In Vitro Meat Production: Challenges and Benefits

Marina Alfano balances what it means to live and eat ethically in her essay exploring a potential solution to the dilemmas that arise when we consume meat. Over the course of this thoroughly argued piece, we see Marina pre-empt and balance counterarguments, grapple with pressing moral and environmental issues, and ultimately present us with a pressing reality in which her personal commitment to ethical consumption holds the reader’s attention. She tactfully reminds us that though we may not be able to save the world right now, we possess the power to take steps in a more ethical direction. –Madeline Turner ’21, Editorial Assistant

In Vitro Meat Production: Challenges and Benefits

Marina Alfano ’23

After nuclear war, human-induced global warming is the greatest threat to human life on the planet. A new report published by Australian climate experts warns that climate change may be more severe than previously anticipated. The numbers from this report are staggering: they predict that by 2050, “More than a billion people may need to be relocated and in high-end scenarios, the scale of destruction is beyond our capacity to model, with a high likelihood of human civilization coming to an end” (HOME | Breakthrough). The year 2050 feels like doomsday, plastered all over the news with warnings of rising sea levels, unbearable temperatures, biodiversity loss, and ultimately mass extinction. We are living in a crisis with severe, urgent, and intimidating problems facing humanity. It can feel overwhelming, that one person can’t make a difference, yet we can. There are many things we can do to fight climate change; most of these actions require large scale government and policy changes, which are challenging to implement. However, there are individual approaches too, and one of them seems simple enough: changing what is on our plates.

In a utopian world, we would have realized the harmful effects of animal product production and deemed it not worth the consequences. Unfortunately, we have done quite the opposite, and we continue to move in the wrong direction. In order to feed a growing planet and cut back on our contributions to climate change, scientists say we must radically alter our food systems (“Eating Meat”). Yet how can we change the culture, tradition, and customs that come along with consuming animal products? We likely can’t; and we don’t have to. What if there were a way to consume animal products without eating real animals? No factory farms, no slaughtering, no methane, no animal feed, just the feather of a chicken and a laboratory. This is exactly the purpose of in vitro meat, a recent scientific breakthrough which might just be our solution to this food dilemma. It is highly likely that lab grown meat will reach grocery shelves in a few years; however, the majority of experts remind consumers that there are still numerous technological and social factors which stand in the way. This paper will explore the environmental impact of both traditional and in vitro meat production to ultimately determine the viability of large scale in vitro meat production. 

In recent years, there has been a worldwide animal product renaissance. Global meat consumption has increased rapidly over the past fifty years; meat production today is nearly five times higher than it was fifty years ago (Roser). Rising populations and rising incomes have played a key factor in this drastic increase; there are not simply more people in the world, but there are more people who can afford to eat meat. It is important to note that there is a direct correlation between a country’s wealth and the amount of meat its average citizen consumes. This ties into the idea that Western culture has ascribed meat “luxury” status, making it even more desired in other parts of the world where it is less accessible (Roser). As people’s incomes rise above poverty level and their environment becomes urbanized, they consume drastically more animal products. In fact, the amount of meat consumed in developing countries has grown three times as much as it has in developed countries (Delgado). By 2020, it is projected that the share of developing countries in total world meat consumption will expand from 52% currently to 63% (Delgado).

We know poor nations are increasing meat consumption as they grow in wealth, yet what about wealthy nations such as the United States? Many people claim to have cut back on meat consumption for environmental, ethical, or health reasons, so is meat consumption falling in the West? Not exactly. Recent data from the USDA suggests that meat consumption per capita in the United States has increased, with meat consumption in 2018 being the highest in decades (USDA APHIS). Livestock populations are reaching unprecedented heights: in 2013, the APHIS (Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service) stated  the cattle population reached 1.494 million animals, up 54% from 1963; during the same period, the number of chickens grown increased from 4.1 billion to 21.7 billion, and the pig population grew by 114% to reach 977 million (USDA APHIS). There is extensive proof that meat consumption is reaching alarmingly high levels, and this rapid growth is unsustainable. 

