This month, our communications dietitian Sylvia Black wrote a summary on cell-based agriculture for the blog. There are a ton of possibilities for the future of agriculture in a changing climate, each with their own trade-offs. We don’t usually report on supply-side food solutions to climate change, because we’re dietitians and not farmers, agricultural scientists, or economists. That said, we’ve been tracking the technological and legal developments of cell-based meat because of its huge potential for addressing the environmental impacts of livestock farming. This one is worth knowing about as a dietitian or anyone working on sustainable food. Thanks Sylvia!
As climate-focused dietitians, we talk a lot about the importance of reducing the consumption of animal products due to their high carbon footprints. But in the future, there could be an alternative: cell-based agriculture.
Essentially, this refers to a set of technologies used to produce animal products without actually raising the animal (1). For example, in the case of meat, a sample of cells is taken from a live animal and then grown in a nutrient medium. At the cellular level, the finished product is meat, but – in theory, at least – without any of the negative environmental or ethical consequences. Meat also isn’t the only possible end-product. For example, genetically engineered microorganisms can be used to make products like dairy milk, in a process that bears some similarities to brewing beer (1). Cultured dairy isn’t yet on the market anywhere in the world, but a handful of companies making cultured meat have been given approval to bring their products to market in two countries: the United States and Singapore (2). However, it’s still a long way to go before this method of producing meat becomes the new norm (if it ever does). In this post, we’ll talk about some of the pros and cons of the technology.
The Benefits
The potential benefits of cellular agriculture are big enough to easily make this technology worth exploring. Animal-based foods made in a lab rather than on a farm could potentially reduce:
• Greenhouse gas emissions
• Land, water, and resource use and pollution
• Antibiotic overuse (and by extension, antibiotic resistance)
• The likelihood of future pandemics originating from animal hosts (by reducing human-animal contact)
As well, cultured meat could be produced with altered nutritional profiles, potentially benefitting public health and lowering chronic disease rates (1). And all that is without even mentioning the huge benefits for animal welfare.
The Barriers
One of the biggest barriers facing these products right now is cost. Cultured meat today costs orders of magnitude more to produce than its conventional counterpart (2). Further research and technical advances could reasonably be expected to reduce the cost, but it’s an open question whether it will ever be competitive with conventional meat (2). If not, it risks becoming, at best, a luxury item for the ethically-minded elite. Public perception is another significant concern. The huge public backlash against GMOs could be repeated when it comes to cultured meat, which many people regard as “weird” and potentially unsafe (3). However, a significant proportion of people do say they’re open to trying these products, with younger generations seemingly more open than older ones (4). Terminology also matters: people feel more positively about “cultured” or “clean” meat compared to “lab-grown” or “artificial” (2). In the end, however, convincing people to eat these products will only be beneficial if this type of meat can deliver on its promises. And that brings us to one of the lesser-known challenges facing cellular agriculture companies today: the large carbon footprint of their products under current production conditions.
One of the main reasons for this is the use of highly refined or purified nutrient mediums to help the cells grow. This type of medium is similar to what’s used to make pharmaceuticals, and is very resource-intensive to produce (5). How resource-intensive? Researchers from UC Davis estimate that beef made using this method would have a global warming potential anywhere from four to twenty-five times more than conventional beef (5). Theoretically, cultured meat could be made using food-grade rather than pharmaceutical-grade ingredients, which could bring the global warming potential down to as much as 80% less than conventional beef. However, the technology isn’t there yet to produce cultured meat in this way.
So what can we take away from all this? Cultured meat may well have a big role to play in the future, if it can overcome technical and financial barriers, and market itself successfully. In the meantime, however, reducing the consumption of animal products (along with reducing food waste) is still the best way to reduce the carbon footprint of the average person’s diet.
Sources & Further Reading:
1. Mugabe, Deus & Laura Hanley. Cellular agriculture: An introduction to a much-discussed approach to food production. Arrell Food Institute.
2. Jones, Nicola. Lab-grown meat: the science of turning cells into steaks and nuggets. Nature (July 4 2023).
3. Stober, Eric. Would you eat lab-grown meat? How meat made from cells is picking up steam. Global News (June 28, 2023).
4. Szejda, Keri, Christopher J. Bryant & Tessa Urbanovich. US and UK Consumer Adoption of Cultivated Meat: A Segmentation Study. Foods (May 11, 2021).
5. Quinton, Amy. Lab-Grown Meat’s Carbon Footprint Potentially Worse Than Retail Beef. UC Davis (May 22 2023).