Looks like only available in one restaurant for now, but it’s a start.
“For one thing, cultivated meat is not vegan or vegetarian.” -> I know some vegans who would disagree with that, on the grounds that no animal cruelty or slaughter is involved. I suspect there will be a fair bit of debate on this as cultivated meat becomes more widespread. I would guess just like we’ve already got “I’m a vegetarian who eats fish” we’ll end up with “I’m a vegan who does/doesn’t eat cultivated meat.”
You might want to cross-post this to !food too.
I know some vegans who would disagree with that
I definitely would!
Usually, the reason people go vegan is to try to reduce (hopefully eliminate) animal suffering, and/or to reduce green house gas emissions from animal farming.
Cultivated meat deals with the first, and, depending on how it’s produced, can probably entirely avoid the second as well.
I don’t know the process in detail, but I would also imagine that cultivated meat is no more sourced from animals than a plant that was fertilized with animal dung, and that would still be considered vegan.
There are some analyses out there that suggest cultivated meat will actually be worse for the climate than animals - for example https://www.ucdavis.edu/food/news/lab-grown-meat-carbon-footprint-worse-beef
Of course the cultivated meat startups disagree: https://www.npr.org/2022/11/21/1138371310/a-taste-of-lab-grown-meat
I was going to say, all the articles and science I saw on lab meat previously had it consuming far, far less resources than the traditional beef industry. Definitely going to read more about it but I’m still team lab meat for now.
Even if cultivated meat was initially bad for the environment, I’d guess that it would be easy to minimize it’s environmental impact versus traditional meat. There’s only so much you can do to stop cows from belching CO2. However, a factory making vats of cultured meat could install pollution controls to reduce their emissions.
I’d definitely like to see peer reviewed studies backing everything up, but my guess is that cultivated meat will on par with or be better for the environment than traditional meat and will only get better.
Yeah so far it seems to be battling experts. UC Davis is a big agriculture/animal science school. On the other hand I don’t trust the lab meat industry’s own experts either. Hoping at some point to see a credible neutral analysis.
That was an interesting read, thanks for the link!
But yeah, I had no idea it was so much worse for the environment. But it seems there’s still the possibility it will be better one day, so I hope for the best. I guess in the meantime I’ll stick with plant-based foods.
You should check out issues brought up about this article by other comments since yours.
Oh, I did see some of them later, but thank you for the heads-up!
I noticed it wasn’t peer-reviewed, but when they mentioned the process and I started to imagine all it must take to cultivate meat in a lab, it started to seem that it could be a lot worse for the environment than I had really considered, and it didn’t seem implausible that it could be worse than farmed meat.
Either way, at this point I would be willing to bet it definitely isn’t as sustainable as just eating plant based food, so I’d rather stick with that for now; I’m accustomed to it already anyway.
They biopsy live animals to get the cells to grow meat, so I am sure many vegans will object – but the labs theoretically never need to get more cells. The question becomes whether they do or not and how the source livestock is treated. Do they just sell the source animals to a slaughterhouse? Or do they donate them to a petting zoo? They are unlikely to tell the public.
I noticed the post’s link is PR from the Upside company website. GOOD Meat is another provider. Here is an NPR link with a bit less sensationalism: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/06/21/1183484892/no-kill-meat-grown-from-animal-cells-is-now-approved-for-sale-in-the-u-s
I know they biopsy animals to get the cells, but I just assume it’s a one and done thing since there’s no need to go back; or at least just once for each company working on it. If it’s more than that, it would completely defeat the purpose and probably not be worth it for them.
Not perfect, but assuming they only do it the one time with an animal that was already likely to be slaughtered, I think I’d still consider it vegan.
Either way, I’ll probably still stick more plant based. Even if lab meat is better for the environment than farm meat, it still needs to be “fed” and so will probably always take more resources than plant based to be produced.
I’m not vegan, but I do keep Kosher and I’m sure there would be a huge debate in the Jewish community as to whether cultured meat was kosher.
Assuming that the animal that the original cells were taken from was Kosher (e.g. a chicken or a cow, not a pig), then would the cultured meat be Kosher? Would it not need to follow usual processes (specific slaughter techniques, salting and soaking the meat to remove blood, etc) if there was no animal/blood?
As cultured meat takes hold, there are going to be a lot of communities trying to take it into account. I’m sure there will be plenty of arguments as to the status of it as well. It should be interesting.
Looks like it’s already under discussion (not surprising given that some of the cultured meat companies are in Israel: https://time.com/6251154/lab-grown-meat-kosher-israel-rabbi/ https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/2293219/jewish/Is-Lab-Grown-Meat-Kosher.htm
I remember reading about cultivated meat using fetal bovine serum, so I’m wondering if Upside managed to take out a reliance on livestock for its process
There is no real way to scale production without eliminating fetal bovine serum.
People are posting sources saying that most companies have been serum free for a few years now.
Ex. https://twitter.com/elliotswartz/status/1483433664616669184?s=21
It’s pretty typical for a new product’s development to be inefficient until the processes are scaled, I wouldn’t read into it too much at the moment. Process improvements are happening at a ridiculously quick rate in this field; we’re talking on a weekly to monthly basis.
Keep in mind, too, that animal ag has a lot more money behind it than these folks, and similar to the oil companies they’re going to be spending buckets to slow the transition.
