On in vitro meat

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From The Times

May 9, 2008

 

Is in vitro meat the future? Chicken, beef and pork that has never been a

living animal could be better for people and the planet. But will it catch

on?

 

Carol Midgley

 

Here is a question that you must try to answer honestly. Would you eat meat

that had been grown in a Petri dish? Let's be clear: I don't mean " mock "

meat made from soya, or even the flesh of a cloned animal. I mean real, in

vitro meat that has been cultured in a laboratory from, say, pig stem cells

but has never formed part of a living, breathing, kicking, oinking creature.

Meatro, if you like.

 

If the idea makes you reach instinctively for your Tesco vacuum-packed

streaky bacon, perhaps you had better steel yourself and get used to it.

Last month, in Norway, the first international In Vitro Meat Symposium was

held, and scientists seem to agree that " victimless " meat - be it beef, pork

or chicken - bought off the shelf could become a reality within the next

decade.

 

What might propel the process along even faster was a radical move last week

by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta). The organisation,

which has long promoted vegetarianism, has offered a $1 million (£507,400)

prize to " the first person to come up with a method to produce commercially

viable quantities of in vitro meat at competitive prices by 2012 " . The rules

specify that the meat in question must be chicken, with the same taste and

texture as meat taken from a living bird. Peta says that the world's use and

abuse of chickens is the most urgent issue to be tackled, as billions of

them are slaughtered each year - 100 times more than pigs and 200 times more

than cattle.

 

Some members of the organisation are incensed by the gesture. Ingrid

Newkirk, its co-founder and president, says that it has caused " near civil

war " in the Peta offices. Many purist animal rights campainers abhor

absolutely the idea of eating meat, even if no animal died to produce it,

regarding it as a moral surrender.

 

The other view, growing in credence among both carnivores and vegetarians,

is that, since human beings seem unlikely ever to kick their meat-eating

habit, this may be the ideal - indeed, the only - compromise. It is a

possible " third way " that would, theoretically, be kinder to both the animal

kingdom and the environment. And, because the meat would not have been

pumped full of steroids and antibiotics and fed on grisly reconstituted

foodstuffs, it would be healthier. Harmful saturated fats could be removed

and good fats, such as omega-3, introduced instead. Probable result: fewer

heart attacks. And is the whole idea far-fetched? Not necessarily.

Researchers have already produced small amounts of the meat in laboratories,

and have been able to get heart cells to beat in test tubes. The technology

still has a long way to go, and at present the process is prohibitively

costly (it would cost nearly $1 million to turn out a 250g piece of beef).

But with enough research and funding, it is not inconceivable that one day

the scientists could produce a steak or a lamb chop.

 

The question then would be: will people eat it? A quick survey of the

carnivores I know reveals an instinctive revulsion from at least 70 per

cent. " It's perverted, " says my colleague at the next desk. " It's a

disgusting, freakish idea. " Which, to a vegetarian (like me), is deeply

weird. How can it possibly be more disgusting than, say, eating chickens

that have ulcered backsides from sitting for weeks in their own excrement,

bodies five times their natural size, with leg abscesses the size of 50p

pieces, and end their lives strung upside down with their heads hacked off?

 

Personally I would have nothing against eating in vitro meat in principle,

because it was never a conscious animal in the first place and never had to

travel hundreds of miles in an airless van, live in a cage or come within a

country mile of the slaughterman's knife. If it supported an industry that

would eradicate the need to keep animals in factory conditions, then I'd not

only eat it, I'd buy shares in it.

 

Realistically, though, there is bound to be initial distrust of a relatively

untested field of science with possible health implications. Words such as

" Frankenfood " are likely to be bandied about. Fred Kirschenmann, of Iowa

State University's Leopold Centre for Sustainable Agriculture, has said

that, while he doesn't deny that the idea could work, " every time we mess

around with our ecological heritage there are unintended side-effects. We

have a long history of unintended consequences. "

 

Yet it is important to be clear that in vitro tissue engineering is not the

same as genetic engineering: it is imitating nature, not trying to change

it. Stig W. Omholt, director of the Centre for Integrative Genetics and

professor at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, which hosted the

conference in Norway, says that any health risks would need to be evaluated

through experimental tests, though " we cannot foresee that this will become

an issue " . Nutritional experts with whom he has consulted in fact suggest

the opposite - that people's health will benefit.

 

According to Peta and to many scientists the world over, the ways in which

we now produce and consume meat are simply not sustainable. Each year,

worldwide, people eat 240 billion kilos of meat. In the US alone, a million

chickens are eaten every hour. In terms of CO2 equivalents, the gaseous

emissions from livestock production account for about 18 per cent of the

global warming effect - more than the whole transport sector. Yet, with each

animal killed, a sizeable proportion of it is wasted. With cultured meat

nothing is wasted: you grow only the parts you want.

 

New Harvest, a US organisation that supports the development of meat

substitutes, highlights that food-borne diseases - most commonly caused by

contaminated meats - are responsible for more than 76 million episodes of

illness, 325,000 admissions to hospital and 5,000 deaths each year in

America.

 

Although purists argue that it is an abuse of animals even to use their stem

cells to create meat, Newkirk says that she doesn't mind taking

" uncomfortable positions " if it means fewer animals suffering in the future.

The amount of grain required to feed farmed animals, which in turn feed the

world's voracious appetite for meat, is causing a global food crisis, she

says. About 760 million tonnes of grain are used to feed chickens, pigs and

other farmed animals - more than seven times the amount used to produce

biofuels. It can take up to 16lb (7.3kg) of grain to produce just 1lb of

meat. Since the Earth's population is predicted to grow to nearly nine

billion people by 2050 - with a commensurate rise in the quantity of

livestock needed to feed them - this cannot continue. As Bruce Friedrich, a

Peta campaigner, says: " We will have to stop eating animals in the way that

we do for simple self-preservation. "

 

As the science already exists, in years to come the pressure to move towards

in vitro meat may become irresistible.

