Lab-Grown Meat Receives FDA Approval

    This Week in Tech

        July 2nd, 2023

    Lab-Grown Meat Receives FDA Approval

            On June 21st, both the FDA and USDA approved Eat Just and Upside to produce and sell Lab-Grown meat in US markets. This is a first for the meat industry, with some seeing it as the future of animal products. The long-imagined idea of producing food out of seemingly thin air is closer than ever before.

        The growth process used by Eat Just and Upside utilizes animal cell cultures and steel tanks. The cell cultures are fed a cocktail of nutrients to grow into fat and muscle tissue. While the process may sound unappealing, the end product is biologically indistinguishable from regularly farmed meat. In a blind taste test, participants couldn't determine a visible difference, but the lab-grown chicken has been described as "Richer and more chickeny taste". This has been labeled a great success by the companies creating the meat, as they intend to create a meat alternative with no noticeable differences between the two.

        Some look to lab-grown meat as a more environmentally friendly alternative to the modern farming industry. While some studies show this is true, there are others that suggest otherwise. Lab-grown meat is heralded for it using less to create meat. This can be seen as a positive as it uses nutrient slurry instead of massive amounts of grain and vegetation that could be sold or utilized for human consumption and composting. But while it may save on feed waste, there are studies by UC Davis that suggest that lab-grown meat may cause four to twenty-five times as much CO2 as traditional farming.

        What are your thoughts on lab-grown meat? Will you be trying it when it hit store shelves?