In this blog post, I will be discussing an emerging technology with proposed benefits to the food industry, human health in relation to meat consumption and future sustainability. ‘Meatless Meats’, a possible alternative for the ‘$90B global meat market‘ (CB-Insights 2017, Heading) sourced from livestock, are now being researched and invested-in by large meat companies themselves.
But what exactly are ‘Meatless Meats’?
Let’s begin with Tofu and idea of meat alternatives, Tofu is originally from China and was invented during the Han Dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE) (DuBois et al. 2008, p. 102), tofu is a food made by processing and fermenting soybeans. From a very early time, the Chinese conceptualized Tofu as a ‘meat analogue‘ (‘Meat analogue’ 2018) and even today it is one of the most popular and accessible substitutes for meat.
But while this is a substitute for meat or a ‘meat analogue’ among many others like Tempeh and Falafel, these substitutes to meat are not comprised of any sort of animal products and are instead grown from plant cells. True ‘Meatless Meats’ are meats that have been grown in a lab environment from stem cells and are not really regarded as a vegan option.
And now that we have that difference cleared up, let’s break down the actual process of producing ‘Meatless Meats’, or as they are sometimes called; ‘Lab-grown Meats’:
According to this article about In Vitro (meaning ‘in the glass/petri dish’) meat production by Science Focus,
‘The science behind growing meat without animals is fairly simple…
…The process starts with a few ‘satellite’ cells, which can be obtained from a small sample of muscle taken from a live animal. These are stem cells that can turn into the different cells found in muscle. Just one cell could, in theory, be used to grow an infinite amount of meat. When fed a nutrient-rich serum, the cells turn into muscle cells and proliferate, doubling in number roughly every few days.
After the cells have multiplied, they are encouraged to form strips, much like how muscle cells form fibres in living tissue. These fibres are attached to a sponge-like scaffold that floods the fibres with nutrients and mechanically stretches them, ‘exercising’ the muscle cells to increase their size and protein content. The resulting tissue can then be harvested, seasoned, cooked and consumed as boneless processed meat.’ (Science Focus 2017, Paras. 9-11).
How does this process support my claims of industry, health and sustainability benefit though?
Well, ‘Meatless Meats’ absolutely fit the bill for being a disruptive technology according to Paul Armstrong’s second argument (and apparently ‘key criterion’) for classifying a technology as disruptive (2017, p. 12); ‘transformative ability or how much of an old thing a new thing changes’ . In terms of industry, the development and eventual commercial emergence of ‘Meatless Meats’ will disrupt the practice of raising livestock for human consumption that has fed the world population for over 15,000 years. This could result in an enormous change in the global meat-market as meat companies either suffer at the hands of a somewhat greener alternative to meat consumption or become investors in lab-grown alternatives.
As for the health benefits, the process above explains how lab-grown meat is stretched and ‘exercised’ to produce larger cell size and higher protein content. This technique and the ability for ‘protein synthesis in cultured muscle cells [to] be enhanced by different combinations of ingredients in various conditions to improve the nutritional quality of cultured meat’ (Arshad, M 2017, Intro. Para. 2) would allow scientists to manipulate meat cultures into producing ideal meat in terms of appearance, taste, texture and nutrition. These are very important factors in replacing the demand for livestock, whereby people can no longer argue that alternatives to meat, such as vegetarian substitutes, are just ‘not the same’ as meat.
Overall however, it is the sustainability that ‘Meatless meats’ can promise which make them most attractive to the environmentally-conscious consumer. Currently, Livestock and livestock buildings are a major source of atmospheric pollutants that contribute to soil acidification and global warming (Gold 2004) and it is common knowledge that resources used by livestock such as water and territory have contributed to great environmental damage. And according to a report by the Sutardja center, ‘meat production will be unsustainable by 2050’ (Joshi, I et al. 2015). However, there is something we can do about this current problem and foreseeable dystopian reality:
According to Hampton Creek CEO Josh Tetrick, lab-grown meat and seafood can be produced (by his company) with over ’10x more efficiency than the world’s highest volume slaughter-house’ with a ‘fraction of the greenhouse gas emissions and water use’.
Sound promising?
References:
CBInsights 2017, Our Meatless Future: How the $90B Global Meat Market Gets Disrupted, CBInsights, retrieved 25 April 2018 <https://www.cbinsights.com/research/future-of-meat-industrial-farming/>.
Dubois, Christine, T & Chee-Beng, M 2008, The World of Soy, NUS Press.
‘Meat analogue’ 2018, Wikipedia the Free Encyclopedia, 4 April, retrieved 25 April 2018, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meat_analogue>.
Science Focus 2017, The artificial meat factory – the science of your synthetic supper, Science Focus, retrieved 25 April 2018, <http://www.sciencefocus.com/article/future/artificial-meat-factory>.
Armstrong, P 2017, Disruptive Technologies: Understand, Evaluate, Respond, Kogan Page, retrieved 25 April 2018, <https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.ezproxy-b.deakin.edu.au/lib/deakin/reader.action?docID=4850488&ppg=22>.
Arshad, M, Javed, M, Sohaib, M, Saeed, F, Imran, A, Amjad, Z & Yildiz, F 2017, Tissue engineering approaches to develop cultured meat from cells: A mini review,Cogent Food & Agriculture, vol. 3, no. 1, retrieved 25 April 2018, Taylor and Francis Online.
Gold, M 2004, The Global Benefits of Eating Less Meat, retrieved 25 April 2018, <https://www.ciwf.org.uk/media/3817742/global-benefits-of-eating-less-meat.pdf>
Joshi, I, Param, S, Irene & Gadre, M 2015, Saving the Planet The Market for Sustainable Meat Alternatives, retrieved 25 April 2018, <http://scet.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/CopyofFINALSavingThePlanetSustainableMeatAlternatives.pdf>
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