Cultured Meat Under the Microscope: Unpacking Concerns and Controversies
Cultured meat, also known as lab-grown or cell-based meat, is rapidly emerging as a pioneering solution to various challenges posed by conventional livestock agriculture.
By cultivating animal cells in controlled environments, scientists and innovators are paving the way in search for a more sustainable and ethical approach to meat production.
The culture meat industry suggests this technology holds the promise of reducing environmental degradation, addressing animal welfare concerns, and meeting the growing global demand for protein, with a possibility to reshape the future of food systems.
As with any emerging technology, lab-grown meat, also known as cultured meat, comes with its own set of potential risks and challenges, including food safety, allergenicity, nutritional concerns, environmental impact, ethical considerations, labeling, regulatory issues, scalability, costs, lack of independent studies, as well as intellectual property rights.
In June 2023, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) approved both Upside Foods and Good Meat to sell their lab-grown chicken, following clearance from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Cultured chicken meat produced by privately held San Francisco Company, Eat Just, was the first cultured meat product approved in Singapore in December 2020, as an ingredient in nuggets. According to some scientists, the authorisation of “cultured meat” was relatively informal and accelerated in Singapore.
The worldwide competition to accelerate cultured meat production appears to be growing swiftly.
Top global beef producer, JBS SA, announced last June a $41 million investment in the world’s largest beef cultured manufacturing facility in Spain, expecting to be completed by 2024. The company will also build a biotechnology and cultivated protein research centre in Santa Catarina, southern Brazil, representing an investment of approximately $60 million.
“The new BioTech plant puts JBS in a unique position to lead the segment and ride this wave of innovation,” said JBS USA’s head of value added business, Eduardo Noronha.
The UK has received its first request to market cultured meat from the Israeli start-up Aleph Farms. While the UK’s new food regulations resemble those of the EU post-Brexit, they are currently exploring potential changes to the novel foods authorisation process.
By the close of 2022, a total of 156 firms had committed to crafting cultured meat and seafood, backed by a cumulative investment of $2.8 billion. McKinsey consultancy firm forecasts that the cultivated meat market will be worth $25 billion by 2030.
The Pioneers
“Fifty years hence, we shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium,” these are the words of Winston Churchill, who predicted the creation of “artificial meat” in his essay “Fifty Years Hence.”
The concept of cultured meat dates back several decades, but the term “cultured meat” was popularized by researcher and World War II veteran, Willem Frederik van Eelen, in the early 2000s. He filed a general patent in 1997 about the production of meat using cell culture techniques.
The first lab-grown hamburger, created by Professor Mark Post, was famously presented in 2013. In 2023, a hamburger grown from animal cells was made, a project headed by Professor Post among other scientists at Maastricht University in the Netherlands.
Since then, various scientists, researchers, and companies firmly believe in the development of this advanced technology and making cultured meat a viable and potentially transformative alternative to conventional meat production.
The Process
In practice, the initial process of producing cultured meat, involves growing meat cells in a lab setting, including taking a biopsy from a live or recently slaughtered animal, so the cells can proliferate and transform into different cell types, such as fat and muscle cells. Another option is to work with established cell lines, so animals are not needed after an initial biopsy.
These cells are transferred to bioreactors where cultured/growth media is added, which may include folic acid, ferric nitrate, hypoxanthine Na, Lipoic acid, putrescine 2HCl, Sodium pyruvate, thymidine, pluronic F-68, fetal bovine serum (FBS), among other substances.
Scientists carefully select and cultivate cell lines to ensure they have the desired characteristics for cultured meat production, such as texture, flavor and growth rate. These cells need a nutritious and safe environment to grow and multiply, hence the need to introduce cell culture media providing vitamins, minerals and growth factors to support cell growth outside the animal body.
Scaffolds, 3D structures that provide support for cells to grow and organise into tissue, are then introduced to help cells align and form muscle-like structures, contributing to the texture of the final product.
Claims and Concerns
The cultured meat industry claims a number of benefits this technology may bring: the potential to reduce green house gas emissions, water consumption and land use, compared to traditional livestock farming; it eliminates the need for raising and slaughtering animals, therefore reducing animal suffering; creates a controlled environment of lab-grown meat, lowering the risk of illnesses and contamination; requires fewer resources, such as feed and antibiotics.
Production protocols do not appear to be available for independent testing by academics or regulatory agencies; therefore claims related to nutritional content cannot be verified as such.
There seems to be no evidence and available independent data on health and safety (including long-term human health implications), environmental, economic impact and scientific evaluation on cultured meat products.
Moreover, culture meat manufacturing may not require the level of biosecurity used in the biopharma industry. With this in mind, there may be room for errors during the entire process.
As part of the ‘confidential supplementary material’ of the dossier presented to the FDA by Upside Foods, the FDA queries about the process of the ‘vision inspection of media’ step that’s employed to identify potential environmental biological hazards introduced during the media preparation step. The FDA questions: “how could a ‘visual inspection of media’ help to identify potential environmental biological hazards?”
A large number of questions remain unanswered, including biological hazards during the cultured meat production process. Another example is fetal bovine serum used in the media, which has the potential of contamination with mycoplasma, endotoxins, viruses, veterinary drugs and prions.
According to Upside Foods’ final dossier data material submitted to the FDA, some solutions classified as ‘Generally Recognised As Safe’ (GRAS) may be used, including potassium chloride, potassium phosphate monobasic anhydrous, sodium phosphate dibasic anhydrous, sodium chloride, antibiotics, antimicrobials, antifungals, sheer protectants, emulsifiers, among others. Some of the components used during the cultured meat process could be absorbed by the cells and be transferred to the final product.
Upside Foods’ CEO and founder, Uma Valeti was contacted for an interview, but was not available. Good Meat’s CEO, Josh Tetrick, was contacted for an interview. I’m awaiting a formal reply to the questions I’ve presented.
In the United Kingdom, the Food Standards Agency, FSA, highlights possible hazards in meat products manufactured from cultured animal cells, including nutritional hazards; contamination from components used in cell culturing; cell culture infections; bacterial, yeast and fungal infections; mycoplasma infections; viral contamination; endotoxin infections; cross-contamination and misidentification issues; and cell line associated risks.
According to the FSA document, some vitamins, minerals and other nutritionally relevant components that are present in meat may not be present in cultured meat, such as vitamin B1277, creatin, carnosine, vitamin D3 and iron.
Another vital aspect to be mindful of is the potential for this technology to be controlled by multinational corporations, given its dependence on intellectual property rights and the considerable barriers to entry in technology, economics, and law. Such dominance could lead to the creation of exclusive, high-quality foods and exacerbate the issue of food deserts.
Italy seems to be one step ahead using the “precautionary principle” and passing a bill banning the production and marketing of synthetic food and feed.
The concept of substituting traditional meat with lab-grown alternatives that can nourish the population, while minimising environmental impact, is undeniably ingenious. However, the high cost of this technology hinders mot people from accessing its products. Would you spend $50 on a lab-grown burger?
It’s also crucial to exercise caution and ensure rigorous testing along with independent studies before fully embracing such products.
Food regulations for cultured meat products should be discussed globally, accompanied by unbiased, transparent research studies that comprehensively tackle health, safety, ethics, costs, scalability, environmental consequences, and intellectual property rights, ensuring independence from conflicts of interest.
