Artificial meat produced in a laboratory will save the suffering of billions of farm animals, but will it also reduce the environmental burden of the meat industry?
by Assaf Ben Naria, angle, news agency for science and the environment
In recent years, the idea of growing meat in a test tube has been gaining momentum, but the research that led to the implementation of this idea began as early as the 50s. The importance of such a development is clear: artificial meat will not only eliminate the need to kill billions of farm animals every year, but also create a sustainable food source that can move humanity forward and feed billions of people (according to estimates, in 2100 they are expected to live on Earth 11.2 billion people - a lot of mouths to feed).
Not long ago, the American Memphis Meat company performed a taste test for the first laboratory meat ball (price per kg - 40,000 dollars), this after the taste test of the first lab-grown hamburger was completed in 2013 (the cost of producing the hamburger was approx.-325,000 a thousand Dollars).
how does it work The growth of muscle tissue under laboratory conditions, a product that has been called cultured meat (from the language of culture) or "clean meat", imitates the mechanism of muscle production that occurs in the body of animals. Stem cells taken from the animal divide over a culture medium and create a protein similar to that found in meat. While there are no disagreements about the taste at this stage - researchers probably still have a lot of work to do to make it taste more like that of real meat - voices are heard here and there when it comes to the environmental consequences of producing laboratory meat on an industrial scale.
A fifth of the greenhouse gases
A branch of cultivation that yields meat It is one of the significant sources of two particularly "strong" greenhouse gases - methane and nitrous oxide. These gases have a 25 and 300 times higher "potential" to accelerate the global warming process than the more familiar greenhouse gas - carbon dioxide.
The meat industry is currently responsible for 19-15 percent of all man-made greenhouse gases. The source of most of them is precisely the needs of the animals, which contain high amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus. In addition, growing the food that is used to feed the animals results in emissions of pollutants, most of them due to the production of pesticides and fertilizers.
The water consumption of the meat growing branch is no less than eight percent of the total water used by humans. And if that's not enough, animal dung has a negative effect on the vast open areas used for grazing. According to various reports, this manure contains, apart from phosphorus and nitrogen, also heavy metals, cyanides, sulfides and ammonia, in addition to a long list of disease-causing bacteria.
increase in energy consumption
The cultured meat, which some predict will be an acceptable substitute for the meat we know today, will be grown in sterile conditions and in an industrial manner outside the bodies of the animals and will reduce all those pollution factors involved in growing the meat. However, it also has a side that is not environmentally friendly - it is expected to increase the demand for energy due to the industrialization of the growing process. Therefore, it is no wonder that in the scientific world voices are heard here and there on the question of whether cultured meat is also green.
study conducted in Europe in 2011 compared the environmental impact of laboratory meat production with that of conventionally raised meat on the continent. The study found that meat grown in laboratory conditions requires much less land, water and energy use and also produces much less greenhouse gases - between 78 and 96 percent less. The researchers determined that energetically, the most expensive stage in the meat growing process is the culture stage, where the growth process of the muscle tissue takes place. This is a process that requires a continuous supply of fluids and nutrients to the cells, a role played by the circulatory system in animals. Despite the considerable energy cost, the full life cycle analysis of the various production methods, conventional and laboratory, showed that laboratory meat will significantly reduce the burden on the environment and allow the rehabilitation of the pastures and their return to their natural state.
But not everyone agrees with these assertions, and research carried out by researchers from the USA and published at the end of 2015 showed that energy consumption is actually expected to increase in laboratory meat production. The researchers claim that the replacement of natural biological systems - for example, the digestive system and the nutrient supply system - with industrial systems, which are less efficient, will increase energy requirements significantly.
Analogous to the industrial revolution, where machines replaced tasks performed by horses fed on straw, industrial laboratory meat production will replace biological processes in the animal body. Those processes that rely on biotic energy, which the animals receive through food, will be replaced by processes whose execution will require industrial energy derived from fuels - and these are still mostly polluting fuels that emit greenhouse gases.
A green future
Despite the controversies, all researchers acknowledge the element of "uncertainty" that accompanies their studies. The way in which the technology of the cultured meat industry will develop will determine how "green" it will be, and if it will succeed in reducing the burden on the environment. Also, the degree of environmental friendliness of the meat production process depends on a set of factors that are not directly related to the meat culture process, such as a transition to the production of renewable energies and the degree of recycling of the raw materials. Meanwhile, billions of cows, sheep and other animals that are used for food today will still wait for the day when the meat will not come from the slaughterhouse, but from a laboratory.
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As my healthy drinking grandmother would say
In it a person to death an animal to the slaughter is the way of the world he who can't eat don't eat don't despise
It is better to focus on creating plant-based meat substitutes. The older one has already been presented which received high tasting scores from another line of chefs (these are chefs who specialize in meat without a vegan point of view) who said that it does not fall short of real meat.
The product is still expensive but much less than cultured meat and the result is also better and it will be easy to reduce costs.
The secret was using genetically modified yeast to create the original flavors.
In my opinion, this is a much more promising research direction.
It is true that it will probably be difficult to simulate the texture of a piece of unprocessed meat, but even cultured meat is not close to such a thing. What's more, there is no guarantee that cultured meat will solve many of the problems of meat (besides the moral problem that should not be underestimated) such as environmental pollution and health. Meat that is grown in a laboratory will probably not be able to be without the use of antibiotics (it will be without an immune system and there is a limit to possible sterility) the same goes for hormones.
It should be noted that even today there are substitutes that are not bad at all, very tasty, much cheaper than meat and healthier. Although not the exact taste of meat.
In my opinion, the directions of this research are used by people to silence their conscience. As if that makes it more okay to continue to be part of the meat consumption because cultured meat will soon arrive. Or because there is still no perfect replacement.