies have already successfully completed pre-market safety reviews. The Meatable company plans to have their products launched in Singapore by 2024 and they are now working to obtain access to European markets. Other countries such as China, Japan, Israel, Australia and New Zealand have all seen their own regulators look approvingly at cultivated meats.
This is not science fiction. Science facts in bioengineering may in the future enable even small, overcrowded islands to produce and enjoy enough meat protein for their inhabitants without negative environmental impacts and cruelty to animals. Cultivated meats can make an enormous positive impact to help achieve the United Nation’s Sustainable Development goals whilst feeding us all very well, without harming animals and inexpensively.
