From Above the Noise.
Is Lab-Grown Meat The Answer To Our Meat Eating Problems?
Gene Editing & CRISPR: How Far Should We Go?
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**What is lab-grown meat and how is it made?**
Instead of growing the entire animal, lab-grown meat allows you to only grow what you’re going to eat, and that happens with cells. You grab some cells from the animal through a tissue biopsy, and then you can isolate and separate out the specific cells that you want. Then, you immerse those cells in a nutrient broth and that gives them all the nourishment that they need to grow and survive. And they’re housed in what’s called the bioreactor. The bioreactor controls all of the environmental conditions to facilitate and promote their growth. So as the cells grow in the bioreactor, they get to larger and larger numbers, and you can achieve almost an infinite number of cells from this process. Then, you separate the cells from the broth and form into a 3D shape that looks similar to a cut of meat, and that is what you eat on your plate.
**What’s the point of growing meat in a lab**
We have a meat problem. We raise BILLIONS of animals every year, and for many of them, the conditions are pretty terrible. AND the whole process is a big contributor to climate change in 3 big ways. Number 1 is land use and carbon dioxide.The earth’s surface is mostly water, and only a fraction of the land can be used to grow food. And most of THAT land is either grazing land for animals or land used to grow food to FEED the animals. We’re actually cutting down forests to make MORE space so we can eat MORE meat. And that’s a problem, because trees capture CO2, which you probably know is a BIG contributor to climate change. So, the more we eat meat, the fewer trees grow, and more CO2 escapes into the atmosphere.
Number 2 is fresh water. Raising animals for meat takes a LOT of fresh water – and that’s a finite resource. That means we can run out. Pound-for-pound, raising meat takes a lot more water to grow than a non-meat source of protein like soy.
Number 3 is greenhouse gasses coming from the animals themselves. They’re constantly emitting carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide, both of which contribute to climate change. Cattle are the WORST, because, well, cow burps! Each year, a single cow will belch about 220 pounds of methane, which doesn’t stay in the atmosphere as long as CO2, but is WAY WORSE when it comes to warming the atmosphere.
SOURCES
6 Pressing Questions About Beef and Climate Change, Answered
https://www.wri.org/insights/6-pressing-questions-about-beef-and-climate-change-answered
Breakdown of global land use today
https://ourworldindata.org/land-use#
Fact check: How bad is eating meat for the climate?
https://www.dw.com/en/fact-check-is-eating-meat-bad-for-the-environment/a-63595148
Cultivated meat: Out of the lab, into the frying pan
https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/agriculture/our-insights/cultivated-meat-out-of-the-lab-into-the-frying-pan
Per capita red meat and poultry consumption
https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/gallery/chart-detail/?chartId=103767#:~:text=The%20latest%20USDA%20forecast%20indicates,per%20capita%20retail%20weight%20basis.
Beef: The “King” of the Big Water Footprints
Cows and climate change
https://www.ucdavis.edu/food/news/making-cattle-more-sustainable
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CHAPTERS
0:00 Intro
0:56 How Lab-Grown Meat Is Made
3:27 Cooking Lab-Grown Chicken
4:04 The State Of Lab-Grown Meat
4:47 How Traditional Meat Hurts The Environment
7:22 Lab-Grown Meat Isn’t Perfect
