In Vitro Meat
When Winston Churchill, in the 1932 essay “Fifty Years Hence,” mused that “we shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium,” he may have been more prescient than credited. Alexis Carrel had already been keeping a cultured chunk of chicken heart “alive” in a Pyrex flask for the past twenty years by feeding it nutrients (though Carrel was only interested in whether cell death was inevitable, not whether meat could be grown in a lab for human consumption). Sci-fi author Frederik Pohl was one man who took the idea of in vitro meat seriously enough to write about it – in the novel The Space Merchants, where cultured meat is the primary source of protein. That was science fiction, sure, but most good sci-fi is borne of the author’s honest opinion of what the future might hold and it’s usually inspired by the scientific advancements of the day. And sometimes, science fiction comes true. Like this time.
Dutch scientists were able to grow pork in a lab test tube. They extracted myoblast cells from the muscle of a living pig, incubated them in a piglet fetus-blood-nutrient solution, and got “a soggy form of pork.” No one’s tried the “pork” due to lab rules, but it’s derived from the same myoblast cells that generate muscle in response to tissue damage in an actual animal – ideally, this would taste exactly like pork muscle meat. They’ve even got plans to “exercise” the tissue, which could conceivably do away with the sogginess and provide a meatier chewing experience.
The Dutch scientists weren’t the first; four years ago, a research paper detailed plans to engineer in vitro meat on a massive, industrial scale, and others have been trying in vain for years to produce a decent lab-grown steak. The soggy pork is perhaps the closest they’ve gotten. Every researcher runs into a couple basic issues. First, there are generally two accepted methods for growing in vitro meat: the generation of either loose muscle cells or structured, “real” muscle. The latter is the ideal path, because it might make cohesive cuts of meat possible, but it’s also the most challenging. Real muscle growth depends on perfusion, or the delivery of arterial blood bearing nutrients to biological tissue, and a similar system might be required for “real” lab grown muscle. Until then, only thin sheets of muscle meat have been grown. These can be compressed into meat sheets or ground up, but a three-dimensional, juicy rare steak is still far off. The easy way out is to grow loose muscle cells, but unless you’re prepared for a future of unrecognizable meat products, you might want to wait for that soggy pork to firm up.
Where do I stand on the idea of in vitro meat? Well, I’m more than a little skeptical as you might imagine. Natural animal reproduction already does a pretty good job at growing meat, and major deviations from the natural order have a spotty track record. Big Pharma, for example, represents one big attempt after another to replace the natural order. It gets things right from time to time – I won’t argue against that – but it also creates unnecessary products that purport to protect patients from conditions that could otherwise be handled through lifestyle modifications. Both Big Pharma and the in vitro meat researchers are trying to understand incredibly complicated physiological processes that took millions of years to develop naturally. The vast interplay between hormones, nutrients, and environmental factors (including exercise, diet, and drugs) in the human body is difficult – if not impossible – to parse, but that’s exactly what medicine tries to do. When you take a drug, you’ve got to hope pharmacists took every possible factor into account. They can make educated guesses, and they’re often right, but not always. Statins, as prescribed, do a helluva job at lowering cholesterol (a pretty pointless gesture, but they do what they say they’ll do – note that they don’t promise reductions in actual heart disease), but they do so by interrupting the same passages used by other important bodily players – like CoQ10. It’s a complex thing, the human body.
Animal bodies are no different, and a steak isn’t just a matrix of muscle cells. It’s got fat (several kinds!), blood vessels, collagen, and different textures (which depend on the activity level of the animal; the lab meat cubes better have access to treadmills). Nutrients have to be shuttled in and waste out (grass-fed in vitro meat?). If you want a real steak with a bloody center, how is that achieved in the lab? Blood pockets? What’s the blood made of? What if I want a cowboy ribeye, bone-in – are they trying to grow bone, too? And I worry about the saturated fat content. One scientist mentioned replacing the Omega 6s with Omega 3s, which sounds promising, but I can only think the next step is to replace the saturated fats with even more Omega 3s (or, shudder, canola oil). Will it even taste the same?
At the same time, I remain open-minded. If they’re able to grow meat with perfect Omega 3/Omega 6 ratios, no hormones, no antibiotics, on a “diet” that recreates real grassy pasture, that tastes like meat, has the same texture as meat, the same saturated fat content as meat – I might be convinced to give it a shot. And if it’s cheaper than grass-fed meat, easier on the environment than industrial farming, and easy to produce on a mass scale without sacrificing quality, why wouldn’t I support it? Remember: I don’t glorify the ancestral, natural ways because they are ancestral and natural. It’s just that paying attention to evolution and being wary of modern “improvements” has paid off. The Primal Blueprint works. If in vitro meat works (and it’s proven beyond a doubt that it’s identical to real meat – a tall order, I grant you), why shouldn’t we give it a shot?
