Cellular Meats Are Less Ecologically Sustainable
Than Plant Foods
Critics have pointed out that growing meet in biological vats is not scalable or economically viable. This video explains why: The $1 Trillion Ugly Truth. In an article published in The Counter, reporter Joe Fassler suggests that cellular meats may never be commercially competitive with conventional animal meat, due to the inherent technical constraints involved. However, let us assume--despite the growing body of evidence to the contrary--that it could be, someday. What about the claim we hear that cellular meats would solve the environmental crisis?
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: one report "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] Another concluded that lab meat "could be 25 times worse for the climate than beef."
Unfortunately, however, it is difficult to know what the environmental impact of the new technology would be, partly because for-profit companies do not like to reveal their secrets. "Most alt-seafood companies won’t share their intellectual property and it’s unknown just how energy-intensive cell culturing is at this stage," as Victoria Namkung reports in the Guardian. Even under the most optimistic, however, 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] So 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. Proponents of cultivated meat claim that it will pose fewer health risks than meat from living animals, and many researchers agree that this is almost certain to be true, given the horrific treatment of industrialized animals and the way their living conditions and treatment create growth opportunities for a variety of lethal pathogens. Even so, however, there are possible health risks and disadvantages involved in cultivated meats that their proponents have largely avoided addressing. For example, Theresa Houghton, citing the work of nutritionist T. Colin Campbell, has meanwhile observed "that animal protein, not fat or cholesterol, is the main influence in the development of diet-related diseases." Assuming this to be true, Houghton writes, "reducing either component in cell-cultured meat would do little to improve health because the proteins in the final product are animal proteins."
One 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] Moreover, as Houghton points out, "it’s worth noting that the environment in a bioreactor is very different than an animal’s body, where the immune system would ideally identify and remove aberrant cells before they became problematic." It is certainly possible that the cultivated meat industry will be able to create safe products; but the verdict is still out. In 2023, Wired magazine reported that the Upside lab meat company appeared to be engaging in deceptive practices, exaggerating its ability to scale up production. Both "former and current employees say the Emeryville plant tells a misleading story of how Upside’s chicken is made," and they privately acknowledged continuing problems with bacterial contamination at the plant.
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]
Recently, the company OMeat has claimed to have found a way to "ethically" extract plasma from adult cows without killing them. According to the company: "“The plasma is withdrawn in a humane, pain-free process much the same as that used in human plasma donation. Omeat hooks up cows to a plasmapheresis machine that collects blood, separates out the plasma and returns the remaining blood components to the cow." However, as Michelle Simon reports, the company has remained about where the cows are to come from, what happens to them when they "age out" of the industry, and how they can become "plasma donors" without "cruelty."
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. In July 2022, the giant chicken-slaughterer company Leong Hup of Singapore reported that it had entered into a partnership with Nanyang Technological University to develop new cultivated meat technologies. According to journalist Markos Hasiotis: "The new partnership...aims to boost production of cultivated meat by creating a new type of growth medium made from leftover chicken blood and bones." In other words, the cultivate meat future the partners envision is to be built upon the literal blood, bones, and suffering of birds raised for slaughter. A further goal of the collaboration, Hasiotis reports, is "to help the poultry facility become 'zero-waste' by converting discarded feathers (that would otherwise be incinerated or buried in landfills) into packaging." In other words, the collaboration is also intended to strengthen the existing poultry production/slaughter apparatus and to help Leong Hup realize higher profits--by exploiting chickens' dead bodies even more efficiently. It is all too clear from these kinds of reports that for many in the meat industry, cultured meat is not intended as a substitute for the mass killing of animals for flesh, but merely as a lucrative, supplementary, boutique market.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47283162.
[2] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/19/lab-grown-meat-could-exacerbate-climate-change-scientists-say.html.
[3] "There is an abundance of work that demonstrates that agroecological farming systems are both sustainable and viable at scale," and therefore no less sustainable than cellular meats, according to Robert Verkek of ANH Consultancy. https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2019/10/11/Agroecological-farming-not-cultured-meat-is-key-to-a-sustainable-future-says-campaigner.
[4] Jaydee Hanson and Julia Ranney, "Is Lab-Grown Meat Healthy and Safe To Consume?" One Green Planet Food (Sept. 2, 2020). https://www.onegreenplanet.org/natural-health/is-lab-grown-meat-healthy-and-safe-to-consume/.
