The Ethical Frontier of Stem Cell Meat: Innovation Meets Culinary Responsibility

The food chain is inherently cruel, and eating meat is a natural part of our culture.

Just similar to gender scholars observing that in another 100 years, the world will realise gender equality, is it ever possible for humanity to journey to a level of species equality, where we do not harm the animals?

There are two types of people. The first group does not feel much for other life forms. The second group feels intense empathy towards them. The human-first school is the dominant one.

Our brains are wired in different ways for which our upbringing plays a role in shaping our attitudes towards fellow creatures.

To love a cat or dog is pure bliss for some but an equally significant number of humans genuinely hate cats and dogs or fear to be friendly with them. Nature as such is not a 'kind' but rather exercises compassion through us. A lion kills its food without pity but why do some humans have to face the dilemma of conscience when they eat other animals?

In hunting and farming societies where you are directly responsible for killing your food, the children are initiated at a very young age to forgo their wide-eyed innocence and love towards other life forms. Parents teach their kill to kill the goats, pigs, and chickens in their farm when the children are old enough to do what is necessary.

The first kill always involves extreme emotions and moral dilemma. The love for animals that the folk tales and children's stories had them internalised takes a serious blow. The mouthwatering taste of bacon and chicken legs helps the children gradually adapt to the cruel relaity of our world. Children thus adapt to the adult paradigm like cogs in a wheel. Pigs and chicken are food and no more friends.

The long introduction that I wrote here has a purpose. Now science has opened up the possibility of eating meat without the guilt of killing an animal. The magic word is stem cell meat.

Stem Cell Meat Has Arrived

Recently, eating meat became a risky affair as the world saw the rising threat of virus-induced diseases in humans, where the source of these viruses could be animal meat.

There is a solution on the horizon for such fears- stem cell-based and lab-cultivated meat.

Stem cell meat is poised to capture the palates of meat lovers. All the vegetarians and vegans in the world who do not want to harm an animal but would like to explore wider food options can look forward to this new addition to the modern food bouquet.

Another name for this lab-grown meat is clean meat because the production of it does not require the cruel and unethical killing of animals. The scope of this new entrant in the meat market can be demonstrated in a simple example- one tissue sample from a single cow can potentially be grown into 20,000 pounds of meat. One can only imagine the scale of growth and economy possible.

How Stem Cell Meat is Made

The cells required to make stem cell meat are taken directly from the animal.

Scientists isolate stem cells (cells which have the ability to grow into any organ and any muscle tissue) from an animal to cultivate laboratory-made meat. Then the cells are placed in a solution of nutrients required for growth. The solution is made up mainly of proteins, carbohydrates, and fats and is produced by pharmaceutical companies. As this solution is the food for the growing cells, it has to be absorbable.

The cells immersed in the solution are then put inside a machine named, 'bioreactor', to encourage growth. It takes 4-6 weeks for the cells to multiply and grow into meat. It is the primitive fibres that grow first and then they develop into muscle tissues.

Stem Cell Meat is Cleaner Meat

Stem cell meat is produced by ensuring traceability; the customer can know from which animal and place the cells used to cultivate the meat is taken. The nutrients used in the cultivation of meat are also public knowledge. Stem cell meat companies claim that they do not use any antibiotics, steroids, heavy metals, or microplastics at any stage of the cultivation of the meat.

The meat is tested for residue components after production to ensure it is not contaminated.

We know how unhygienically conventional meat is handled. The conventional production methods often leave it highly prone to viral and bacterial infections.

All of the above renders stem cell meat healthier compared to conventional ones.

One disadvantage of cultivated meat is that it has no bacteria, including beneficial bacteria.

Hence the companies have been trying to develop a process to add good bacteria/probiotics into them and the solution is in the pipeline.

Safety and Novelty

Cultivated meat can be cooked in the same way as conventional meat.

At present, stem cell technology for cultivating meat costs thousands of dollars. This renders this meat too expensive. 90% of the high cost of stem cell meat comes from the cost of nutrient solution used to cultivate it. Pharmaceutical companies command a monopoly over the production of the nutrient solution. They keep the ingredients of the solution still a secret.

The stem cell meat companies claimed in 2017 that in two years, the cost of production could be dramatically reduced and a kilogram of cultivated meat would be costing only 2 or 3 digits figures. In 2019, a pound of chicken produced by Future Meat, a stem cell meat company, was on the market for $150.

The companies are developing their nutrient solutions and bioreactors instead of depending on the pharmaceutical sector for these inputs. After growing the meat in the nutrient solution, companies are looking for processes and methods to turn the residual solution into a new product because it would have a lot of nutrients remaining in it.

So far as taste and smell goes, the cultivated meat after cooking cannot be differentiated from normal meats. Shiok Meats, another stem cell meat company, is researching how to cultivate shrimp meat that exactly looks like a shrimp in shape, colour, and taste. Meanwhile, the food regulators have placed cultivated meat in the category of novel meat.

Stem Cell Meat Start-Ups

Plant-based meat and insect-based protein foods are the other new products that enter the market as an alternative to conventional meat. Beyond Meat, and Impossible Foods are the two major players in the market of plant-based meat. Mosa Meat, SuperMeat, Finless Foods, Future Meat Technologies, and Memphis Meats are companies, to name a few, that have entered the stem cell meat market. The costs of different stem cell meat are coming down very fast.

Meat Farming in the World

In 2020, Bill Gates made headlines by asking the world to avoid eating real meat and switch to synthetic meat; the reason is the high toll that the meat industry takes on our planet's environment.

The world's conventional meat production is 320 million tonnes per year. Eighty billion animals are slaughtered every year to meet human food needs. Meat farming and processing contribute to the livelihood of millions of farmers and factory workers. How to protect their livelihood in a scenario of massive stem cell meat production has to be the concern of governments, and to some extent, the stem cell meat production companies, if they want to hold on to their ethics-driven arguments.

Impact of Stem Cell Meat Production on the Environment

The major environmental impacts of conventional meat production are 1) greenhouse gas emissions, 2) ecological degradation caused by grazing, and 3) the pressure on natural resources- that is, land and freshwater. Interestingly, cultivated meat production requires 10 times more land use, water use, and energy use. So, stem cell meat companies are trying to reduce these ecological vulnerabilities.

Stem Cell Meat and Changes in the Market

Companies that produce cultivated meat think there will be a huge change in the meat-based agriculture sector, once cultivated meat hits the market on a large scale. They predict that this will happen in the next 10 or 20 years. Meat Giants such as Tyson Foods Inc. are investing heavily in researching plant-based and stem cell-based meat production.

New Concerns

Once stem cell meat enters the market on a big scale, how do the customers know they are not cheated into purchasing conventional meat at the higher price of stem cell meat? What will be the long-term effects of eating stem cell meat on the human digestive system? What will happen to the conventional meat farmers once the demand for real meat declines?

Such questions will remain relevant and crucial at least in the initial decades of stem cell meat consumption.