Where is the Beef?
I was raised in a very meat-heavy culture as I would imagine most of you reading too –at least according to the statistics of those who read this newsletter– it was always considered the main source of protein in our diets and it also had an aspirational quality to it, going out to a steakhouse was (and still is in many places) considered as a celebratory occasion, and the inclusion of lower quality meats into the daily meal plan is mandatory (who hasn’t heard the phrase “where is the meat in this” referring to a meat-less meal as a second-class food due to the lack of meat)
But as we now know the meat industry represents an incredibly inefficient use of resources for calories and proteins for human consumption. We waste, land that could be used to feed humans to feed animals with a low growth yield so that then we can slaughter them and eat them. We lose so many calories in the process of growing an animal for consumption. Especially in today’s world where we are aware of the impact that human action has had on the planet, we might start to rethink if we need to keep on not eating meat, but doing it in such inefficient ways occupying large swaths of our planet for growing crops that will be wasted in the mouths of ineffective meat growing vessels such as cows pigs chickens and lambs.
Give me The LAB Meat
Faced with this conundrum and the mounting evidence and information about the negative effects of human activity on the planet we as a species are on a path towards improving ourselves and the methodologies where we supply ourselves with, energy, water, materials, and of course food! This is one of the reasons why more and more people are switching to vegetarian or vegan diets or are looking for alternatives or a meat-reduced diet.
But let us be honest most people are still eating meat worldwide and as more and more people escape from the poverty line and increase their income we will be making more and more people want to eat meat and incorporate animal protein into their diet. So I ask ourselves who are we to limit and control other people's decisions and consumption habits if it brings them joy and happiness? Also one of the most difficult pathways is to modify habits already on an individual basis and try to do that quickly on a global scale... Ha! Good luck with that.
So, one of the better solutions that will reduce or even eliminate most of the usage of land for feeding cattle while at the same time providing delicious meat for humans without the environmental impact and the slaughter of so many billions of animals is cultivated meat or lab-grown meat or whatever other term you can figure out because It seems like there isn’t yet a standardized name for this practice and still there needs to be some marketing magics going on so regular humans can adjust and adapt to this magnificent piece of technology.
In a nutshell, cultivated meat is meat grown in Petri dishes, or 3D printed or other methods but grabbing stem cells from the cow (or other animals) and growing the muscle tissue that we eventually eat, the advantage of this is the consistency in quality because you can grab a sample from an A5 Wagyu and replicate it over and over again keeping the standards of marbling and just scale up production.
The benefits of this sort of manufacturing meat instead of taking it from killing animals are manyfold:
Eliminating animals from the supply chain: After you get the samples you can release the cows to the fields and let them live the rest of their lives freely and eliminate suffering as well as depending on them as a means to provide animal protein for us.
Reduced usage of arable land: We will no longer need the excessive amounts of croplands to feed them which can be used for rewilding, or planting back again native forests or whatever was there before farms.
Saving up water and food for humans: Again we no longer need so many tons of food going to animals which can now go to humans we save up on water and overall food production becomes a whole lot more sustainable.
Reduce emissions for humanity: The supply chain for meat protein is incredibly carbon and greenhouse gasses intensive the number of gasses produced by this represents around 6.2% of all greenhouse gases humanity produces, we could reduce that greatly by using cultivated meats.
Reducing the risk of pandemics and other pathogens: Cattle growing is an incredibly dirty industry with many outbreaks of diseases since the medieval period because of how we stacked animals on top of each other for us to eat them afterward.
Costly Cultivated Cuisine
Cultivated meat, offers a revolutionary approach to protein production, promising ethical, environmental, and health benefits as we have seen previously. However, this technology currently faces a significant hurdle to overcome: its high cost. Sadly even though the technology exists and we have been making great strides towards the reduction of costs it is still somewhat prohibitive and making the slaughter of animals (and its subsequent supply chain) still cheaper than this.
One major contributor is the cell culture medium. This is a complex cocktail of nutrients, growth factors, and hormones that sustains the animal cells in vitro while the muscle tissue grows to become a wonderful steak. While scientists are actively developing cheaper alternatives, current formulas remain expensive, with estimates ranging from $100 to $1,000 per liter. Scaling this up requires large volumes of this pricey solution, significantly driving up production costs.