Still, I can’t help but doubt it. It’s not so much that I’m wary of processed food, because perfect in vitro meat that recreates actual meat is theoretically different than HFCS, boxed goods, and industrial vegetable oils, and it has the potential to revolutionize food (you mean I get to eat a black panther steak? Sign me up!); it’s that following the natural order has been so good to me. I eat according to human evolution, I exercise in accordance with my body’s design, and things have generally worked out well. Eating real steak raised the way it was intended to live has also worked out okay. I’ll keep my real meat for now and watch warily from the sidelines, curious and always skeptical.
Both Pohl and Churchill were undoubtedly inspired by Carrel’s experiment, but the prevailing public opinion was that the decades-old chicken heart was an abomination. It still lived when Carrel died, 28 years later, but the experiment was soon halted. If it weren’t for the negative public reaction, that chicken heart might still be pumping today. I suspect the initial public reaction to in vitro meat would be pretty similar, but what do you think?
Loading ...If no, what would it take to convince you? Anything? Is there any possible scenario in which in vitro meat is a good thing for this world? Share your thoughts in the comment section!
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Posted By: Mark Sisson
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Are you for real? Seriously…
I’m sorry. It’s just creepy.
Creepy indeed, Diana. Gut reaction is I wouldn’t touch it with a ten foot pole.
Personally I wouldn’t touch the meat. But another thing has just occurred to me. Does this mean that we could grow our own muscle and have it transplanted at a later date? Maybe a set of biceps or a rectus abdominus for example? I’ll be surprised if that hasn’t been thought of yet. Not that I’d be interested of course, I much prefer the natural method. But I can see the attraction for some people of going under the knife as an easy option. If they are willing to put silicon in there bodies, then the prospect of having their own home grown muscle would be much more appealing.
Not natural+ Laboratory= Red Flags
I couldn’t agree more. Creep-tastic!
Mark, I know this is off topic, but I noticed you will be at Catalyst Athletics on Sunday night, then Diablo CF on Monday. Any other dates in Northern Cali in the upcoming weeks? Thanks
Danny, just those dates for now.
“Skeptical” isn’t the word that comes to mind for me… “disgusted”? Yeah, that comes closer!
I just think of all the times Man has tried to duplicate what Nature has already perfected… and I think we should just let Nature do its job. There are just so many factors that a lab can’t even touch, no matter how hard they try…
Besides, isn’t grass-fed meat expensive enough as it is? I can’t imagine test-tube meat being any better, on any front (cost, taste, nutrient value, environmental impact, etc.).
Theoretically, it could be cheaper because cattle require a lot of grazing land to produce mean. Granted, I think I would let other people experiment with this for a couple of decades before I gave it a try.
I’m especially worried about environmental impact. I can’t imagine that growing 500 lbs of meat in a lab is less damaging to the environment than raising a cow on pasture – and with actual cattle you have potential for milk, as well as byproducts like blood, bone and manure for use as fertilizer and skin for use as clothing. The cow wins out, methinks.
I tend to think (or is it hope?) that in vitro meat and hydroponic farms are a futuristic fantasy that will never come to pass.
It’s important to think in terms of the energy cycle. Essentially all food energy comes from the sun. If the sun shines on a path of land over several months, delivering 1000 calories of energy, a plant will soak up something like 30 calories of that solar energy and turn it into chemical energy (i.e., things that can be burned for energy: wood, carbs, fat, protein, etc.).
If cattle then eat these plants, they transform this 30 calories into about 3 calories of energy. Therefore, when you eat 3 calories worth of meat, you are “eating” 1000 calories worth of sunlight, but if you eat 3 calories worth of plants, you are “eating” just 100 calories of sunlight.
If meat could be grown in a lab, it might be possible to improve the efficiency, since the meat would not be part of a living organism that ran around using up a lot of the solar energy that it “ate” before we could eat it. Still, I wouldn’t want to eat this chemist’s meat until millions of other people had done so for decades with no ill effects.
Even holding true to the evolutionary theory, which I do not personally accept, the prospect of lab produced meat seems to fly in the face of what drives the developement of our species. Will you be happy to sit in a lounger when they invent an artificial form of excersize?
