7 Videos about Growing Meat in the Laboratory - Is this the future of food production?
Introduction
For your viewing pleasure this week, I searched youtube and found 7 videos on a topic which has interested me since I first learned about it 3 or 4 years ago. The topic has been referred to in various ways, including "3D printed meat," "Lab-grown meat," and "cultured meat." In short, the idea is to start with stem cells from a livestock animal, and grow them into consumable meat in a large scale petri dish.
One of the philosophical issues that I often struggle with is the capturing and killing of animals in order to satisfy my own needs for comfort and survival. I enjoy the flavor of meat too much to make any behavioral changes, but the idea of taking an animal's life in order to sustain my own still makes me uncomfortable when I really think about it. Until I learned about the idea of 3d printing meat, my solution was to avoid thinking about it. Now, the potential for lab-grown meat adds a new dynamic to the situation, and I look forward to seeing what the future brings.
As you’ll learn in these videos, our global herd of livestock is on the order of tens or hundreds of billions of animals. That’s a huge environmental footprint, and a huge amount of killing of animals. This sort of technology has the potential to drastically reduce the need for such a large global herd. No animals are harmed in this process, and cells from one animal can be grown into meat to feed tens of thousands of people, so it is more humane, more efficient, and less impactful on the natural environment.
The following 7 videos look at the idea from a variety of perspectives.
7) Leather and meat without killing animals | TED Talk by Andras Forgacs
This is the video where I first learned about the idea. In this video, Forgacs describes a way whereby meat and leather can be mass produced without harming any animals. When he gave this talk, he was already using the technique to successfully produce human organs such as ears, skin, bones, and other organs. Here, he proposes using the same techniques on animals as a way to address the wastefulness of raising and slaughtering a global herd of 60 billion animals for meat, leather, and other consumer goods. He asserts that the current process threatens the environment, public health, and food security, and he questions the morality of breeding and raising complex and sentient animals in order to create products from relatively simple materials. He suggests starting with leather in order to avoid the "yuk factor” that people may experience at the thought of synthetic meat.
At a high level, here is the process he describes for 3d printing leather:
(1) Extract source cells
(2) Grow them in "cell culture medium."
(3) Shape them in sheets and continue growing.
(4) Layer the sheets.
(5) Fuse the layers into synthetic hide.
(6) Tan and finish the hide.
(7) Design leather goods.
This process is superior to natural leather production because the leather can be made in any desired shape, and it is not limited to the shape of an animal like a pig, cow, or alligator. 3D printed leather can also be thinner, defect free, and more intricate than animal leather.
6.) Taste Test of World's First Lab-Grown Burger That Cost £215,000 to Produce | “LeakSourceNews”
In this short video, two food critics take taste test of the world’s first lab-grown hamburger. Some of their comments include: "Missed salt and pepper." "Texture feels like meat." They also point out that it’s hard to compare because they’re not accustomed to eating traditional hamburgers without things like lettuce, tomato, onion, and ketchup. The general impression that I get is that the burger was tolerable, but bland. They suggest that regular consumers will be able to grow this meat at home, which will help to overcome the “yuk factor.”
5.) The Meat of the Future: How Lab-Grown Meat Is Made | “Eater”
This video discusses reasons why they think that lab-grown meat is the "meat of the future," and describes how it was grown. The process involves starting with stem cells from an animal, which are harvested in a pain free manner, and grows and layers them into a hamburger. A single muscle cell turns into one trillion muscle tissue strands, or “a lot of hamburgers.” They also note that the price of lab grown meat has dropped from $325,000 per patty to $11 per patty, and is expected to continue dropping. They also note that the taste is bland in comparison to traditional meat.
4.) Lab-Grown Burgers Just Got A LOT Cheaper! | “FW: Thinking”
This video describes lab grown hamburgers as "guilt-free fast food" because no animals are harmed in the production, and states the same point as the previous video, that in 2015, the burger price is down from $325,000 to $11 per patty. They also note that widespread consumer access is still years away, that the process needs to be scaled up to be viable, and that the team hopes to totally eliminate animal cells from the process.
This video is the only one I found which also discusses the potential for lab-grown dairy products. In this concept, synthetic milk is created from genetically altered plant material (yeast) and cow genes are added. The narrator also mentions that lactose free milk is possible and that synthetic milk can also mimic other types of milk, such as goat milk and buffalo milk (and I imagine, human milk for nursing babies? Maybe even milk from a baby's own mother?)
3.) Lab-Grown Meat: Shrimp Could Open Door To New Food Future | CBS Sacramento
This video describes “Indiebio Demo Day” where food companies are demonstrating products like meat and seafood that were grown in a lab. Products included pigs, cows, chickens, and shrimp.
The narrator reports that the meat is produced from plants, algae and animal stem cells, and taste-testers are shown who report pleasant tastes. The foods are free of antibiotics or pathogens, and expect to start shipping in 1-5 years (from Feb, 2016). Manufacturers report that their products will be cost competitive with traditional meat.
2.) 4 Things You Need To Know About Lab Grown Meat | WIRED
Here are the four main points from the video. You should watch it to learn about them in detail.
- Growing meat in the lab, including a mix of muscle and fat, is possible and becoming more practical daily.
- This method produces 96% fewer greenhouse gases than traditional meat production.
- Livestock production is water intensive. Cultured meat requires 82-96% less water.
- Hamburger patties are expected to cost less than $10 by 2020.
1.) Meat Makers: the artificial beef revolution | The Economist
Note: This video contains images that may be disturbing.
A compelling quote from this video is, “In 100 years, we’ll look back on livestock in the same way we do today the horse-drawn carriage.”
It describes two competitors in the industry:
Meat Makers is a Netherlands company who is growing beef from stem cells in laboratory. Much of this repeats what we knew from previous videos, but it also notes that from beginning to end, the whole procedure takes 9 weeks. It also notes that a small piece of muscle can easily grow 10,000 kilos of meat. For comparison, a single animal shown in the video would provide about 100 kilos.
Beyond Meat is a Los Angeles company who is already selling their products. In nature, animals eat plants, and convert them to muscle, then we kill the animal and consume the muscle as meat. This company’s insight is that maybe we don’t need an animal at all in that process. Maybe technology can perform the same protein conversion directly from plant to meat. So their technique is to combine plant proteins into so-called "plant meat," entirely eliminating the animal from the meat creation process.
Conclusion
I think these technologies hold a great deal of promise, and I would feel a lot better about eating meat if no animals were killed in its production. There is one point that concerns me, however, and I haven't read or watched anything that addresses it. That is, what happens to the existing herds? Ranchers only shelter and feed these animals because it is profitable. If the lab-grown meat industry displaces the traditional livestock farm, ranchers would no longer be able to afford upkeep. Domesticated animals are largely unsuited to life in the wild, so I don't really see a transition path that doesn't involve some sort of threat to livestock, including the possibility of near-extinction.
It will be interesting to see what the future holds. Personally, I think starting with leather was a great way to start getting people acclimated to the idea. Knowing how it is produced, I would have no qualms about eating this type of food, but I'm sure there are many people who will be mistrustful of the technology. It will be interesting to see how things play out.
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@remlaps is an IT professional with three decades of professional experience in data communications and information systems. He holds a bachelor's degree in mathematics, a master's degree in computer science, and a master's degree in information systems and technology management. He has also been awarded 3 US patents.