 

The process works like this. From a living animal you take some stem cells

known as myoblasts, which are pre-programmed to grow into muscle, and place

them in a nutrient-rich fluid - the " growth medium " . They are poured on to a

sponge-like scaffold to which they can attach themselves, and stimulated to

grow by using electrical impulses. The resulting sheet of meat can be pulled

off, ground up, cooked and consumed as a boneless, processed meat - perhaps

in a pie. Professor Omholt says that, for now, scientists are likely to

concentrate on producing mincemeat on an industrial scale, rather than whole

organs such as kidneys. The concept of creating the whole " animal with no

brain " is not high on the agenda. But the production of ground meat for use

in sausages, burgers and chicken nuggets could take a great leap forward

within five to ten years, he says. And does he think that one day, as some

have gloomily predicted, such meat will threaten the existence of mooing,

baaing animals on farms? " I don't think we will ever see a world where

[living] animals are not produced for meat, " he says. " I see this as being

an alternative. "

 

By and large, the scientific community is motivated more by environmental

concerns than animal welfare ones. But the mood and the timing may be right

for such a compromise, as ethical halfway houses are becoming de rigueur.

The idea of guilt-free - or, at least, less cruel - animal products is

increasingly appealing to consumers who are waking up to the horrors of

factory farming. Sales of organic foodstuffs have soared and " ethical "

versions of luxury foods are catching on fast, even though they are

generally more expensive. " Humane " foie gras, in which geese or ducks are

not force-fed to make their livers swell to many times their natural size,

is becoming popular. Waitrose's " Faux Gras " (it has banned the original

type), which is made from free-range ducks and geese but blended to taste

like the traditional French product, took off so unexpectedly that stocks

sold out at Christmas. The Duke and Duchess of Hamilton, from one of

Britain's most aristocratic families, are boycotting Selfridges because it

is still selling foie gras.

 

Ditto farmed caviar. Waitrose stopped selling caviar amid concerns that the

Caspian Sea sturgeon population was nearing extinction, but last year in 15

stores it sold sustainable caviar produced by farmed Siberian sturgeon in

fish farms in Bordeaux. Demand was so high that this winter it will be

offered in 60 stores.

 

Although the in vitro technology is not yet developed enough to synthesise

blood vessels and so grow large steaks, Friedrich believes that this will

happen eventually. " In vitro meat has already been created - not with the

taste and texture of animal-corpse meat, but it is on its way, " he says.

" Eventually the technology should be such that you could grow all the parts

of an animal, minus the brain. Where there's a will, there's a way. "

Professor Omholt knows that persuading many people to overcome their

knee-jerk distaste for lab meat - or " meat without feet " , as one animal

organisation has referred to it - will be tricky. " It will be a challenge, "

he says, " but when you talk people through this, as long as they have any

sort of conscience around animal welfare, they will start to agree. You can

pose the question the other way round - do they want to make a less intense

footprint in the world? "

 

Whether such meat would pass muster with carnivores, whether it would be

deemed to meet kosher and halal criteria, is hard to say at the moment. But

Peta's grand gesture has had the desired effect of creating a debate about

the issue. The feedback has been mixed, and some people thought it was a

hoax - perhaps understandably, as Peta put out an April Fool story recently

in which it claimed to have created " Newkirk Nuggets " made from cells from

an upper-arm biopsy of Ingrid Newkirk, marketed as " 100 per cent Human(e) " .

 

But, as Newkirk has said, she did so " to make the point that flesh addiction

is revolting - and if I am healthier, as I am, than the average animal used

for meat, and giving my flesh voluntarily, why is this revolting but eating

flesh from a probably gut-infected, tumour-laden chicken or cow is not? "

Nevertheless, $1million is a lot of money for Peta to pay out. If someone,

somewhere, does come up with the goods by 2012, would it definitely honour

the deal? " Absolutely, yes, " says Freidrich. " It would be the best $1

million we ever spent. "

 

*The meaty questions *

 

*What will it look like? *

 

In vitro processed meat, such as sausage or hamburger, could look just like

the meat we eat.

 

*How long will it take?*

 

We may be able to make processed in vitro meat within years. Unprocessed

meat may take a decade or longer.

 

*What are the potential benefits?*

 

Fat content can be more easily controlled, the incidence of food-borne

disease reduced and, in theory, one cell could produce enough to feed the

world for a year.

 

*What are the risks?*

 

The system could be abused, to produce genetically modified in vitro meat,

which would carry the same risks as GM foods.

 

*How will it taste? *

 

In theory, the same as the real thing - but several technical obstacles

still need to be overcome.

 

*How much will it cost?*

 

It may one day be cheaper than normal meat.

 

*Source: New Harvest, a not-for-profit research organisation working to

develop meat substitutes*

 

- Have your

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- Have your say <#comments-form>

 

I'd be glad to eat this meat as long as it was labeled safe, without all

those antibiotics and hormones. We need animal protein to grow and function.

Trust me, not all vegans are supermodels (in fact, I know vegans that are

far fatter than me, and unhealthier overall). I say this is a compromise.

 

Gloria, Weaverville, NC, USA

 

If this works it will be fantastic. One of the reasons I don't eat meat, is

because I can't trust where it's come from. As long as this lab meat was

safe then I wouldn't mind tucking in occasionally. It would be less of a

worry eating out too!

 

Becca, Wetherby, UK

 

to those who say that the animals would go extinct:

 

chickens, pigs and even cows and goats (depends on your living conditions)

could be pets, just like cats and dogs

 

Tim, Moscow, Russia