Op-Ed: Is In-Vitro Steak The Meat That Can't Be Beat?

Enthusiasts say test tube steaks can save the planet, your life and animal lives too. It may also prove a viable option for vegetarians to chew on.

The movement to take the murder out of the meat by growing real animal protein in the laboratory is gaining momentum. Among the groups working on the protein frontier ts New Harvest which has recently published some promising findings. Opening with the sci-fi-ish assertion that the technology to create in-vitro meat could be changing global diets within 10 years, New Harvest spokesman Jason Matheny lists a meaty cornucopia of potential benefits from being better for animal welfare to being actually healthier, both for people and the planet. "Cultured meat would have a lot of advantages," New Harvest told CNN . "We could precisely control the amount of fat in meat. We could make ground beef with an ideal fatty acid ratio -- a hamburger that prevents heart attacks instead of causing them." But it isn't just the possibility of creating designer ground beef with the fat profile of salmon that drives Matheny's work. Increasingly, livestock farming is being fingered as the source of many human diseases, which he claims would be far less common when the product is raised in laboratory conditions. "We could reduce the risks of diseases like swine flu, avian flu, 'mad cow disease', or contamination from Salmonella, We could produce meat in sterile conditions that are impossible in conventional animal farms and slaughterhouses. And when we grow only the meat we can eat, it's more efficient. There's no need to grow the whole animal and lose 75 to 95 percent of what we feed it." Conventional meat production is also hard on the environment, impacting everything from the immense methane contributions that livestock make to climate change, to the amount of land it takes to support a cow, some of which is being carved out of the Amazon to grow soy beans as cattle feed. Some say the meat industry currently contributes more to global warming than the entire transportation sector, Lab meat, once they come up with a more attractive name, would be working on the side to reduce or eventually eliminate all of those factors.In-vitro meat is made from samples of animals conventionally slaughtered. For example, "pork" is made from pig ovaries retrieved from slaughterhouses, which are fertilized with pig semen, transforming them into embryos. They are then placed in a nutrient solution to grow and develop. The factor that could take the research from the lab to the store and into refrigerators around the world is its remarkable commercial potential. New Harvest notes meat is already estimated as a $1 trillion global market, with demand expected to double by 2050. With concerns about health, animal welfare and the environment growing, the appeal of in vitro meat is obvious. "We think that a technology to produce cultured ground meats -- burgers, sausages, nuggets, and so forth -- could be commercialized within ten years," said Matheny. "As with most technologies, successive generations should improve in price, quality, and acceptance. We don't think that matching the taste and texture of ground meats will be very difficult. Both conventional and cultured meat is made of muscle tissue. And conventional ground meat is typically highly processed. Chicken nuggets for instance, are made of something called 'meat slurry' -- it would be hard not to do better!" But the public doesn't always blindly buy what companies believe they should, and acceptance of what is a very radical proposition will have to be massaged into place. Still, it's not an impossible leap forward either, tofu having paved the way for mass acceptance of meat-like natural products. No matter how many facts are put on the table, there will be calls of Frankenfood: and 'unnatural" but fact is we're already way down those roads. Society has embraced the fact hydroponic veggies are grown in sterile water instead of the natural dirt and manure. Stacked against the 'naturalness' of battery raised chickens and feedlot cattle, the nu meat stands a good chance of grabbing market share. It's unlikely in-vitro meat will ever replace all of the range grown cattle but if the technology pans out on a commercial, it would at least provide a viable and sustainable alternative. Providing it's natural looking, inclined to be tasty and comes at a reasonable price..