“evolutionary theory, which I do not personally accept”
Excuse my rudeness, but why are you here? Mark’s whole philosophy on exercise, diet, and lifestyle are all based on the fact that humans HAVE evolved this way for 100,000+ years.
This site offers a dearth of good information, whether or not you accept evolutionary theory. Don’t be a hater!
I’ll second that, Kristin. You don’t have to accept evolution to gain the amazing health benefits of The Primal Blueprint. We’re all here to learn, to question, to grow, and to be healthier, happier people. I don’t care what your background, the more the merrier.
Not being a hater. I’m just wondering why someone who is most likely very set in their religious beliefs (which even though I am not, I can respect it, as my parents are both traditional Catholics) is on a blog where evolution is talked about on a weekly (or daily on the forum) basis.
Hi Kristin,
A minor point–I think you meant “plethora”, not “dearth”, above. These antonyms are sometimes confused.
Cheers!
I won’t presume to respond for chute, but as one who also does not recognize evolution as fact but gets this RSS feed daily, I thought I’d share why I personally see no disconnect.
From a strict Biblical perspective, humankind has been making bad decisions since Eve listened to the wrong advisor and ate from the tree, Adam followed without questioning and then pushed Eve under the bus, figuratively speaking, when he was asked about it by God. All manner of bad things followed, including death (and the poor health that leads to death). I’ll stop here to avoid starting a religious debate
. My point is there’s no reason to think those poor decisions don’t flow over into food, exercise and lifestyle, any more than poor decisions by post-Grok peoples would have. Anyone,regardless of how they think the world and mankind got started, can try out the Primal lifestyle and recognize that it works – as it has for my husband and me for almost a year now. The theory on why it works doesn’t really matter to me – the how, the fact that it does, and learning how to make it work better do. Hence, the reason I’m here …
Thanks for the response! I, personally, am a huge fan of the “why?” and ask it often about everything, which is why I didn’t quite understand chute being here. The way you put it, though, makes sense!
To each his own. Cheers!
if adam and eve created the first baby and he was white, where do black people come from?
I rescind my hater comment. I see where you were coming from now. These darn blogs aren’t very good at conveying intent
You should read “The greatest show on Earth” by Richard Dawkins. It talks about how Evolution is a fact, provides evidence to it, and how it is not merely a “hypothesis” to evaluate truth falsehood. Evolution is real and anyone who tries to find evidence against it, fails to do so. Every time.
“Will you be happy to sit in a lounger when they invent an artificial form of excersize?”
You haven’t been following the news. Artificial exercise already exists! (google “exercise in a pill”)
The principal benefit of this kind of research is creating transplant tissue and organs for humans. Lost a leg? Liver given out? No problem we’ll just grow you a new one.
Whilst we are a long way from that, simple things have already been tried. I believe replacement bladder wall tissue but I couldn’t find the link.
As for the meat; I think I’ll pass. If the want people interested they should never have used the phrase “soggy pork”.
P.S. Love the site. Is the book available in Australia? Haven’t seen it in any bookstores here.
You can order the book on
http://primalblueprint.com/
We’ll ship anywhere in the world.
The book is on many bookstore shelves here in the states. I don’t think we have worldwide distribution… Yet! Cheers!
Thanks. Just ordered my copy!
Thanks for the order and enjoy the book, PeterB!
I hope that the purpose of this experiment was not to produce meat for consumption. Sure, this technology could be transferred to regrowing human organs in the future, but if the purpose was to produce food, there is a serious problem with the distribution of research grants. It not only worries me, it sickens me to my stomach.
From a scientific perspective though, this is amazing progress. (I just threw up a little)
What, you don’t fancy soggy pork, Sam?
Not quite Mark, haha. Maybe if it was a matter of life and death :p .
At one time, I would have been all for it.
Now, not so much. Not at all, in fact, unless the alternative was soy-based faux-food.
I’d say that I too am “open-minded” about this, but not very hopeful. Open-minded because if they were to do it right and create a meat product that (1) mimics nature and (2) is easy/easier on the environment than traditional farming, then they’ll have gone a long way toward providing what could be a low cost and very healthy way to feed the billions of people on the planet without tons upon tons of grains and the ecological stress that goes with that.
My lack of hope comes from the fact that they’re more likely to aim for a low fat meat product because it’s “healthier” than natural meats.
Feeding billions of people surely will require tons upon tons of whatever the stuff is made of.
Everything comes from the good mother earth.
Mmm… sheet meat. Uh, no thanks.