 According to the EPA, approximately nine percent of all greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture, most of which comes from livestock (US EPA). The Environmental Working Group, an American nonprofit focused on climate activism explains, the production, processing, and distribution of meat requires huge expenditures of pesticides, fertilizer, water, fuel, and feed, while producing greenhouse gases, manure, and toxic chemicals which threaten the safety of our air and water (2011 Meat Eater’s Guide). The EWG also conducted an analysis on the lifecycle of twenty common agricultural products, and found that red meat is responsible for ten to forty times as many greenhouse gases compared to grains and vegetables (2011 Meat Eater’s Guide). 

Producing meat is incredibly resource inefficient— it is estimated that growing livestock feed in the U.S alone requires 167 million pounds of pesticides and 17 billion pounds of nitrogen fertilizer (US EPA).  The whole process generates alarming amounts of nitrous oxide–a greenhouse gas thirty times more potent than carbon dioxide (2011 Meat Eater’s Guide). Ecologist David Pimental of Cornell University states, “If all the grain currently fed to livestock in the United States were consumed directly by people, the number of people who could be fed would be nearly 800 million.” He continues to mention that the current livestock in the United States consume five times more grain than the entire U.S population (Pimental). 

The environmental problems associated with meat don’t stop there. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, four-fifths of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest can be directly linked to cattle farming (“Defend Our Environment”). Additionally, the NRDC warns that water pollution from factory farms, known as concentrated animal feeding operations, can produce as much sewage waste as a small city. Finally, the overcrowded, unclean conditions in these feeding operations require the use of antibiotics which end up in our meat; overuse of antibiotics has led to antibiotic resistant bacteria strains which pose a threat to human health.

We are thus met by a myriad of problems surrounding meat consumption. The solution? Meat substitutes. There are too many cultural ties for meat to completely vanish from the food scene, yet consumers are somewhat willing to try substitutes. While soy protein burgers such as the Beyond Burger, and other meat alternatives such as tofu, tempeh, and seitan have gained popularity in the United States, alongside the rise of vegans and vegetarians, they aren’t substitutions in terms of taste, texture, and most importantly, culture. A food manufacturing company which specializes in animal product substitutions, Just Inc., states, “We think it’s unlikely that families in Alabama (or anywhere in the world) will consistently choose plant-based alternatives over chicken, beef, pork, and seafood” (JUST). They’re right, which is why Just Inc., along with many other visionary companies have begun to invest in in vitro meat. 

What exactly is cultured meat? Cultured meat, also termed in vitro, is lab-based or synthetic meat made by taking a muscle sample from an animal. Engineers collect stem cells from that tissue, multiply them and allow them to become primitive fibers which eventually form muscle tissue (Pimental). The first government-funded research on cultured meat took place in the Netherlands from 2005 until 2009 and was begun by an eighty-six year old entrepreneur named William Van Eelen, who had patented the idea in 1997. As Van Eelen’s grant came to an end, Dr. Mark Post, a part-time professor at Eindhoven Technical University at the time, took the reins of the experiment and continued his research. In 2010, Google cofounder Sergy Brin’s family foundation invested in Dr. Post’s research and sponsored a large media event where the first cultured hamburger was tasted (“Mark”).

New Harvest, a donor-funded research institute dedicated to the field of cellular agriculture, commented on this scientific breakthrough: “The first cell cultured beef hamburger was an important milestone in cellular agriculture. It showed the world that creating cultured meat was scientifically possible–and that from here onwards, the most important innovations in culturing meat will be how to produce it in large quantities for a reasonable price.” Ever since the first in vitro burger was created, the media has viewed lab grown meat as having great potential, since, given stem cells’ ability to multiply themselves, we can produce unlimited amounts of meat. . Consequently, as opposed to traditional meat production, we would need only a handful of animals to make essentially unlimited meat, which would solve the issue of not having enough meat to support growing populations, lower the carbon footprint from livestock, and reduce the suffering of billions of animals (Ouali). 

