It sounds like Science Fiction? Growing meat without animals. However, this is not some Sci Fi movie. It is real. Scientists have figured out how to grow tiny nuggets of lab meat and say it will one day be possible to produce steaks in vats, without any livestock. Essentially, meat would be created by in an in vitro process. It is argued that meat cultivated in labs could eliminate contamination problems that regularly generate noteworthy news. In addition, creating meat in a test tube also addresses environmental concerns that come with industrial livestock farms.
How is artificial meat made?
Meat that is grown artificially depends on stem cells, and specifically satellite cells, which are the muscle stem cells that help repair and regenerate muscle tissue.
These stem cells are special in that they have potential to develop into many different cell types. When a stem cell divides, it either becomes another type of cell, such as a muscle cell or brain cell, or it remains a stem cell. Further, these cells act as an internal repair system in many types of tissues, dividing a seemingly infinite number of times to replenish other cells.
TIME magazine featured a great explanation of how these cells can also be used to grow artificial meat:
“Scientists biopsy stem or satellite muscle cells from a livestock animal, such as a chicken, cow or pig. The cells are then placed in a nutrient-rich medium where they divide and multiply, and are then attached to a scaffolding structure and put in a bioreactor to grow.
In order to achieve the texture of natural muscle, the cells must be physically stretched and flexed, or exercised, regularly. After several weeks, voila, you have a thin layer of muscle tissue that can be harvested and processed into ground beef, chicken or pork, depending on the origin of the cells.
However, even though this technology has not been perfected yet, it gives us reason to pause. It is imperative for us to stop and think about what we are doing to our food today and how it affects our health. Technology has its role, but this has gone too far. As a culture, we have seen too many detrimental health consequences of eating Frankenfoods.
What are the Risks?
- High tech foods have turned out to be health disasters- For example, think about Olestra, GMO’s, artifically sweetened foods, irradiated foods, cloned meat.
- Animal suffering reduced because there is no killing of livestock.
- Dramatically cuts down on food-borne ailments such as mad cow disease and salmonella or germs such as swine flu, by monitoring the growth of meat in labs.
- Livestock currently take up 70 percent of all agricultural land, corresponding to 30 percent of the world’s land surface, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. Labs would presumably require much less space.
- Livestock generate 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, more than all of the vehicles on Earth, the FAO added. Since the animals themselves are mostly responsible for these gases, reducing livestock numbers could help alleviate global warming.
It behooves us to think about whether this artificial meat will provide the same nutrients as naturally raised meat and have the same effects on your body as a natural piece of meat — or that it will be completely free from some sort of side effects. It is time for big industry to stop playing nutritional roulette with our health. Please share your thoughts with me on this. I would love to hear your point of view.
To read more about this, click on the links below:
Mad Science: Growing Meat without Animals
