Fake Meat, Anyone?

'Cultivated' meat might soon be able to steak its claim as the most popular protein product… Whilst also quelling mass suffering.

General gist of this post: the production and consumption of ‘cultivated’ meat would produce harmful pollutants at a far lesser rate than traditional animal agriculture. It could also halt the mass collective suffering inflicted on animals used in agriculture. This lab-grown product may even reach price parity (by 2030?), whilst tasting better than your traditional, juicy, animal-based Rib-Eye or Chicken Burger… Fantasy? Not anymore.

Ethical abstention from meat is usually predicated on one of the following moral/practical reasons: a) to ‘limit the human-facilitated harm inflicted on animals’, or b), because doing so ‘puts less stress on our environment’. There are very few who choose a third reason, c): that they ‘don’t eat meat because it tastes awful’… because no one (sane) thinks that. Meat is tasty!

And so, how fantastic would it be if these two previously conflicting wants (a & b) could be simultaneously satiated, preventing animals being harmed and killed, and also being able to consume and enjoy (genetically identical) meat? What was once fantasy, could now be (it pretty much already is) reality.

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Plant-based meat, as its namesake would suggest, comes exclusively from plant-based materials. From soya sausage to mycoprotein mackerel, plant-based meats tend to be the cheapest of the alternative proteins. They attempt to mirror the taste and texture of animal flesh. This relative cheapness, however, seems to come at the cost of its meatiness… i.e., it is the alternative protein product that probably tastes and feels texturally the least like its tasty, incumbent, constituted-of-animal-flesh equivalent.

For me, ‘cultivated meat’ is more likely to be the game-changer when it comes to reducing traditional meat production and intake. Also known as ‘lab-grown meat’, ‘clean meat’, or ‘fake meat’ - as meat-producing farmers would rather it be known - is made out of animal flesh like traditional meat, but it does not result in the slaughter of an animal. But how?

By cultivating a small sample of an animal’s cells, from the feather of a chicken, say, gastronomic boffins at firms such as JUST Inc. and Blue Nalu (other companies are available) have succeeded in growing them into larger pieces of flesh that can be sold and eaten. These are, biologically at least, indistinguishable from real animal flesh. Vegans cannot (technically) eat cultivated meat, though, as it is still made from animal products; their cells. But because no animal is harmed, per se, many may choose to eat cultivated meat despite this. Why is this important? Because Vegans deserve good food too! Vegan food largely sucks!

Singapore is the first and only country (as of September 2021) to allow for this cultivated meat to be served to customers. The first meal -  “a trio of sample chicken dishes” - was sold in a restaurant for US$23.34. Currently, average production costs for cultivated meat are between 100 to 10,000 times higher than conventional meat products… However, certain research forecasts that if similar governmental financial help is awarded to cultivated meat companies as has been/is being enjoyed by animal meat companies, a similar price to animal meat could befall fake meat by 2030!

Is this why we have not seen cultivated meat yet on UK plates? Because the price is too expensive? Partly. Because financial help is not being given in large enough amounts? Partly, yes. But the key issue at first is bureaucratic… cultivated meats are yet to be given regulatory approval. To be fair to the government though, I *think* that no firm has requested approval (as of yet).

Even so, the UK’s Transforming Food Production Programme is not being proactive enough in incentivising this industry and help bring about its significant associated benefits. It is only investing £90 million into more sustainable food production frameworks - and none of this goes to any cultivated meat research firms directly. A poultry amount. An amount exceeded by government expenditure on farming in 2018 by over £3.7 billion…

And what of the EU? Surely they’re doing something annoying regulation wise? Well, at one point they considered banning cultivated meat from calling their products anything meat-related. Burgers? No. Veggie disks? Yep, that will do.

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Sustainable food systems are a critical weapon in reversing environmental degradation. The yearly world emissions from the production of food were found to be ‘17,318 ± 1,675 TgCO2eq yr−1 [*whatever that means*], of which 57% corresponds to the production of animal-based food […].’ Decreasing the demand for traditional animal flesh would not only lessen the amount of pollution being emitted, but also aid in halting the mass suffering of animals brought about by animal agriculture and meat consumption.

I know we often discuss only the practical/environmental/health-related advantages of not eating meat. But not torturing, fattening, murdering, skinning and chopping up animals sounds like a pretty palpable advantage to me, too…

This is why UK Regulatory approval of alternative proteins and cultivated meats in particular should be granted swiftly. Similarly, government subsidies should then be much more handsomely awarded to alternative meat companies. Doing so is a relatively unobtrusive measure(?). The alt-protein sector is not competing on a level-playing field, due to the huge amount of government subsidies the meat industry and animal agriculture receives from the UK government.

The 2021 Comprehensive Spending Review provides at least a starting point for government funding of alternative proteins, focussing on immediate funding issues in the alternative protein landscape. But we should go further.

I would never call for a ban on meat (although the logical conclusion of my ethical commitments would follow that I should call for a ban… and that I should also be vegan, too… I’m trying my best, though, as a half-ethical vegetarian). I would, however, initiate a call to arms of the alternative protein industries, hand in hand with the government, to bring about a financially formidable partnership in order to compete with the incumbent meat industry behemoth.

If their animal product is great and people are hooked on their meat, they should have nothing to fear. However, as the arguments over naming rights may have shown, and due to the fact that the alternative protein market share is now at a highest $2.2 trillion, that does not seem to be the case… Watch out, producers of flesh - fake meat is coming for you(r market share)! *Cue traditional meat industry directors doubling spending on political lobbyists*.

Even if you eat meat, I will assume you would like to eat it without causing suffering to animals nor their death. And that, if you could 1) still eat animal flesh, and 2) help remedy climate change - all by eating something which is biologically indistinguishable (and hopefully hits price parity) from traditional meat… I would very much hope you would do so. But all of this rests on one huge factor… That cultivated meat is ultimately tasty!

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Questions to Think About:

• Which should take precedent - our generally held ethical principles or some type of utilitarian welfare-maximising policy principles?

• If eating meat was actually good for the environment, would this weaken the vegetarian and vegan ethical position of not eating meat?

• Would a ban on meat ensure the environmental movement lost people previously sympathetic to its cause?

I hope you enjoyed this blogpost! *Please share it with others*, etc. Sorry if this one felt preachy… other blogposts should be less so. Email any thoughts (anything you liked/tips?) to:

connor.axiotes@googlemail.com

Enjoy the rest of your week, and see you next Thursday for the new post, which will focus on what would happen if we banned all Large Donations to Political Parties, Before an Election..?