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Growing meat in the lab
New Scientist
July 5, 2008
Anna Olsson
"THE path is clear, but will we take it?" asked a recent New Scientist cover
on how to boost the world's harvest to alleviate the global food crisis (14
June). The discussed ways to increase crop production, but said surprisingly
little about how to get meat production to meet growing demand.
Humans evolved to be omnivores. We're poor converters of most vegetable
matter, and gained much in the past from using herbivorous animals to
convert grass and leaves into high-quality protein. But in a world where
food and land are in short supply, livestock production is a hugely
inefficient use of grain. To produce the steak we eat, a calf needs
nutrients and energy to grow and sustain an entire body, only a part of
which we consume.
Most analyses - including New Scientist's - place blame with the changing
dietary patterns in developing countries, which are resulting in a greater
demand for meat. That's certainly a problem, but so is the fact that the
west is not reducing its own meat consumption. In the western world, we
typically consume about three times as much animal protein as we need, along
with far more animal fat than is good for us.
The obvious response in developed countries would be to eat less meat, but
such market economies rarely reduce consumption voluntarily; they are far
more likely to address shortages by developing new technology. Such
investment in science and technology after the second world war
revolutionised food production by developing the intensive agricultural
systems in use in the industrialised world, and which are now spreading into
poorer countries. By concentrating large numbers of highly productive
animals in confined areas, these vastly increase the efficiency of meat
production.
However, in terms of people ultimately fed, using land to grow animal feed
is still inefficient compared with growing food crops for humans. And
efficiency gains with livestock have come at a cost to animal welfare and
the environment - problems that current animal science will at best
mitigate, not solve. Research will breed animals to be a bit more
"efficient" and a bit less diseased, and housing systems may be adapted a
little better to animal behaviour. But increasing efficiency still further,
while also reducing animal-welfare problems to a negligible level, would
require technology beyond anything we see today. It would mean developing
animals that thrive in confinement systems and are stripped as far as
possible of unnecessary tissues and motivations. And there is no turning
back. Free-ranging animals on traditional farms will never produce enough
meat to satisfy the increasing world population with its growing demand. |
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So is using animals still the best approach to producing the meat that
humans increasingly want to consume? If we are to invest resources in
developing more efficient meat production, why not bypass animals altogether
and grow it in vitro? Growing organs from cells is already high on the
biomedical research agenda. Bioengineers are finding it difficult to grow
chunks of muscle tissue in the lab, but meat to eat may be much easier to
produce than the vascularised tissue needed for medical implantation.
Research is at an early stage, but it has begun: the first in vitro meat
symposium was held in Norway in April. There may be food safety concerns
relating to the antibiotics and growth factors required. There will also be
high production costs - at least to start with - but there's no reason to
think that these problems are insurmountable. Indeed, it might also be
possible to develop products already on the market - such as mycoprotein and
soy protein - to mimic meat more closely.
Consumer attitude is an issue, but tastes have changed before, and if there
is any clear trend in food consumption over the last half century it is an
increase in processed food. Frankly, if the end product is to be the white
meat of a month-old broiler chicken or the minced meat of a hamburger,
prepared without care and eaten absent-mindedly, why make the detour through
a sentient vertebrate which needs kilos of grain just to keep upright and
has a brain that may feel fear and frustration?
If in vitro methods were used to produce the meat for all those everyday
meals which the average consumer neither has the time to cook nor to savour,
we could afford to spend money and land to keep cows and sheep grazing, pigs
rooting and chickens scratching for those weekend meals when we do pay
attention to what we eat. These animals could be given living conditions in
accordance with their needs. They would also contribute to preserving the
biodiversity and landscape of hillsides and areas of poor soil where crops
other than pasture are difficult to grow, while richer soils were left free
for other crops.
The way we produce livestock is not sustainable. If we're not willing to
reduce consumption, isn't it time to bring non-animal alternatives into a
serious discussion of how to produce the meat we eat?
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/opinion/mg19926635.600-comment-growing-meat-in-the-lab.html |
