Pork without a pig? Meat from a lab could be the answer.
The most expensive piece of meat in the world 鈥� costing about 鈥溾�� (2.2 pounds) 鈥� does not come from a ranch but a laboratory. The meat is grown in vitro, without killing a living animal.
The material required for in vitro meat is gathered by 鈥渁 relatively harmless muscle biopsy from a pig, cow, sheep, chicken,鈥� says Nicola Jones, author of a on in vitro meat. From this extracted muscle tissue, researchers separate myosatellite cells, which are adult stem cells used to grow and repair the animal鈥檚 muscles after exercise or injury.
Stem cells are important to this process because they can self-divide and multiply their numbers to create a mass of cells where there once was only one. These myosatellite cells are incubated in a petri dish with a substance designed to cause cell division and provide nutrients for muscle growth.
Yet the practice has not quite caught up to the theory. There are a number of hurdles that scientists must overcome before large-scale growth can occur.
鈥淭he myosatellite cells will divide only a limited number of times,鈥� according to , making it difficult to produce high volumes of meat.
, a physiology professor at in the Netherlands, for example, has been unable to produce enough meat to make a single sausage, which will 鈥渞equire another year of research and at least $250,000鈥�.
Additionally, the muscles atrophy without the animal to exercise them naturally. Post describes the meat he has produced as 鈥渨eak and without texture.鈥� Although researchers are forbidden from tasting their creations, Post describes a TV journalist who stealthily ate a piece and described it as 鈥渃hewy and tasteless.鈥� The price and taste of in vitro meat must be dramatically improved before artificial meat is 鈥渆ven remotely competitive with current products,鈥� says .
Despite lacking feasibility for large-scale production, in vitro meat inspires excitement because it is an alternative to status quo which is increasingly viewed as ecologically unsustainable.
Modern meat production causes many forms of 鈥渆nvironmental degradation,鈥� says published in (EHP). The report continues, 鈥渕eat production contributes disproportionately to these problems, in part because feeding grain to livestock to produce meat 鈥� instead of feeding it directly to humans 鈥� involves a large energy loss.鈥�
A article estimates that 鈥渢wo to five times more grain is required to produce the same amount of calories through livestock as through direct grain consumption.鈥� Despite this inefficient trade-off, 鈥渞oughly one third of grain is consumed by domestic animals,鈥� says , professor of population studies at .
By not requiring food, in vitro meat frees up grain resources, which reaps 鈥渆nvironmental benefits鈥� and 鈥渂enefits against world starvation,鈥� according to .
What do you think? Will lab-grown meat help nourish the planet? Tell us in the comments.
鈥� Grant Potter is a development associate and executive assistant to the president of Worldwatch.
鈥� To purchase your own copy of "State of the World 2011: Innovations that Nourish the Planet," please click . And to watch the one-minute book trailer, click .
鈥� originally appeared at , a blog published by the .
