In Vitro Meat Will Be on Store Shelves Within Ten Years

There have been a few times in my life when I have come up with a truly great idea, only to see that idea made a reality a few short months or years later.  The tabletop ordering system is one of those, an idea I had as a child to replace restaurant servers with computers that recently showed up in my local Red Robin in the form of the Ziosk table-top touchscreen ordering system.  Another one was an infinite-gear transmission that I came up with as a junior in high school, only to see that Nissan and other car companies were developing one a few months later.  I sometimes feel like the world is listening in on my thoughts, but maybe it is just that I am in-tune with what people want and what technology is able to provide.  I hope it is the latter.

In vitro meat is coming to store shelves sooner than you think.

In Vitro Meat Will Be On Your Dinner Plate Soon

This happened to me again a few years ago, when I heard scientists were able to grow animal tissue cells in the lab.  Probably fifteen years prior I had an idea that would put the likes of scientists, humanitarian groups, environmentalists, and animal rights groups on the same side.  If you could grow meat in the lab like they were starting to do with organs at the time,   you could theoretically kill three birds with one stone.  You could produce as much meat as the world needed, feeding the hungry, without using vast amounts of land to graze animals, and without the need to slaughter millions of creatures a year.  The world's ability to produce meat would be based on how fast you could churn out product in the factory, not how much grassland was available.  Slaughterhouses could be eliminated because factory-grown (in vitro) meat wouldn't have a nervous system or a brain, wouldn't need complex organs, and the amount you needed could just be sliced off the source, while the rest continued to grow.  Control over animal-borne diseases like Mad Cow Disease, E. Coli, and Salmonella would be much greater if all your meat is contained within the confines of a factory.  Areas of the world where it is difficult to raise livestock due to climate would no longer have to import much of their food because they could build a meat factory at the heart of the town.  It will be a revolution in the way we eat.

Where is the Research Currently?

As it turns out, in vitro meat research has been going on for a while now, with NASA growing meat cells from turkey and goldfish cultures since back in 2001.  The 2000s saw significant advances in the technology, with many different research labs working on artificially created meat in one form or another, mostly in Europe.  Progress has been so significant, in fact, that three years ago a sample was created that was large enough to be eaten (the researcher described the texture as like that of a scallop, firm, squishy, and moist).  

In vitro meat cultures in the lab.

BREAKING NEWS

While writing this post, which I decided to write because I think this is a very important area of study, breaking news on the topic (yes, it does happen) was announced that the world's first in vitro meat burger will be served and eaten at a restaurant in London next week.  Mark Post and his team, the Dutch researchers who created the sample described previously as well as this full-sized burger, estimate the cost of the burger to be around €250,000 (~$330,000 US), which took two years to make (hopefully two years of science, not two years of sitting in the freezer). This is a huge step towards economically viable in vitro meat, which makes me more confident about that ten year deadline I put in the title.

Ground beef is of course the easiest meat to recreate since scientists can grow much smaller sections of meat and mix then together rather than trying to grow an entire steak at once.  Ground beef is also the simplest texture to match, which is especially important because this seems to be the most difficult property of meat to master.  The researchers hope to be able to make larger pieces of meat like steaks in the future, but don't expect to see in vitro meat move outside of ground meats for a number of years.  There is a large gap between making tiny bits of meat that can be packed together and huge slabs of meat that can be cut into portions.

Applications of In Vitro Meat

Assuming scientists are able to continue their progress and create in vitro meat that is mostly equal in nutrition, texture, and taste to real meat, who is going to eat it?  There are some obvious applications of this technology, and some less obvious ones.  Each is going to happen sooner or later in some capacity, but it is all going to come down to cost.

Save the Environment

The potential for in vitro meat to help save the environment is much greater than any agricultural technology to date.  We have gone through wave after wave of revolution in agricultural production and animal husbandry which has resulted in greater crop yields and larger livestock.  All of these, however, have created a larger burden on the environment in terms of waste, ground pollutants, and the larger population which it supports.  In vitro meat is the first technological advance to both help feed more people and lessen the burden on the environment.  Applications of hormones and medicines can be greatly lessened and made vastly more efficient.  Solid, liquid, and gas animal waste can all be reduced, and huge tracts of grassland that are currently designated for animal grazing can be given back to nature, allowing natural plant species to return.  It is really a win-win for people and the planet.

In vitro meat production has the potential to make meat so widely available that the human population can easily grow much larger without fear of starvation, negating any positive effect in vitro meat would have on the environment.  This is not going to happen.  UN estimates but the world population by 2150 anywhere from 3.2 billion to 24.8 billion people depending on growth rates, with the median estimate around 10 billion.  The chart below shows this in graphical form.

2010 United Nations world population projections.  The wide variance is dependent
on small changes in the growth rates.

While this chart appears to support the possibility of sustained growth through the next century, this is not actually the case.  It is well documented that the advancement of a society is integrally tied to its population growth.  The less children are needed to help support you (farm work), the more time people spend being productive working away from the home, the better the access to healthcare that precludes the need for your children to care for you, the lower the infant mortality rate that reduces the need to have many children, and the increased access to healthcare, all mean a lower birth rate.  For example, the net birth rate (birth rate - death rate) in Europe is 1.2 births per 1000 people, while the net birth rate in Niger is 36 births per 1000 people.

In vitro meat production will ultimately be tied to more advanced technologies.  Any country that were to have the capability to run an in vitro meat factory would also be considered a first-world country and have a slower birth rate.  What this means is this technology is not a precursor to higher birth rates, but a result of lower birth rates.  If in vitro meat succeeds in a country in the future, that means birth rates in that country have already fallen.

