Finally, the approval of the United States government has arrived which in the figure of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will allow Californian Upside Foods to produce and market cultivated meat, in the safe, certified, and ultra-controlled environment of a laboratory. The pluses will be enormous both for the environment and for human and animal health.
First of all, it will be real animal meat, without imaginative genetic-chemical alterations, as the consumer will surely be led to imagine. Indeed, this is meat that, thanks to technology, can be enriched with highly assimilable amino acids, vitamins, essential fats, and bioactive compounds (Journal of Scientific Research).
It is very likely that meat produced in this way will be healthier in the long run as well. Thanks to the practically zero use of antibiotics, in a safe environment, without unexpected bacterial contamination, it will not have any surprising effects on digestion and human health. Cultured meat will eliminate saturated fat and cholesterol with all the associated benefits for heart disease.
Food must be more sustainable.
It is no longer possible to ignore it. World meat production is responsible for nearly a third of all gases that cause global warming. Not only. Farms exploit almost 70% of freshwater reserves and occupy more than half of the habitable land. Not to mention the necessary transport with related methane and carbon dioxide emissions and the continuously produced waste stream. Scary numbers have not been ignored in the COP27 climate talks in Egypt and will require the adoption of important new food measures. Between these will be the cultivated meat.
All without any slaughter or animal suffering.
How is cultivated meat produced?
This form of production takes its cue from growing human tissue in a laboratory for medical repairs and regenerative operations. Scientists take tiny pieces of tissue via biopsy, isolating cells from eggs or meat traditionally grown on high-quality farms.
In the second step, all the nutrients these cells will consume as if they were cells in a living body are identified. These nutrients are fed into a bioreactor where the cells will grow safely. It is a production that has already been tried and tested in the production of drugs and therapies. Within two weeks the cells will take on the desired shape.
It is therefore not a vegan food, as in any case the animal origin is preserved.
Go beyond prejudice.
Many governments could hinder the spread of a 100% good, healthy, and eco-sustainable product. The reasons are simple: economic, sure, but also prejudice.
For these reasons, the appropriate commercial terminology will be essential to have the best impact on the product, which will be marketed as cultivated meat and not mistakenly as “laboratory meat”.
The Space Biotechnology course of the School of Disruption explored the theme of the disruptive importance of biotechnological innovations as cultivated meat. Space exploration is the new frontier for human beings, which is generating countless business and job opportunities. Biotechnology is the solution needed to meet all of the needs of long-term space missions, address the challenges of life in space and on other planets, and ultimately turn science fiction into science fact.
To deepen the topic:
