Meat and Milk from the Laboratory?
Meat and Milk from the Laboratory?

Meat and Milk from the Laboratory?

22 September 2024 Jasmin Peschke & Lea Sprügel 844 views

The production of animal products is criticized as being harmful to the climate. Cell-cultured products, which are grown in vitro from animal cells, are promoted as good alternatives. Are these really more climate-neutral, and what is the real cost—physically, mentally, and spiritually?

“Cellular agriculture” develops agricultural products from cell cultures using biotechnology and synthetic biology.[1] No farm is needed for production, but instead, tissue-specific stem cells are taken from living animals and grown in a culture medium. The culture media are industrially produced, highly complex mixtures of fats, proteins, hormones, vitamins, signaling molecules, and growth factors. The latter were often obtained from the umbilical cord blood of bovine embryos. Because their extraction is questionable, they now come from genetically modified microorganisms or from plants or algae.[2]

This is how meat is “grown” from individual animal cells. Over 100 companies worldwide are conducting research into laboratory meat.[3] In Singapore, the first laboratory chicken meat is on the market. It was also approved in the USA in 2023. In addition to meat, other animal products, such as milk and fish, are also produced in the laboratory. “Sustainable, resource-saving, beneficial to animal welfare, safe”: the products are advertised with promising claims.

Scarce and Incomplete Data

Because methane, a byproduct of raising livestock, is many times more harmful to the climate than carbon dioxide (CO2), its reduction is cited as an important advantage of lab-grown meat compared to conventional livestock farming. However, a study by Chriki et al. (2022), asking whether lab-grown meat is an alternative to slaughtering animals, shows that this argument has not been sufficiently investigated.[4] Cell-cultured meat might help to avoid global warming in the short term because no methane is produced. In the long term, however, it could be even more harmful because the carbon dioxide produced during the production process remains in the atmosphere longer.[5]

The production of laboratory meat is still not taking place in enough quantities for meaningful data to be collected. For example, the first beef burger from the laboratory cost 250,000 euros.[6] Furthermore, it is not transparent what the life cycle of laboratory meat looks like or if industrial production of the nutrient medium is included in the calculations. The production of 1 kilogram of beef requires approx. 550 liters of water compared to up to 521 liters for 1 kilogram of laboratory meat.[7] The water footprint is, therefore, similarly high. In addition, the production of laboratory meat takes a lot of energy. Comparable figures are not yet available. In terms of land requirements, it is obvious that lab-grown meat requires less land. However, the review states that the importance of animal husbandry for the environment, landscape conservation, and soil fertility should be taken into account in this comparison.[8] The argument that laboratory meat is more animal-friendly should also be viewed critically. How are the animals that act as stem cell donors treated?

This text is an excerpt from an article published in the (online exclusive) Goetheanum Weekly. You can read the full article on the website. If you are not yet a subscriber, you can get to know the Goetheanum Weekly for 1 CHF./€.

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Footnotes

  1. Fleisch aus Zellkultur kommt auf den Markt [Meat from cell culture comes onto the market], March 2024.
  2. G. Willinger, “Fleisch aus der Retorte” [Meat from the test tube] Spektrum der Wissenschaft 4, 2024, Pages 44–49.
  3. Fleisch aus Zellkultur kommt auf den Markt [Meat from cell culture comes onto the market], March 2024.
  4. S. Chriki, M. P. Ellies-Oury, J. F. Hocquette, Is “cultured meat” a viable alternative to slaughtering animals and a good comprise between animal welfare and human expectations? Animal Frontiers, Volume 12, Issue 1, February 2022, Pages 35–42.
  5. Ibid.
  6. Fleisch aus Zellkultur kommt auf den Markt [Meat from cell culture comes onto the market], March 2024.
  7. S. Chriki, M. P. Ellies-Oury, J. F. Hocquette, Is “cultured meat” a viable alternative to slaughtering animals and a good comprise between animal welfare and human expectations? Animal Frontiers, Volume 12, Issue 1, February 2022, Pages 35–42.
  8. Ibid.

Foto The Meat Revolution, Mark Post. First cultured hamburger unfried. Source: commons.wikimedia.org