Cultured Meat: What is it? Is it real meat?

 Cultured Meat, which is also known as laboratory-grown, clean, or cultivated meat, is grown in the laboratory from several animal cells. It's real meat, but you don't have to slaughter animals like traditional meat. The idea was to create a more environmentally friendly and humane meat industry. Some industry experts believe that this process, known as cellular farming, is the wave of the future. By the end of 2019, 55 companies around the world are working on it. But that's just the beginning of cultured meat. It is not yet clear how healthy and cheaply cultivated meat is, or whether it is delicious enough to make you want to buy it. It can take months or years to see cultured meat on store shelves or in restaurants.

How is it made?

To produce meat in the laboratory, scientists extract stem cells, so-called building block cells, from animals. They immerse cells in a liquid that contains nutrients that help them grow and place them in a bioreactor, an experimental device used to grow organisms. Once "unstructured" meat is developed, the next step is to turn it into a realistic meat product. Companies are trying to find the best way to make burgers, nuggets, and other products from cultured meat. Some use "scaffolding" made from soy protein, gelatin, or other sources to shape laboratory-grown meat.

Depending on the type of meat, this process can take 2-8 weeks.

 

Benefits of using Cultured Meat

Some of the potential benefits of laboratory-grown meat are:

 

●       Less pollution: Proponents of cultured meats say they are much less likely to be infected with E. coli  (which lives in animal feces) and other pollutants that can be found in meat processing facilities.

●       There are few antibiotics: Traditionally raised livestock are often given antibiotics to maintain their health. This can lead to antibiotic resistance. This means that the drug will no longer function as before for infections.

●       Little impact on the environment. As global demand for meat grows, more forest areas are being converted to ranches and arable land. Cultured meat requires much less land, uses less water, and is less polluted.

●       In addition, traditional beef production produces large amounts of methane, carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide, the so-called greenhouse gases, that contribute to global warming. Cultured meat can significantly reduce these emissions.

●       Animal friendly: Cultured meat requires a small amount of tissue sample, but it does not require killing the animal. Cells can be harvested from living animals. Some of the nutritional baths used to grow cells contain blood from slaughtered animals, while others are vegetarians.

For more articles on food Marketing, agrotech, and technology related to the Indian food industry, check out FMTmagazine. FMT Magazine is an edition of the German publication. It is a comprehensive food and beverage magazine that connects the buyers and the sellers through content that is of international quality. The magazine over the entire spectrum of the food industry including content on policies. FMT Magazine stands for Food Marketing & Technology Magazine. The magazine carries articles on ingredients, processing, packaging, food safety, and marketing, along with interviews with top personalities in the Indian food industry.