In 1932, Winston Churchill predicted that in fifty years “we shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing by growing these parts separately.”
Churchill may have been off a a bit on the timing, but the researchers are rapidly moving towards mass cultured meat production. In a few decades carnaries, or in vitro "cultured meat" production facilities, may be as common and cozily familiar a concept as millennia-old institutions like bakeries, wineries and creameries. A carnary is the name given to the place where in vitro meat will be cultured and produced, much as cheese is made in a creamery, or wine in a winery today. Although the idea of bread, wine or cheese brings warm associations of home and hearth, vat-grown meat is often met with an instinctive shudder and sense of unnaturalness. In the final analysis though, it really is no more artificial than those other ancient manipulations of food, it simply uses a technology that wasn’t available to prior generations.
The Netherlands are getting an early technological lead worldwide by seriously funding in vitro meat research in advance of other countries; probably due to the fact that the first world-wide patent on in vitro meat was issued to Dutch citizens Willem van Eeelen and Willem van Westerhoff in 2001.
Van Eelen, a medical doctor, was born in the Dutch West Indies, and envisioned the concept while being held in a Japanese prisoner of war camp during World War II, due to his exposure to both starvation and animal cruelty.
Jon F. Vein of the United States has also secured a patent (U.S. Patent 6,835,390) for the production of tissue-engineered meat for human consumption, wherein muscle and fat cells would be grown in an integrated fashion to create food products such as beef, poultry and fish. Although the US is does fund research, it remains to be seen if they have the will to match the Dutch government's focus on leading in this technology.
There is currently a 2 million euro ($2.5 million) Dutch-government-funded project that began in April 2005, in a partnership with Meester Stegman, a European sausage manufacturer and former division of Sarah Lee Corp. Henk Haagsman, Professor of Meat Science at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of Utrecht University and his Dutch colleagues, including Mark Post, Professor of Vascular Physiology at Maastrich University (featured in the video below) are working on growing artificial pork meat out of pig stem cells. They hope to grow a form of minced meat suitable for burgers, sausages and pizza toppings within the next year Professor Post announced plans to produce the first in vitro beef hamburger by next year, for 250,000 Euros, which he predicts will be "quite palatable".
Professor Mark Post on his producing the first in vitro hamburger next year
In order to start the culture a small sample is taken from a donor animal and the muscle cells are then grown in a medium (currently blood, but soon a more neutral substance), not unlike the starter in bread or cheese. The muscle cells replicate themselves and will result in a copy the meat of the host animal. Chicken samples will become chicken muscle tissue; cattle will produce beef, etc. Fat can be added for taste, but likely be high in omega fatty acid, so that a hamburger, rather than contributing to heart disease, could actually be beneficial.
Due to the closed production system, there would also be no contamination or food poisoning issues, such as salmonella or concerns about ingestible pathogens such as mad cow disease. The meat would actually be 100% meat, and not a genetically modified or altered alternative substance being artificially tweaked to resemble and replace meat. Experts say it might be some time before they can produce prime rib or steak.
Actual steak-quality meat is far more than just muscle and fat cells, and is currently being carefully analyzed to give up the secret of what gives it its unique taste and texture. One of the factors is that the muscles fibers are stretched as the animal moves about grazing. There is research going into creating some sort of framework that the cells could be grown onto that then could be manipulated to stretch the muscle fibers and recreate that particular aspect of the animal-borne meat experience. The hope is that eventually it will become another craft, like wine or cheese making, with food designers playing with the elements to make new original creations.
On the other hand, the technology for the meats needed for hamburger or chicken nuggets are currently available. Jason Matheny, a researcher at Johns Hopkins and co-founder of New Harvest, a nonprofit that promotes research on in vitro meat, told Wired.com "The general consensus is that minced meat or ground meat products -- sausage, chicken nuggets, hamburgers -- those are within technical reach, "We have the technology to make those things at scale with existing technology."
He also informed Wired.com that "With cultured meat, there's no body to support; you're only building the meat that eventually gets eaten." In comparison, only 14 % of a pig is actually usable meat; and the efficiency of meat production is even more dramatically reduced if you factor in the conversion of feed needed to bring the animal to maturity where, Methany said, 75 to 95 percent of what we feed an animal is lost because of metabolism and inedible structures like skeleton or neurological tissue. This lack of efficiency results in a low protein diet for much of the third world, where quantity is the overriding factor. Matheny's work was called one of the "ideas of the year" by The New York Times and has been featured in The Washington Post, Nature, The Economist, Scientific American, New Scientist, NOVA, and Wired, among others.
Sweet, brown eyed, and producing 39% of all methane and 5% of other CO2s- livestock is a huge source of environmental damage. In contrast, the entire worldwide transportation sector– cars, planes, trucks etc. account for only about 13% of emissions. There are few things that are more capable of having a rapid, sustainable and substantial impact on greenhouse emissions than changing our source of meat. A recent Oxford University study found that 80% of environmental problems from farming could be eliminated.
Indeed, a vegetarian with a Hummer is actually substantially more ecologically conscious that a meat eater with a bicycle.
In addition, 70% of arable land is currently used for meat production, and clearing land to graze herds to satisfy our appetite for meat is responsible for much general deforestation, as well as is the burning (with its own measurable impact in emissions) and the clear cutting of sensitive hard-to-recover environments, like the of the rainforest, worldwide. There are also secondary issues, such as water contamination from waste run off; as well as the long term habitat destruction that can occur with the trampling of herds that are allowed to graze on public lands.
He also informed Wired.com that "With cultured meat, there's no body to support; you're only building the meat that eventually gets eaten." In comparison, only 14 % of a pig is actually usable meat; and the efficiency of meat production is even more dramatically reduced if you factor in the conversion of feed needed to bring the animal to maturity where, Methany said, 75 to 95 percent of what we feed an animal is lost because of metabolism and inedible structures like skeleton or neurological tissue. This lack of efficiency results in a low protein diet for much of the third world, where quantity is the overriding factor. Matheny's work was called one of the "ideas of the year" by The New York Times and has been featured in The Washington Post, Nature, The Economist, Scientific American, New Scientist, NOVA, and Wired, among others.
Sweet, brown eyed, and producing 39% of all methane and 5% of other CO2s- livestock is a huge source of environmental damage. In contrast, the entire worldwide transportation sector– cars, planes, trucks etc. account for only about 13% of emissions. There are few things that are more capable of having a rapid, sustainable and substantial impact on greenhouse emissions than changing our source of meat. A recent Oxford University study found that 80% of environmental problems from farming could be eliminated.
Indeed, a vegetarian with a Hummer is actually substantially more ecologically conscious that a meat eater with a bicycle.
In addition, 70% of arable land is currently used for meat production, and clearing land to graze herds to satisfy our appetite for meat is responsible for much general deforestation, as well as is the burning (with its own measurable impact in emissions) and the clear cutting of sensitive hard-to-recover environments, like the of the rainforest, worldwide. There are also secondary issues, such as water contamination from waste run off; as well as the long term habitat destruction that can occur with the trampling of herds that are allowed to graze on public lands.
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