We've had a wild ride here at Jeametics! Over the past month or so, the Jeam Team has covered a lot of ground in exposing the multi-faceted issue of cultured meat. We've laid out many of the pros and cons in our previous posts, but now we'd like to look at the significance of in vitro meat on a broader scale before turning towards the future of the market for this meat, and why the staff behind Meat Cheats thinks it may change our lives within the next 50 years.
Why we will all be eating in vitro meat in 50 years
The development of in vitro meat certainly faces many challenges. Researchers still need to engineer the technology further and it is going to be quite some time before consumers see palatable in vitro filet mignons on their dinner tables. The industry will also have to face the likelihood that some people might not be comfortable eating meat that is not “natural”. Ultimately, however, marketing teams need not worry, for the advantages of this industry are so numerous that it is almost inevitable that cultured meats will take over meat aisles around the country within the next 50 years.
First, let’s take a look at the simple principle of consumer demand. Whole Foods, the leading retailer for the organic industry, has more than doubled its revenue over the past 5 years. This figure has major implications for the future of the cultured meat industry. Put simply, the consumers who care about Whole Foods also care about the “back-story” of their groceries, especially meat. The “back-story” refers to the process by which the meat came to the market. Were the animals treated with hormones? Were they ethically treated? Was the process harmful for the environment? More and more, people want hormone-free, ethically treated meat that has no harmful effects on the environment. While some farms and slaughterhouses do a better job at providing this than others and manage to make their way into Whole Foods’s meat aisle, they can only truly satisfy costumers’ qualms about hormones (we’d like to believe). How ethical can meat really be if the animal raised to produce it is still slaughtered?
In our hyper-technological world, it seems as though in vitro meat has a more solid back-story– “no animals harmed!” It’s true that the ethics of in vitro meat are still under debate. Many of those concerned with animal rights are still questioning how the cells are obtained and how in vitro meat connects to live animals, but many groups are opening up to the possibility of consuming this product. Most omnivores seem excited about it, for one. Vegetarians who choose to be so for health reasons in particular may latch onto this idea, while others may continue to reject the unnatural, animal-dependent process. Peta’s landmark million-dollar reward may have created a split within the vegetarian/vegan community, but if anything else, it showed that people are willing to shift their ground. Even if in vitro fails to convert the zealots, shifting to in vitro would require raising fewer animals to produce meat, which means farm conditions could improve significantly for animals as well as for the environment.
We’ve seen the stats, we’ve heard the projections; livestock have an incredible impact on the environment. These animals release methane byproduct and use up tremendous amounts of resources. A greater reliance on in vitro meat could work to combat many of the environmental problems that come along with producing the in vivo alternative. Farms are large producers of greenhouse gases such as methane, which comes directly from farm animals and contributes significantly to global warming. Farms are often composed of grazing grounds for animals, and a reduction in the amount of animals needed to produce meat would allow for that land to grow wild with vegetation and work to offset the farm's carbon footprint.
Cultured meat satisfies numerous consumer desires. It can be grown hormone-free, it has an incredibly lessened impact on animals, and it has exponentially fewer harmful effects on the environment. That’s not even mentioning the possible benefits we could culture into the meat we grow- Omega-3s, necessary vitamins and minerals, we have yet to see what else. None of us is concentrating in economics, but we all understand the principles of supply and demand. There is a vast and increasing demand for the benefits that cultured meat would provide, and the minute it comes to market we can expect it to start taking over the meat aisles of Whole Foods, specialty stores, and eventually the meat aisles of supermarkets nation-wide.
As seen in the articles we've read, there are several large scale implications that come along with a new technology like in vitro meat production, such as its impact on public health overall. Current speculation suggests that in vitro meat would be healthier for humans than the meat obtained from our current system of slaughterhouses and mass production, despite it not being a "natural" substance. Petri dish creation means a sterile growing environment without chemicals, pesticides or animal diseases (Mad Cow, anyone?) that are present in meat taken from live animals and are extremely harmful to human health. However, as we've mentioned in previous posts, there will always be consequences that come with any major public health breakthrough.
Would a lack of exposure to "natural" meat mean our bodies will pay the price of lessened immunity or reduced resistance? In addition, what happens if the animal used for our starter cultures has underlying disease? What systems would we need to have in place to ensure that we can control for these possibilities? Despite these questions, we've generally found that in vitro meat, if adopted as a widespread, feasible alternative to regular meat, could act as a preventative measure that would work to combat certain health issues - such as cardiovascular complications - that comes from eating meat and saves billions of dollars in healthcare expenditures down the road.
Why the government wants us all to be eating in vitro meat in 50 years
Another main reason that cultured meat is almost guaranteed to expand has to do with government assistance. As we can see more clearly than ever in these troubled economic times, governments worldwide are constantly looking for ways to cut costs. While they look to cut costs however, they also see increasing demands that they need to respond to. One of these demands is health care. The other demand is climate change. Let's take a look.