Just Inc. estimates that once they perfect the process, they can make in vitro meat a far more efficient option, stating, “With plants providing nutrients for animal cells to grow, we believe we can produce meat and seafood that is over 10x more efficient than the world’s highest volume slaughterhouse (a 1,000,000-square foot facility in Tar Heel, N.C.)”(JUST). Companies like Just Inc. claim that they can manufacture an ideally composed meat which can satisfy the physiological needs of humans without putting their health at risk. If a company can do all this without slaughtering a single animal (all they need is the feather of a chicken) with a fraction of the greenhouse gases, pollution, and water usage, it could be huge. It fits with the trend of modern values— reducing climate change and making guilt free food choices— and thus fits today’s society perfectly (Ouali). 

The environmental impact of producing in vitro meat on a large scale is not yet determined. A substantial amount of research suggests that organic food (food produced without the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, or artificial agents), including in vitro meat, is the most viable way to lower the carbon footprint of food (Tuomisto). An initial study conducted on the environmental footprint of lab grown meat found that if all meat produced in the EU 27 (European Union from 2007-2013) was replaced by artificial meat, “the GHG emissions, land use and water use would be reduced by two orders of magnitude compared to the current meat production practices” (Tuomisto). This research is often referenced by proponents of in vitro meat, yet there is other research which suggests the change would be less drastic. Some researchers argue lab meat, “may have a moderate interest in reducing GHG emissions and pollution by nitrates, a limited interest for decreasing fossil fuel use or a very limited interest concerning water use, but it would make more land available” (Hocquette). Despite these variances in predictions, it can be generally agreed upon that large scale in vitro meat production holds significant potential to provide a more environmentally conscious method of meat consumption.  

An interesting detail from a scientific standpoint is that in vitro meat isn’t technically artificial meat; rather, it is artificial muscle proteins. Meat comes from muscle that needs to mature, a process in which a series of biochemical transformations occur, which involves the change in pH of the muscle in the absence of oxygen, that is, when the animal is slaughtered (“Biomarkers”). This is actually a benefit of in vitro meat—it is far more predictable than traditional meat. In fact, researchers are still trying to better understand the processes of muscle formation in traditional meat and how to regulate it (Hocquette). 

However, in the process of producing lab grown meat, there are two main flaws. The first is that while muscle tissue is composed of muscle cells, it also has lesser amounts of fat, blood, and nerve cells which contribute to the taste and overall texture of the meat (“Biomarkers”). In general, there are many issues which arise in making in vitro meat look and taste exactly like traditional meat. One of the biggest incongruencies would be the color; the color of these muscle fibers is typically yellow as opposed to pink (“Biomarkers). Additionally, researchers haven’t yet found a way to include all of the vitamins and micro nutrients contained in meat that are beneficial to human health, such as vitamin B12 (“Biomarkers”). In order for in vitro meat to have the best chance at becoming popularized, it needs to be perfected to both look, taste, and feel like conventional meat. Until these obstacles can be overcome, it is probable that in vitro meat will not gain societal acceptance. 

While many scientific researchers recognize the potential of in vitro meat’s positive impact on the environment, animal welfare, and human health, others are not as certain that this new technology will produce all of the promised changes. Additionally, the environmental impact of lab grown meat is difficult to evaluate given that these numbers are only estimates. Nonetheless, given the urgent situation that we are facing, there is plenty of reason to invest in in vitro meat technologies. It can be generally agreed upon by all scientific researchers, including proponents of in vitro meat, that there are a series of hurdles to overcome so that artificial meat can make its way to the industrial stage (Hocquette). In vitro meat is only one solution to the previously addressed issues, such as feeding the world with a lower carbon footprint while still addressing societal needs, but it is a step in the right direction (Hocquette). Someday soon, perhaps in a matter of months, we might be able to purchase in vitro meat from the supermarket, and that’s when the real experiment begins. 

Works Cited

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