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as an omnivore dating a vegetarian who doesn’t eat meat for ethical reasons i am so, so excited!!!
This is super exciting! Been waiting a long time for this
I am very curious what price they can get this to. If traditional chicken breast is $11 a pound and this is $20, it’s going to be rough. If it’s around the same or cheaper, it could do very well!
I’m sure that it will initially cost a premium, before coming down in price as the technology matures. I’m also curious about the relative environmental impact that cultivated meat has versus raising livestock.
ETA: I found a study regarding cultured meat’s environmental impact: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/es200130u
According to this study, cultured meat is 7-45% more energy efficient, emits 78-96% less CO2, requires 82-96% less water, and occupies 99% less land than raising livestock.
Dang, I figured CO2 emissions would be much better than traditional livestock but I wouldn’t have guessed that much better.
I was wondering that too. It sounds like a promising technology.
Thanks for this great info
Are these estimates at scale?
for fast-food purposes, the plant-based meats (Impossible, Beyond Meat) were generally able to get in the door at parity with alternatives from what i can tell. i’m not sure about in-grocery-store, though. they’ve also been racked by waning consumer interest, probably because they seem “faddish” for lack of better wording. that, i honestly think, is the biggest hurdle to cultivated meat–not price.
I buy Beyond Meat bricks for $8.99 a pound. That’s pricey compared to regular beef, but I’m an outlier with pricing. I keep kosher at home and kosher meat is VERY expensive. Between the price and hassle (it requires separate pots/pans, plates, utensils, etc), I keep vegetarian at home. It’s just cheaper and easier.
Beyond Meat lets me cook “beef” dishes for less than kosher beef would cost me and with more flexibility. (Tonight, we had pasta and Beyond Beef meatballs with cheese - a dish I couldn’t make using kosher meat.)
There’s still a market for products like Beyond Beef, but I agree that they’ll need to hit “normal need” price levels before it really takes off.
So they say the meat is 99% chicken cell, does anyone know what the 1% is? I’d just feel better knowing.
I’m very interested to learn what combination of cells they used to hit certain flavors and how they developed the right network of cells to make the right texture. Is there a ‘grain’? Will there be dark meat and white meat? So many questions! Can’t wait to see if they end up making pulled pork down the road, haha.
This is amazing! I can not wait to eat more ethically.
This is a huge a step forward!
Well, fancy meeting you out here too!
I’ll be interested to see what my decidedly vegetarian SO thinks about this (I’m mainly vegetarian but am more omnivorous). We opt for Impossible where available, and it’ll be interesting to see if either of us gravitate to it. As of now I’m reacting to it the way I do balut; I’m fine eating duck and I’m fine with egg, but I have quite mixed feelings about the in-between balut. Similarly, I’m fine with chicken and I’m fine with Impossible faux-chicken, but this new in-between real-but-synthetic chicken will take me some getting used to.
Last time i checked in on cultivated meat, it seemed like collecting fetal bovine serum required them to do a lot of slaughtering, which kind of defeats the point. Have there been any advancements in that area?
Really interesting, thank you!
Well if that’s true then this is fantastic news!
I get this is positive, but it saddens me to hear people comment now I can start eating more ethically. There have always been vegan options available. They have been there this whole time, this is merely another option out there, the majority of people will still prefer the “real thing”.
The only victim the in the situation is the Animals, their gauntlet of suffering from our hands must come to an end.
For someone like me, there honestly aren’t many options. I’m allergic to soy, which eliminates a LOT of vegan meat alternatives. I do mostly eat the options I can have rather than eating meat, but a lot of these options are relatively new and have most certainly not “been there this whole time”.
Rice, Beans, Fruits, Vegetables, Seeds, Grains, Nuts, Berries. Eat a variety of those and no animals need to die. There are plenty of vegans with Soy allergies. https://www.livekindly.com/9-vegan-proteins-to-eat-when-youre-allergic-to-soy/
I hope that is helpful, and my sentiment is not to gaslight anybody with dietary restrictions. There is a TON of money being spent to ensure people stay uneducated on what foods are actually healthy to eat.
Honestly a diet of just those foods sounds miserable - I’m also allergic to nuts so that’s not an option either. Kudos to the people that decide to limit their diet so much to go vegan, but no one is obligated to do so. People are allowed to be excited that there is going to be a more ethical version of food they enjoy
So I want to clarify here, I know this is a tough subject. I hope to not make anybody feel uncomfortable when I’m sharing my opinion on the internet and if I did so I truly apologize.
People can do incredible things when they have the motivation. I.E. Felipe Nunes. He is a pro skateboarder who does not have legs. He could easily say, “i don’t have legs, therefore skateboarding is not an option”. Though, he had motivation to do it anyways. Right now, you might not have that motivation to do a thing, while knowing that thing is good. I have 27 years of eating meat, and 6 years of being vegan, i just didn’t have any motivation to do it until a traumatic event shifting my perspective. Not everyone will go vegan, it would be cool, but it certainly is possible for a huge majority.
We can rail forever about how vegetarian and vegan options have been available to the majority for quite a while now, but the simple fact of the matter is that meat isn’t something a lot of cultures will budge on. Grown meat is the only realistic path towards substantially reduced animal suffering in the “near” future
They explain their product is not vegan. I’m curious how they source their material and the animal cruelty involved there.