Anybody who has turned on CNN throughout the past three months knows that the U.S. government is closer than it has ever been to passing major healthcare reform legislation. The reason the debate is so intense is that the U.S. is struggling with the worldwide economic crisis, has a debt of around 13 trillion dollars, and many believe this is just not the right time to add another trillion-dollar piece of legislation. One of the main arguments for passing healthcare reform now, in that face of all of this, is that the legislation aims to slow the increasing costs of health care and will actually save money in the long run. Many proponents of a health care reform bill believe that one of the main ways it could slow costs is by focusing on preventative medicine, as it has been shown time and time again that it costs less to prevent certain diseases than to treat them.
One of the main areas where preventative medicine would be particularly beneficial would be cardiovascular health. In the past year, Americans made 72 million doctors’ visits concerning cardiovascular diseases. When 36 million Americans gain insurance from the health care reform legislation, this number is certainly going to increase. It is very difficult to prevent cardiovascular diseases, however, because prevention demands lifestyle changes and the government does not have the power to control what we eat. But could they influence it?
In vitro meat researchers have the ability to control the ratio of saturated to polyunsaturated fats in their products. That is, they have the power to produce meat that is less artery-clogging. Our government can't get people to stop eating meat that causes cardiovascular disease, but they can, however, change the meat that we eat. Through grants, tax incentives, and tax increases on traditional meat production, concerned governments, including our, could assist the cultured meat industry. Not only would it save them costs, it would also not be particularly controversial given that the average citizen may not have an immediate problem with cheaper products. Within time, cultured meats could become the most-consumed meat in the country. People wouldn't have to change their lifestyles, and everybody would save money. There is simply no reason why the government would not take these measures to improve the health of the nation while decreasing our expanding debt.
Another reason that the government is likely to assist the cultured meat industry is climate change. Concern over global warming has been consistently increasing for the past several years. In fact, this month (December), the UN Committee on Climate Change is meeting in Copenhagen. Nationally, a major climate bill is currently making its way through the U.S. Congress. Current policy-making concerning climate change has tended to revolve around curbing carbon dioxide emissions, but perhaps policy makers will soon realize that CO2 is not the only gas they should be worried about.
A recent report indicated that methane gas as a byproduct of livestock, contributed to 18% of the world's global warming, while a report from the climate committee within the World Bank reported that number was closer to 50%. Of further concern is that the meat and dairy production/consumption that leads to this byproduct is expected to double by 2050. If any government or international organization truly wants to curb the effects of global warming, they are going to have to react to the methane problem. The reason that current policy doesn't react to this problem is that there doesn't really seem like there is much that governments can do to control this trend.
Soon however, there will be a solution: cultured meats. Once the industry can produce marketable cultured meat, governments and international organizations will react. As with healthcare reform, those who ultimately want to prevent dishing out billions, even trillions of dollars of expenditures on climate change may subsidize in vitro or tax regular meat to incentivize the consumption of cultured meat.
Economics reach further than just our shopping lists, however. As concerned citizens, we must consider the possible negative impacts this shift could have on our nation, and our world. With a dramatically decreased livestock industry, many of the animals used to make products such as leather, wool, dairy, and eggs may be negatively targeted by a changing attitude towards animal farming and marketing. Also, decreased demand for in vivo meat will certainly challenge the livelihoods of millions of farmers. What can we do to protect the people we may be harming? What kind of labor and land can we provide for the farmers that are suddenly kicked off of their ranches with little marketable skills? Will we have an answer within fifty years?
Overall, the idea of in vitro meat growth may merely focus on growing cells in a petri dish, but there are clearly several "big picture" aspects to the technology that are important to consider when trying to determine whether this breakthrough in biotech is really feasible and appropriate for the global population to adopt. Our prediction is that cultured meat will take over meat aisles in supermarkets within the next 50 years. Could we be wrong?
Here we are at the final chapter of Meat Cheats and the question is: What can we take away from in vitro meats? What do they mean for our health? There are many pros and cons to the idea of Bunsen burgers and factory filet. There are the environmental factors like the end of factory farms, which can be very wasteful and produce tons of methane gas. This could be a big win for animal rights as the slaughter of livestock could be abolished or at least minimized. Medically, we could engineer our meat to be healthier in any way we want by changing the procedure of how the meat is cultured. For public health, animal based diseases like swine flu or mad cow disease could be prevented with a lower risk of eating diseased meat. We all need food and we all need our protein. Conceivably, one animal cell can be grown in a laboratory into pounds of meat. So what could be bad and what questions do we have? This is still a developing technology and it may not work. We don't know what the costs are to create food in a test-tube. It may take years of work to get even a pound of viable, tasty meat. Will it pass FDA testing? If this works, the meat industry could take a major blow and we may lose a big part of the workforce. There are chances our immune systems will lose strength without having actual animal flesh and all of the bad things that go in it. Interestingly though, one of the biggest concerns after all this research and money to improve and develop this science is: Will people eat it and can it increase our ability to feed our world? We believe that this technology could revolutionize our world in a way that has never been seen. We can grow animal tissue into a viable food source. We hope it works. As we know, all you need is love... but good health is really useful too.
