Report On In Vitro Meat

What is it?

I had never even heard of “In Vitro Meat” before this class started, therefore I had to do an in depth investigation to figure out exactly what it is and the reasons it is being developed. In Vitro meat according to The Journal of Food and Scuence Technology is, “The idea is to grow meat in a culture in the lab and manipulate its composition selectively”. Meaning that this so called “meat” is an artificial cellular substance developed in a lab to replicate and possibly even replace traditional animal meats. Scientists are trying to duplicate the cells in live animals in order to optimize production, secure our food source, treat animals more humanely and to produce safer meat overall.

Negatives

As far as I’ve researched into the discoveries and inner workings of in vitro meats, I have not come across many negative possible outcomes of this transition. I think it is absolutely horrendous how the meat industry treats their animals and I would love to see an end to this horrible tradition. The initial thought of overpopulation of these meaty animals was there, but during the time period where cellular meat slowly the new normal, we could finish up the already bread animals and regulate the population of the survivors. According to the Cellular Agriculture Society, “cellular agriculture would eliminate our need to farm animals. Removing animals from farming means eliminating all animal welfare issues in agriculture forever and ensuring the trillions of animals killed in agriculture annually would never be slaughtered again”. Another negative outcome from this transition would be that thousands farmers would lose their jobs. Although this would be tragic for the farmers and their families, I truly believe it would be a change for the better for humans as a whole.

Positives

There are a vast amount of reasons why switching from factory farm to in vitro meat would be a good idea. For one, a lot of people get sick and even die from contaminated meat due to the poor conditions and over use of antibiotics in factory farms. According to The Good Food Institute, “ 700, 000 people die each year of antibiotic-resistant diseases, while the rampant use of antibiotics in farm animals continues to breed more resistant strains of deadly bacteria”. This problem would be almost completely eliminated with closely monitored lab cultivated meat cells. Another issue that this would solve is the horrible impact that factory farming has on the environment. Thousands upon thousands of miles have been converted into cramped farmland which is impossible to run with only man power. All of the machines used throughout the process of breeding, feeding and harvesting these animals emits toxins greenhouse gasses, which creates irreparable holes in the Earth’s ozone layer. According to the Good Food Institute, “there’s factory farming’s massive contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions, which accelerates climate change – a crisis that the WHO estimates will cause an additional 250, 000 deaths each year between 2030 and 2050”. I think the environmental saving factors are enough to kick start this transition, before we kill our planet forever.

Conclusion

Ultimately, I am personally FOR the production and normalizing of in vitro meat as humanity’s primary animal meat source. I think it would do wonders for the environment and help to end the suffering of millions upon millions of innocent animals each year. Not to mention that if the whole production process of meat is completely clean and monitored the entire time, the likeliness for diseases spread through these meats are minuscule. It could save thousands of lives each year and I truly believe that the factory farming business needs to come to an end once and for all.