The possibility of seeing lab-grown meat on shelves and restaurant menus has been discussed frequently over the past few years but it looks like it is very close to becoming a reality. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has cleared two American producers to bring their products to market during the past five months and “that is a watershed moment because it’s never happened before in the history of humanity” according to the founder and CEO of UPSIDE Foods, Dr. Uma Valeti.
UPSIDE is one of the two companies (the other is GOOD Meat) approved by the USDA. The final guidelines on inspecting facilities that produce cultivated meat and how to label it should be finalized sometime this year. Every American is estimated to consume 225 pounds of red meat and chicken every year and the goal of cultivated meat is to protect animals and cut greenhouse gas emissions. The cultured-cell meat starts with animal stem cells that are fed a mixture of vitamins, fats, sugar, and oxygen in steel bioreactors that yields real meat tissue without the need to raise and slaughter animals.
Valeti goes on to say that the price of their UPSIDE chicken would start “slightly above organic” which would be price-competitive with the real thing within 5 to 15 years. He expects their product to show up first in fine-dining restaurants in California. There are naysayers including Todd Wilkinson, president of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association who reminds people that “my product doesn’t have to be genetically engineered” and other critics maintain that cultivating meat is nothing more than a novelty. We should soon be able to see if it does in fact become a reality.
Source: ABC News