[5] Madison Suseland, "Culture Meat: Beneficial in Theory, Detrimental in Practice," The Suffolk Journal, Oct. 23, 2019. https://thesuffolkjournal.com/27657/opinion/cultured-meat-beneficial-in-theory-detrimental-in-practice/#:~:text=The%20liquid%20medium%20that%20cultured,the%20blood%20of%20fetal%20calves.
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: one report "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] Another concluded that lab meat "could be 25 times worse for the climate than beef."
Unfortunately, however, it is difficult to know what the environmental impact of the new technology would be, partly because for-profit companies do not like to reveal their secrets. "Most alt-seafood companies won’t share their intellectual property and it’s unknown just how energy-intensive cell culturing is at this stage," as Victoria Namkung reports in the Guardian. Even under the most optimistic, however, 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] So 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. Proponents of cultivated meat claim that it will pose fewer health risks than meat from living animals, and many researchers agree that this is almost certain to be true, given the horrific treatment of industrialized animals and the way their living conditions and treatment create growth opportunities for a variety of lethal pathogens. Even so, however, there are possible health risks and disadvantages involved in cultivated meats that their proponents have largely avoided addressing. For example, Theresa Houghton, citing the work of nutritionist T. Colin Campbell, has meanwhile observed "that animal protein, not fat or cholesterol, is the main influence in the development of diet-related diseases." Assuming this to be true, Houghton writes, "reducing either component in cell-cultured meat would do little to improve health because the proteins in the final product are animal proteins."
One 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] Moreover, as Houghton points out, "it’s worth noting that the environment in a bioreactor is very different than an animal’s body, where the immune system would ideally identify and remove aberrant cells before they became problematic." It is certainly possible that the cultivated meat industry will be able to create safe products; but the verdict is still out. In 2023, Wired magazine reported that the Upside lab meat company appeared to be engaging in deceptive practices, exaggerating its ability to scale up production. Both "former and current employees say the Emeryville plant tells a misleading story of how Upside’s chicken is made," and they privately acknowledged continuing problems with bacterial contamination at the plant.
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]
Recently, the company OMeat has claimed to have found a way to "ethically" extract plasma from adult cows without killing them. According to the company: "“The plasma is withdrawn in a humane, pain-free process much the same as that used in human plasma donation. Omeat hooks up cows to a plasmapheresis machine that collects blood, separates out the plasma and returns the remaining blood components to the cow." However, as Michelle Simon reports, the company has remained about where the cows are to come from, what happens to them when they "age out" of the industry, and how they can become "plasma donors" without "cruelty."
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. In July 2022, the giant chicken-slaughterer company Leong Hup of Singapore reported that it had entered into a partnership with Nanyang Technological University to develop new cultivated meat technologies. According to journalist Markos Hasiotis: "The new partnership...aims to boost production of cultivated meat by creating a new type of growth medium made from leftover chicken blood and bones." In other words, the cultivate meat future the partners envision is to be built upon the literal blood, bones, and suffering of birds raised for slaughter. A further goal of the collaboration, Hasiotis reports, is "to help the poultry facility become 'zero-waste' by converting discarded feathers (that would otherwise be incinerated or buried in landfills) into packaging." In other words, the collaboration is also intended to strengthen the existing poultry production/slaughter apparatus and to help Leong Hup realize higher profits--by exploiting chickens' dead bodies even more efficiently. It is all too clear from these kinds of reports that for many in the meat industry, cultured meat is not intended as a substitute for the mass killing of animals for flesh, but merely as a lucrative, supplementary, boutique market.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47283162.
[2] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/19/lab-grown-meat-could-exacerbate-climate-change-scientists-say.html.
[3] "There is an abundance of work that demonstrates that agroecological farming systems are both sustainable and viable at scale," and therefore no less sustainable than cellular meats, according to Robert Verkek of ANH Consultancy. https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2019/10/11/Agroecological-farming-not-cultured-meat-is-key-to-a-sustainable-future-says-campaigner.
[4] Jaydee Hanson and Julia Ranney, "Is Lab-Grown Meat Healthy and Safe To Consume?" One Green Planet Food (Sept. 2, 2020). https://www.onegreenplanet.org/natural-health/is-lab-grown-meat-healthy-and-safe-to-consume/.
[5] Madison Suseland, "Culture Meat: Beneficial in Theory, Detrimental in Practice," The Suffolk Journal, Oct. 23, 2019. https://thesuffolkjournal.com/27657/opinion/cultured-meat-beneficial-in-theory-detrimental-in-practice/#:~:text=The%20liquid%20medium%20that%20cultured,the%20blood%20of%20fetal%20calves.