Would You Eat a Lab-Grown Duck Breast? Inside the Alternate Meat Industry

This is an excerpt from the new book, The Fate of Food: What We’ll Eat in a Bigger, Hotter, Smarter World, published by Harmony.

Co-founded in 2015 by Uma Valeti, an Indian-born cardiologist, and Nicholas Genovese, a stem cell biologist, Memphis Meats is the world’s first start-up to grow meat in a laboratory using tiny samples of muscle, fat, and connective tissues taken from living animals. “We are a meat, poultry, and seafood company that makes end products no different than conventional meat, while eliminating the need for animal slaughter,” Valeti tells me in a phone call before my visit.
He adds that the cells that are grown, or “cultured,” in his laboratories are “alive,” even though they’re not attached to the animal. They’re so alive, in fact, that the mature muscle tissue he produces actually responds — as in flexes, or spasms — when stimulated. The notion that a serving of cultured meat had once been flexing in a petri dish would send me running to the tofu section, I tell Valeti. But he goes on to outline the many benefits that might coax me right back: “Cultured meats are identical on a cellular level to animal meats and can be as or more nutritious and delicious,” he says.
The processing and consumption of beef, pork, and chicken has nearly doubled worldwide in three decades, and it’s expected to double again by 2050. Beef is the real killer among these. Over years of research, I’ve come to understand that my red meat habit is draining America’s lakes and rivers, increasing my risk for heart disease, contributing to the destruction of virgin rain forest cleared for cattle grazing, and driving global warming. Livestock production accounts for about 15 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions globally, more than all forms of transportation combined. It also gnaws at my conscience that most animals raised for slaughter aren’t given decent living conditions.
Valeti holds that the production process for cell-based meats could reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from meat production by more than three quarters, while also cutting associated water use by up to 90 percent. Cultured meats could also eliminate the risk of bacterial contamination (gone would be the threat of E. coli and the helping of feces) and reduce the risk of heart disease and obesity (fats and cholesterol levels in these meats can be controlled). “We’re talking about changing the lives of billions of humans and trillions of animals,” Valeti tells me...MORE