They want you to give up gas-powered cars for electric cars, your gas stoves for electric stoves, and now regular meat for lab-grown meat. Lab-grown meat (Cultured meat, cultivated meat, artificial meat, etc.) is produced by placing animal cells in a large petri dish (bioreactor), which is a large tank operated under controlled conditions that encourages cells to grow. The bioreactor contains a nutrient-rich substance (broth) that allows cells to grow and multiply at a high rate. The initiator for the production of lab-grown meat comes from cells that are extracted from an animal. The process controls the development of different types of cells, such as fat cells or muscle cells, to mimic the kind of meat being replicated. A lattice is placed in the tank to allow a surface for the cells to grow. At maturation, the cells are harvested and packaged, ready for distribution. Quality control measures are provided to ensure taste, texture, and nutritional content requirements.

So why develop and use lab-grown meat? Here are some pros and cons. Animal welfare, meaning being kind to animals by not slaughtering them for food, is often cited as a reason for lab-grown meat. Stem cells from fetal bovine serum are frequently collected by slaughtering an animal, which means the process is not slaughter-free. Advocates say the process in a controlled environment improves safety, reducing the traditional risk of bacterial contamination. However, contamination can still occur in any industrial food-producing system. Talk to those who produce baby formulae. Eliminating cattle production would reduce methane production that allegedly contributes to man-made climate change, but there is concern over higher CO2 emissions from producing lab-grown meat. Presently, methane reduction from animal feed lots is being accomplished by altering the chemical content of cattle feed. Producing lab-grown meat requires a significant energy input that may require fossil fueled electric plants to provide the energy.

If cattle raising is significantly reduced, what do you do about providing the products generated from nonedible parts of cattle, such as bones and leather? Bones are ground up and used as a food supplement for humans as well as cattle feed. Does this mean we will need to generate lab-grown bones? Leather is another byproduct of cattle, and it has various uses, such as clothing and industrial apparatus, requiring flexibility and longevity, such as bearing seals or gaskets. Does this mean we have to generate lab-grown leather?

The current administration is funding the concept of feeding lab-grown meat to the military. Unfortunately, with left-leaning administrations, the military serves as lab rats for ideas that are not related to combat missions. Recently, recruitment of people to serve in the military has been reduced significantly by non-mission-related requirements and training, such as those related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Requiring the military to eat lab-grown meat would probably reduce recruitment further.  

The push to eat lab-grown meat may be premature. Many unresearched consequences negate the alleged benefits of lab-grown meat. Presently, my detailed analysis of being served a lab-grown hamburger is simply, “yuck.”