You may see lab-grown chicken meat in stores or restaurants sooner than you guessed. The USDA has given the green light to two American producers to bring their lab-grown meat products to market. The same federal agency who classifies French fries as “fresh vegetables” is finding “no questions” about the lab meat producers’ own claims about its GMO proteins being safe for human consumption.
While the two culture-cell meat companies, UPSIDE Foods and GOOD Meat produce chicken, other start-up companies are preparing to manufacture and sell cultivated pork, beef, lamb, and seafood from animal cells. The idea has drawn billions in investment money, attracting financing from Bill Gates, Whole Foods founder John Mackey, and Richard Branson.
Cultured-cell, or cultivated, or lab-meat (for lack of a more palatable term) is harvested in steel bioreactors from animal stem cells that are fed a combination of oxygen, vitamins, sugars, and fats. The added fats will ensure you don’t miss out on that juicy burger flavor, however, since lab-meat alternatives contain no animal fats, detrimental seed oils that are packed with linoleic acid will be used as the fat source. Excessive consumption of linoleic acid in the American diet is already a proven driver of chronic disease, and cultivated meats will only exacerbate the situation.
While greenhouse emissions serve as the backbone of reasoning for lab-meat, a study published in 2020 by the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future determined that cultivated meat produces five to 21 times more emissions than plant proteins like peas and tofu.
A final hurdle before hitting shelves, regulators are now contemplating how to label the product. Groups representing American farmers have been lobbying the USDA to accurately brand culture-cell meats as separate from their own pasture raised cows.
“All I’m asking is that it be clearly identified because there’s going to be a difference when that consumer eats that product,” said Todd Wilkinson, president of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. “And my product doesn’t have to be genetically engineered.”
Wilkinson wants the USDA to require products from UPSIDE and GOOD to bear the markers “cultured meat” or “lab grown.”
“Something that just stands out and lets the consumer know what they’re eating,” he said.
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