Happy New Year everyone! This time, I want to continue on the topic of cultured meat. Livestock is the biggest contributor to environmental damage in the agricultural sector. It takes up 30% of global ice-free land and produces 18% of global greenhouse gases (FAO, 2006). As the world's population is estimated to increase to 9 billion by 2050 and many nations are becoming wealthier, demand for meat is going to rise inevitably. Unless we manage to reduce meat consumption through individual diets, there is an immediate need to change how meat is produced. But even if diets change and the world becomes less meat hungry, total elimination of meat consumption is unrealistic and alternatives for conventional production should be considered. An interesting alternative, which is still in the research stage, is cultured meat. This is meat that has never been part of a living animal and is produced through tissue growth by adding protein to initial muscle cells. It is meat production without the animal, also referred to as vertical farming.
(Source: http://www.new-harvest.org)
Tuomisto and Mattos (2011) have compared the production process of in vitro meat to the conventional method and the results are impressive. Cultured meat emits significantly less greenhouse gases: the energy use in in vitro production can be up to 45% lower while greenhouse emissions are reduced by 78-96%. On top of that, due to the fact that meat will be produced in laboratories cultured meat is less land intensive with 99% (!) lower land use than with conventional meat production. Tumisto and Mattos also point out that most of the emissions released during in vitro production are related to fuel and electricity, emissions could be further reduced if using renewable energy. In contrast to in vitro production, conventional meat industry has little chance of cutting its emissions because most emissions (57% if 100 years global warming potential is used) are due to methane release by cows (Tuomisto and Mattos, 2011). Below is a graph showing the comparison of primary energy input, greenhouse emissions, land use and water of in vitro meat with conventionally produced meat:
(Source: Tuomisto and Mattos (2011)
An additional benefit of cultured meat production can be cutting down in transport, as production sites can be located closer to demand. This will reduce the emission toll on meat production dramatically. Alongside reduced transportation, refrigeration needs can be reduced as in vitro meat is free from excess bones, fat and other parts that are discarded during meat production. Cultured meat would also eliminate unwanted waste occurring production, not to mention the fact that all the feed that is currently grown for feeding our livestock could be used for human consumption. In vitro meat production seems to address all the harmful environmental impacts that follow today's conventional meat industry. But in reality, cultured meat is still unrealistically expensive and public acceptance is a problem still to overcome. In order to commercialise lab-grown meat, a further estimated $ 160 million is needed to invest in research and further efforts are needed to tackle the public opinion about the so called 'zombified' food (Tuomisto and Mattos, 2011).
Beyond the environmental benefits that may yield with commercialising cultured meat, human health may also benefit. It is argued that cultured meat can prevent the spread of animal-borne diseases by reducing human-animal contact and since tissue engineering is able to control the quality and quantity of fat, nutrition-based diseases can be eliminated as well (Tuomisto and Roy, 2012). Lab-grown meat will be free from ethical issues relating to animal rights but may be tainted with other concerns about its 'unnatural' way of production. This comes down to a matter of value judgement but as any unconventional approach, in vitro meat remains highly controversial in public opinion.
(Source: http://www.new-harvest.org)
In my opinion, cultured meat shows great potential and a possibility of replacing our conventional, energy intensive and emission rich way of meat production with a sustainable, clean, waste-free and animal friendly one. Cultured meat is becoming hugely popular in various fields of science and technology. The interest around it predicts its future to be promising and as research advances, I believe that sooner or later, cultured meat will find its way onto our plates.
Here are some interesting (and crazy) news about in vitro meat:
Till next time,
Laura
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