Read more at Clean Meat Hoax Articles
Energy and resource requirements of synthesizing flesh in high-technology laboratories are still far higher than for plant-based food products.
One of the vaunted selling points of laboratory or cellular meats is that
they are more ecologically sustainable than meats obtained from the flesh of
slaughtered animals. However, this may not be true: at least one report has
"found that in some circumstance and over the very long term, the
manufacture of lab meat can result in more warming" than meat from living
animals.1 Even under the most optimistic, best-case projections of the
Clean Meat lobby, the energy and resource requirements of synthesizing flesh
in high-technology laboratories are still far higher than for plant-based
food products. “Lab meat doesn’t solve anything from an environmental
perspective, since the energy emissions are so high," according to Marco
Springmann, a senior environmental researcher at the University of
Oxford.2 Then why is the lab meat lobby misleading the public into
believing that laboratory meats represent "the solution" to the problems of
animal agriculture?
The main problem with pitching "clean" meat as an ecologically sustainable
alternative to conventional meat--without any ethical critique of the
violence inherent in the latter--is that it makes the cellular meat industry
itself vulnerable to counter-claims that animal agriculture can be made just
as sustainable (or more so) than lab-grown meats. We are already seeing
animal agribusiness make just such claims.3
Sustainability concerns aside, it is even unclear whether this new
technology can be rendered safe. A recent analysis by senior researchers at
the Center for Food Safety raises unsettling questions about an untried and
untested technology based on growing living animal tissue in giant vats:
"Candidate topics for research include the safety of ingesting rapidly
growing genetically-modified cell lines, as these lines exhibit the
characteristics of a cancerous cell which include overgrowth of cells not
attributed to the original characteristics of a population of cultured
primary cells. If lab-cultured 'meat' enters the market, there are several
human health concerns associated with this new production method,
specifically that these genetically-modified cell lines could exhibit the
characteristics of a cancerous cell."4
Unethical Research and Development
Finally, in addition to making exaggerated claims of ecological
sustainability and health, the cellular meat industry has been involved in
dubious ethical practices, particularly around the use of Fetal Bovine Serum
(BFS), which in some cases is still being used as a growth medium for
cellular meat R&D. As Madison Suseland observes, the process for extracting
this highly valued commercial product is grotesque and cruel:
"...[I]f a cow is found to be pregnant when she reaches the slaughter house, her unborn fetus can be removed, which automatically begins the process of asphyxiation and slowly kills the fetus. As it is dying, a needle is inserted into the fetus’ heart to extract the blood, which is then made into FBS. To be eligible for this procedure, the fetus must be at least 3 months old in order for their heart to be strong enough to puncture. This removal process is undoubtedly painful for the slowly dying fetus and is labeled as animal cruelty by many who are aware of the proceedings."5
The fact that companies developing cellular technologies have thought nothing of using such an unethically-derived animal commodity as BFS raises troubling questions about how or indeed whether such companies may be held morally accountable for their products in future.
Notes
Number of animals killed in the world by the fishing, meat, dairy and egg industries, since you opened this webpage.
0 marine animals
0 chickens
0 ducks
0 pigs
0 rabbits
0 turkeys
0 geese
0 sheep
0 goats
0 cows / calves
0 rodents
0 pigeons/other birds
0 buffaloes
0 dogs
0 cats
0 horses
0 donkeys and mules
0 camels / camelids