We Americans love our beef and poultry.
According to food availability estimates by the United States Department of Agriculture, the average American was expected to consume about 222 pounds of red meat and poultry in 2018. You read that right: 222 pounds per person in a year. This is a continuation of a 25 percent increase in beef production over the past 50 years.
Of course, higher demand means more supply. Between 1990 and 2018, American farms increased animal product production by nearly 66 percent to 103 billion pounds of meat.
Regardless of where you stand on the ethics of consuming meat, the meat industry does have an impact on our environment – cows produce over 100 tons of methane per year according to a study funded by NASA’s carbon monitoring system program. While the volume of methane produced is less in volume than carbon monoxide, methane has a larger greenhouse gas effect than carbon monoxide does, according to the same study.
As we better understand our impact on the environment, many Americans are looking for alternatives to meat, whether that means cutting down on meat consumption or eliminating it from their diets entirely.
Among possible future meat alternatives is lab-grown meat, which is exactly what it sounds like: meat grown in a lab from a DNA sample that’s taken from the animal cruelty-free. Since it’s still technically meat, many lab-grown meat startups claim that this product has the potential to have all the tastes, textures and nutritional benefits of regular meat without the environmental impact.
Lab-grown meat companies also claim that lab-grown meat can be manipulated to be healthier than the real thing.
But are these claims true? And if so, is lab-grown meat really a better alternative to traditional meat? Is it better than eating a plant-based diet?“Since lab-grown meat is a fairly new scientific idea and there is currently no lab-grown meat on the market, it’s hard to understand the complete nutrition profile,” says Kaleigh Carpenter, registered dietitian at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. “Several research companies are suggesting that their lab-grown meat could have nutrition profiles better than traditional slaughtered meat, but we don’t know for sure if that’s true.”
Aside from lab-grown meat, there are still ways to be healthier when consuming animal products.
“If consumers want a healthier meat, then they can also make changes like reducing their saturated fat intake or increasing vitamins,” says Carpenter.
Researchers also claim that lab-grown meat could improve overall food safety; there may be a reduced risk of foodborne illness since this meat is grown in a sanitary lab.
“Again, this is still speculation at this point, and until formal regulation and inspection is established, we will not understand the true safety of these new products,” Carpenter says. “That said, because lab-grown meat will be grown in a stable lab, it should be safe to eat.”
Regardless of the heath pros and cons, consumers can get those nutrients from other sources right now.
“If technology companies are able to manipulate the nutrition profile and fortify the lab-grown meat with additional nutrients, it could end up being a better option than conventional meat,” Carpenter says. “However, these fortified nutrients can be found in several other foods including plant protein sources.”
Even though you can’t yet buy lab-grown meat at your local supermarket, there has been some federal interest in regulating and making it more accessible to the general public.
In December, the Food Safety Modernization for Innovative Technologies Act was proposed to the U.S. Senate to outline the regulation, inspection and labeling of cell-cultured animal products, and the Food and Drug Administration and USDA have started a regulatory framework for these new products.
While we may have time before lab-grown meat is sold in mainstream markets and is affordable, it’s possible that it could become a groundbreaking meat alternative. That said, according to Carpenter, it doesn’t seem that lab-grown meat will have many advantages over maintaining an informed plant-based diet.
Emily Real is a contributing writer. Feedback welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com.
