Does the term cultured meat ring a bell? Do you know what exactly is it and what are the advantages of it? Well, cultured meat is actually meat that is grown in a laboratory. It all started in 2013 with the first lab grown burger being introduced to the world priced exorbitantly at $330,000!! Yes, insane amount of money for a burger! There are many arguments presented in the favour of this concept, the biggest being sustainability.
It is to be noted that the meat industry has a huge carbon footprint accounting for some 18% of our total greenhouse gas emissions. According to FAO, “The environmental impact per unit livestock must be cut by half, just to avoid increasing the level of damage beyond its present level.” And not only this, animal agriculture is soaking up an enormous portion of our arable land, drinkable water, edible food and combustible fossil fuel resources so much so that a study reveals that livestock in the US consumes more than seven times as much grain as the American population- enough grain to feed almost 840 million people. In addition to this, roughly 25 kilocalories of fossil fuel energy are consumed for every 1 kilocalorie of meat protein produced, compared with a 2.2:1 ratio for corn. And producing 1 kg of animal protein requires 100 times more water than 1 kg of grain protein. Also, as per Shier Freidman, co-founder of the pro-cultured meat Modern Agriculture Foundation, “When we’re raising animals, a very large amount is being discarded: The bones, fur, eyeballs and organs. What we’re doing is wasting resources to produce stuff that we don’t get back. With cultured meat, you grow exactly what you want, and you barely throw anything away.” So the concept and idea of cultured meat is to save us resources and reduce the environmental footprint of the meat industry.
Though the dream of cultured meat is big and has a good intention backing it but still it has to overcome many scientific and engineering challenges like the flavour of cultured meat, eliminating the use of animal products to eliminate the chances of contamination, boosting iron content in a cultured beef, removing completely the use of antibiotics in producing cultured meat and last but not the least the cleanliness angle. Trials are going around the world to produce cultured beef, cultured chicken, cultured sea food, etc, but time is the essence of this new concept. The concept still has a long way to go but researchers are making firm strides in this direction. Good for us and good for Mother Earth!
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Author:Technology Blog