With less land required for livestock, it will be far easier for people and governments to buy up large areas of the world and allow nature to take over.  This will create more places for animals and native plants to live, plus more areas for migratory birds to make pit stops.  Human civilization can start to center more around cities and become more compact, further reducing our impact on the environment.

Save the Animals

Texas Longhorn cattle would no longer
need to be raised if in vitro meat
takes off.

This is the most obvious benefit of in vitro meat, and is why PETA is currently holding a $1 million contest to the first researchers who create commercially viable in vitro meat.  With in vitro meat there is no need for any higher (or most lower) cognitive functions, because you are only producing a slab of meat.  There is no need for the animal to think, eat, breathe, defficate, or walk.  Ideally, machines would perform the basic functions like supplying blood and oxygen to the cells as well as removing cellular waste.  With the rapid progess that is being made in regrowing organs, it may even be possible to create the basic organs an animal needs biologically, all of which would be controlled by a computer brain.  This would remove the need to slaughter animals, and for one of the first times in history, put me on the same side as PETA.

Make Meat Cheaper for Everyone

Except for the very rich countries like the United States, the vast majority of food consumed in the world is grains.  This is because meat is far more expensive, and per calorie, meat uses three times as much land as grains do.  Right now, many countries cannot afford to raise livestock for a large portion of their calorie consumption because it would mean insufficient food would be produced in the region.  If meat production were moved to factories, those areas that produce very little meat could see a huge increase in meat consumption without losing their ability to grow grains.

In vitro meat also has a great potential to make meat production cheaper overall, even in countries like the United States.  Raising livestock right now introduces massive amounts of inefficiencies from wasted food and overuse of drugs to transportation costs.  Meat produced in factories can reduce all three of these because it could be produced closer to population centers and have a better control of all the variables.  Waste would be reduced because the supply of meat could be tied much better to the demand than it is now.  Factories located within a few miles of population centers could get fresher meat to the people more quickly.  Disease, and therefor drugs to combat those diseases, could be reduced dramatically in a controlled environment rather than out in the open.  Our meat would be fresher, cleaner, and cheaper than it is now.

Challenges to In Vitro Meat

The road to in vitro meat is not easy.  There are significant challenges if we are going to get to the world I described above.  Some of these challenges are easy, some I am not sure are surmountable.  Only time is going to tell whether we will rise to meet these challenges and create this revolution in food production and consumption.

The Ick Factor

The first challenge that is already being experienced is the ick factor.  The idea of eating meat that was made in a factory triggers an emotional response akin to eating a beloved pet.  It is just wrong.  This is to be expected for a while after in vitro meat is introduced to the world, surely spurred on by the media trying to grab a story.  This will pass in time.  The longer people read stories about in vitro meat and see it on store shelves, the more desensitized to it they will become.  In thirty years, children who grew up with in vitro meat on store shelves there entire lives will look at their parents and grandparents and wonder what their problem is.

The Name

When in vitro meat finally hits store shelves, it will undoubtedly not be called in vitro meat.  This name does a good job describing what it is, but it is not particularly appetizing nor is it good for marketing.  There are already several names being thrown around for it, including cultured meat, tubesteak, and shmeat.  My guess is cultured meat is going to end up as the FDA-approved name you will see on nutrition labels, but the brand names will likely be something different altogether.  Maybe someone could work the Apple line and go with iMeat.

The Internet

The internet is going to explode with ignorant comments about genetic modification (which most current research into in vitro meat does not do), strange, man-made diseases, government conspiracies, and the like.  These will all be almost certainly complete falsehoods, but there is the possibility with a technology so ground-breaking that the general public will grab onto one or more of these falsehoods and kill the industry.  More than likely in vitro meat will end up like vaccines, used by the vast majority, but shunned by small communities who don't base their decisions on any real science.  Luckily for in vitro meat, unlike vaccines, avoiding them does not harm other people around you.

Energy Consumption

I discuss repeatedly the ability for in vitro meat to reduce the amount of land required to raise livestock, freeing it up for wildlife sanctuaries and state parks.  This will only be possible, however, if we increase our energy production somewhere else.  A pound of in vitro meat should use less energy than a pound of natural meat, but the increase in meat consuption is going to invariably result in more energy use somewhere.  We aren't going to get this meat for free.  Where that energy comes from will be a deciding factor whether in vitro meat wil lactually save any land.  If we simply increase our grain production to support in vitro meat production, the land that was used for grazing will just get converted into more farmland.  For in vitro meat to truly help the environment, energy sources such as algae, vertical farming, and possibly fossil fuels are going to need to be used to support the switch from livestock to in vitro meat.

The Price of In Vitro Meat

This is going to be the deciding factor whether in vitro meat sweeps the world or becomes a footnote in history.  I have a hard time imagining in vitro meat becoming some delicacy for the very rich, so for it to really be a success on any level, it has to be cheap.  There are great efficiencies in producing meat in a factory, but it is hard to say at the moment whether the technology will become cheap enough to be eaten by the general public.  With the world population continuing to increase for the near future and land getting ever more scarce, raising livestock is going to get more expensive.  This will help in vitro meat.  A good world system that factors environmental impact into the cost of meat production will also help in vitro meat be more cost-competitive.  In the end, however, it is going to come down to how simple can the process be made, and how well will it scale up to commercial production.  If both of those two factors are favorable, expect to see in vitro meat start to replace meat in frozen foods, fast food, and possibly one day, all meat.http://ianhfrancis.blogspot.com/search/label/Science