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Another key factor is the cost of a bioreactor, these specialized vessels provide a controlled environment for cell growth and differentiation. Trust me these things are expensive as hell when I had a biotech company some years ago we were looking to purchase a small one and god damn they’re costly and very delicate to work with. Currently, bioreactors designed for meat production are sophisticated and expensive, often requiring sterile conditions and constant monitoring. A 2020 study estimated the cost of producing a single burger patty using bioreactors at €500. So of course the cost needs to scale down significantly if we ever expect this industry to reach the mass market and we can have delicious cultivated meat on our plates.
Scaling production further amplifies the cost issue. While traditional meat production benefits from economies of scale, lab-grown meat is still in its infancy. Setting up large-scale facilities, optimizing production processes, and ensuring regulatory compliance all contribute to the initial investment burden. For example, JUST Egg, a company producing plant-based alternatives, highlights the capital-intensive nature of scaling production as a major challenge for cultivated meat companies.
Luckily, researchers and companies are actively addressing these challenges through investment into R&D as well as new technologies and methodologies that push every day the costs of these meats further down. Advancements in cell culture media, bioreactor technologies, and production efficiencies are expected to drive down costs significantly. Additionally, research into animal-free media and sustainable production practices is ongoing. A great signaling that is happening comes from companies like Memphis Meats have committed to achieving cost parity with conventional meat by 2025. While this may seem ambitious, continuous innovation and investment could make lab-grown meat a more accessible option in the near future. Also, we need to consider the impact in other areas of science, research, and consumer trends that might help and further accelerate this industry.
Promising Solutions on the Horizon
Luckily we are already seeing some advances that might help alleviate and reduce the cost of a lot of cultivated meats which will translate soon enough into delicious meals in more and more people’s homes.
One of these advances was a recent paper published on a type of animal cell grown for the cultivated meat industry that doesn’t require some key ingredients of the medium (which we discussed previously) this new type of muscular stem cell could reduce the costs of mediums for growing cultivated meats up to 90% according to the paper authors. This is an incredible price reduction opening up a possible bright future for the cultivated meat industry in the coming years if this type of cell production gets streamlined and popularized amongst different companies and research centers. Once again genetic modification comes to save the day.
Another interesting development for the cultivated meat industry is the development of a new combination of a hybrid type of meat and rice combination where rice is grown with a pinkish hue that is infused with animal cells within it. Or you could say these are animal cells with rice all over them. Even though it sounds a bit gruesome it doesn’t involve any gene modification but a novel methodology for developing this hybrid combo. Which honestly sounds delicious to me.
A Future Filled with Flavor?
The potential impact of cultivated meats is huge, from environmental to animal welfare, to human diets and affordability of high-quality animal protein for many more people around the globe. Hopefully, we will be seeing the rise and growth of this industry in the coming years.
From the sustainability perspective as previously stated when we need less land for cattle feed we can reuse most of that land for feeding humans directly or very importantly re-wilding these lands and return them to the biosphere as new natural reserves that can help alleviate the effects of the climate crisis and becoming carbon sinks once the vegetation and biodiversity is restored.
Also from the standpoint of ethics and animal welfare, we will have billions of animals right now that will probably be consumed or used as subjects to extract the cells that will become the meals that we will eat but it will reduce substantially the amount of animals who are brought to this world raised and eventually killed just for our consumption and pleasure eliminating a lot of unnecessary animal suffering while also reducing the chances of new pathogens to develop in the unsanitary conditions involved with the supply chain of animal products.
Now, the food industry will have an impact and we have already seen how the old guard of companies react in the food business when newcomers come to disrupt their profitable markets, they cry and whine and complain instead of adapting and adjusting. As an example in Chile, the AI-based food tech company called NotCo (previously known as Not Company) developed a plant-based milk they called “NotMilk” and they got into a legal battle that lasted for years with the Chilean Milk cartel because they claimed the name “NotMilk” would confuse consumers and dissuade them from drinking regular milk. Luckily this case was won by Notco and it shows a bit how little innovation some of these companies are doing and how much they need to either adapt or die.
Specifically, those farmers whose entire livelihood depends right now on raising and killing animals. And, honestly, I feel almost no sympathy for farmers overall. They are but an incredibly loud minority of people who could easily choose a different job and adapt to the changing landscape. But I don’t know I might be sour since the protests across Europe from farmers who are crying to the government asking for cheaper fossil fuels and more subsidies for them to increase their impact on the environment by their actions instead of developing innovative solutions to the problems they rely upon subsidies and government help to stay competitive in the marketplace. So, yeah my stand is more on the side of innovation and progress rather than crying and asking for handouts from the state.