|
...article
NOTES & EXCERPTS Singapore first country to approve sale of meat produced from stem cells.
Alternative sources of protein (incl. lab-grown meat) 2% global food mkt, expect 10% by 2035.
Singapore imports 90% of its food; govt funding startups to produce milk, fish, meat from stem cells; replacement for eggs.
Stem cells biopsied from animals frozen in liquid nitrogen preserving them years. Bioreactor multiplies cells to produce meat (similar process to Covid vaccine prodn). Tech not quite ready for mass prodn. Now uses expensive equipment from pharmaceutical industry.
Just Eat opening a lab in Singapore to produce chicken meat for supermarkets.
Feeding, slaughtering, refrigerating, transporting world’s 23b chickens uses much energy and land.
Criticism of lab-grown meat Not really ‘cruelty-free meat’. Animals stressed by extraction of stem cells, and nutrient solution in which they grow in bioreactor often fetal bovine serum from hearts of living calf fetuses Hyper-hygiene to protect against bacteria and viruses likely to increase cost Production at scale will use lots of energy
Price of lab-grown meat can’t yet compete with from industrial livestock farming (may within a decade).
Approval tough in EU if members want to protect domestic meat industries.
Asia’s 4.7b more open to it (> 1m lacked sufficient access to food in 2021).
|