Dataset Information

Culture, meat, and cultured meat.

ABSTRACT: Cultured meat grown in vitro from animal cells has the potential to address many of the ethical, environmental, and public health issues associated with conventional meat production. However, as well as overcoming technical challenges to producing cultured meat, producers and advocates of the technology must consider a range of social issues, including consumer appeal and acceptance, media coverage, religious status, regulation, and potential economic impacts. Whilst much has been written on the prospects for consumer appeal and acceptance of cultured meat, less consideration has been given to the other aspects of the social world that will interact with this new technology. Here, each of these issues is considered in turn, forming a view of cultured meat as a technology with a diverse set of societal considerations and far-reaching social implications. It is argued that the potential gains from a transition to cultured meat are vast, but that cultural phenomena and institutions must be navigated carefully for this nascent industry to meet its potential.

SUBMITTER: Bryant CJ

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7398566 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Culture, meat, and cultured meat.

Bryant Christopher J CJ

Journal of animal science 20200801 8

Cultured meat grown in vitro from animal cells has the potential to address many of the ethical, environmental, and public health issues associated with conventional meat production. However, as well as overcoming technical challenges to producing cultured meat, producers and advocates of the technology must consider a range of social issues, including consumer appeal and acceptance, media coverage, religious status, regulation, and potential economic impacts. Whilst much has been written on the ...[more]

PMID: 32745186

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Project description:Due to the considerable environmental impact and the controversial animal welfare associated with industrial meat production, combined with the ever-increasing global population and demand for meat products, sustainable production alternatives are indispensable. In 2013, the world's first laboratory grown hamburger made from cultured muscle cells was developed. However, coming at a price of $300.000, and being produced manually, substantial effort is still required to reach sustainable large-scale production. One of the main challenges is scalability. Microcarriers (MCs), offering a large surface/volume ratio, are the most promising candidates for upscaling muscle cell culture. However, although many MCs have been developed for cell lines and stem cells typically used in the medical field, none have been specifically developed for muscle stem cells and meat production. This paper aims to discuss the MCs' design criteria for skeletal muscle cell proliferation and subsequently for meat production based on three scenarios: (1) MCs are serving only as a temporary substrate for cell attachment and proliferation and therefore they need to be separated from the cells at some stage of the bioprocess, (2) MCs serve as a temporary substrate for cell proliferation but are degraded or dissolved during the bioprocess, and (3) MCs are embedded in the final product and therefore need to be edible. The particularities of each of these three bioprocesses will be discussed from the perspective of MCs as well as the feasibility of a one-step bioprocess. Each scenario presents advantages and drawbacks, which are discussed in detail, nevertheless the third scenario appears to be the most promising one for a production process. Indeed, using an edible material can limit or completely eliminate dissociation/degradation/separation steps and even promote organoleptic qualities when embedded in the final product. Edible microcarriers could also be used as a temporary substrate similarly to scenarios 1 and 2, which would limit the risk of non-edible residues.

Project description:To satisfy the increasing demand for food by the growing human population, cultured meat (also called in vitro, artificial or lab-grown meat) is presented by its advocates as a good alternative for consumers who want to be more responsible but do not wish to change their diet. This review aims to update the current knowledge on this subject by focusing on recent publications and issues not well described previously. The main conclusion is that no major advances were observed despite many new publications. Indeed, in terms of technical issues, research is still required to optimize cell culture methodology. It is also almost impossible to reproduce the diversity of meats derived from various species, breeds and cuts. Although these are not yet known, we speculated on the potential health benefits and drawbacks of cultured meat. Unlike conventional meat, cultured muscle cells may be safer, without any adjacent digestive organs. On the other hand, with this high level of cell multiplication, some dysregulation is likely as happens in cancer cells. Likewise, the control of its nutritional composition is still unclear, especially for micronutrients and iron. Regarding environmental issues, the potential advantages of cultured meat for greenhouse gas emissions are a matter of controversy, although less land will be used compared to livestock, ruminants in particular. However, more criteria need to be taken into account for a comparison with current meat production. Cultured meat will have to compete with other meat substitutes, especially plant-based alternatives. Consumer acceptance will be strongly influenced by many factors and consumers seem to dislike unnatural food. Ethically, cultured meat aims to use considerably fewer animals than conventional livestock farming. However, some animals will still have to be reared to harvest cells for the production of in vitro meat. Finally, we discussed in this review the nebulous status of cultured meat from a religious point of view. Indeed, religious authorities are still debating the question of whether in vitro meat is Kosher or Halal (e.g., compliant with Jewish or Islamic dietary laws).

Project description:Improved greenhouse gas (GHG) emission efficiency of production has been proposed as one of the biggest potential advantages of cultured meat over conventional livestock production systems. Comparisons with beef are typically highlighted, as it is a highly emissions intensive food product. In this study we present a more rigorous comparison of the potential climate impacts of cultured meat and cattle production than has previously been made. Warming impacts are evaluated using a simple climate model that simulates the different behaviours of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O), rather than relying on carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) metrics. We compare the temperature impact of beef cattle and cultured meat production at all times to 1000 years in the future, using four synthetic meat GHG footprints currently available in the literature and three different beef production systems studied in an earlier climate modelling paper. Cattle systems are associated with the production of all three GHGs above, including significant emissions of CH4, while cultured meat emissions are almost entirely CO2 from energy generation. Under continuous high global consumption, cultured meat results in less warming than cattle initially, but this gap narrows in the long term and in some cases cattle production causes far less warming, as CH4 emissions do not accumulate, unlike CO2. We then model a decline in meat consumption to more sustainable levels following high consumption, and show that although cattle systems generally result in greater peak warming than cultured meat, the warming effect declines and stabilises under the new emission rates of cattle systems, while the CO2 based warming from cultured meat persists and accumulates even under reduced consumption, again overtaking cattle production in some scenarios. We conclude that cultured meat is not prima facie climatically superior to cattle production; its relative impact instead depends on the availability of decarbonised energy generation and the specific production systems that are realised.

Dataset Information

Culture, meat, and cultured meat.

Publications

Culture, meat, and cultured meat.

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