Cultured Meat- the Meat of the Future?

I wanted to touch on a topic we haven't discussed in class that I think could make waves in the future: lab grown meat.

In 2013, the first lab-grown meat burger was created. It may not taste as good as the real thing (or as good as the Beyond Meat burger), but it is an advancement in food science that could help to alleviate some of the environmental effects caused by the meat production industry.  The first lab-grown meat burger cost $330,000, but cost-effective and tasty cultured meat could be in supermarkets sooner than you may think. One company called Perfect Day plans to have cow-free dairy products out at the end of the year, and another called Memphis Meats hopes to have their cultured meat products in the market within 5 years. If the trend continues, who will regulate this new food product?

According to an article by Gizmodo, "The meat industry is a huge contributor to humanity’s environmental footprint, accounting for some 18% of our total greenhouse gas emissions. And that number’s deceptively low, because it includes roughly 40% of methane and 65% of nitrous oxide emissions, which are respectively 23 and nearly 300 times more potent climate warming agents than carbon dioxide." And beyond arguments against global warming, livestock bred for meat consumption also take up a lot of arable land and consume massive amounts of grain: "livestock in the US consume more than 7 times as much grain as the American population."

Only time will tell if cultured meat will catch on enough to stimulate consumer demand. And if it does, let's hope it helps to lessen the environmental impact of the meat industry.



Sources: 
http://gizmodo.com/the-future-will-be-full-of-lab-grown-meat-1720874704
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/08/lab-grown-meat-inches-closer-us-market-industry-wonders-who-will-regulate