In vitro anything raises my suspicions. There are things that can’t be quantified or measured. I wouldn’t care if they could run down the nutrient list and produce something that had the same attributes of the real deal. There are just too many things that we just don’t have the knowledge on to start trying to duplicate mother nature. We’re just wee, little peons in this game.
I’m with you on the fallout we endure from messing with the natural order of this great, big ball we live on. Blah, count me out.
Mike, because I believe when it comes to diet and excersize, the theories of what man was “created” to do or “evolved” to do (depending on your perspective)doesnt change what is profitable for man to do. I dont come here for theology, just advice from a learned man on whats good for my body.
Creepy?Maybe.Stupid?Of course.For those in the creepy camp how do you feel about killing,gutting,skinning, and cutting your own real meat?
I just gutted an elk and can’t wait for that organic, grass-fed goodness to get dry-aged and in my freezer. I even kept the heart and liver (his liver weighed at least 10 lbs) for some good organ meats. Yes, field dressing an animal is a little bloody, but “cultured meat” is just plain creepy.
For the record, I let a professional game processor cut/grind the meat. I don’t have those skills.
If we can recreate the nutrient concentrations of the blood and plasma of a grass-fed hervivore, I’m *ALL OVER* those meat sheets.
If it was proven to be impossible to devise a test that could distinguish in vitro meat from real grass-fed beef, I would consider it.
Given the “starter culture” method, I’m assuming that the meat would be cloned, which raises an additional set of questions. For instance, what if all the meat we consumed came from the DNA of only 100 animals, or 10, or fewer? Would this impact our immune systems? What about our overall health?
Would you eat in vitro meat, provided it was completely identical to pastured, organic meat?
In theory yes, can theory be perfectly put into practice? In this case I think no. We humans are smart but in practice we are are imperfect. No way we make it identical no matter how careful we are. We need to recognize where our possible limitations are when we attempt to “play God (nature)”.
Hmmm … Next time, forget Noah’s Ark.
All we’ll need is Noah’s Hydroponic Lab.
Speaking of creating low fat meat… have you seen the new low fat avacodoes? They are bred to have less fat in them. They are also about 2-3 times the size of the others. I havn’t had one, and I’m not either. Who wants and avacodo with less fat besides those who aren’t clued in? Like my classical-trainned cook cousin says “fat is flavor”. And as it turns out, a lot of other good things too.
Dammit, the high fat content is why avocados taste good. Reminds me of Texas A&M, I think, breeding a jalapeno pepper without heat.
Well said Chute, I second that – and many thanks to the wise man for sharing his knowledge!
In vitro meat…. that’s weird stuff though….
So, what would they call this stuff?
N-Meat-Ro?
Meat-us (from Fetus)?
I know they can grow ears from mouse parts for soldiers injured in the Gulf, but eating meat like this doesn’t seem natural.
I’ll pass.
I can’t even finish reading this!
Provided it had the same taste and nutirional profile as the types of “natural” meat I already find acceptable, I would absolutely eat in vitro meat.
Man survives by the use of his mind. Even the most basic things like hunting, cleaning, and cooking meat are for humans conceptual activities. Unlike animals we are not equipped with the physical characteristics necessary to acquire food. Our minds are our claws and our fangs. We have to understand things abstractly, and then do things like adjust our behavior, camoflauge ourselves, or build weapons in order to hunt. I see growing meat in vitro as just the most advanced example of man using his mind in service of his survival.
I would be quite concerned that the test tube meat would have some subtle differences we didn’t know about that would adversely affect our health and well being.
I dont want to get way off topic but the subject does bring up the benefits of local grown sustainable meats as opposed to mass produced corporate foods. I think laboratory produced meat would fall in the latter category. Just a different type of stockyard if you will.It may be cleaner and environmentally less intrusive, but still mass produced by a corporation which by default means my health will be weighed against profitibilty and return on the research and shareholder expectations. I’d rather kill it myself or atleast know the guy who raised it and killed it for me.
I love Katie’s comment above. I think it nicely illustrates the gut reaction of disgust. I know I feel it, too. The poll seems to be showing that though there is both a good constituency of those that find this appalling, abhorrent, and just plain gross (among other reasons to not be interested in consuming in vitro meat) and those that, under perfect conditions, wouldn’t have a problem with franken franks – the good meat is good meat crowd.
Noting could convince me to eat test tube meat, nothing. Why can’t people just stop messing with nature?
Mark, exactly why are you the least bit concerned about saturated fat? It is much better for you than unsaturated fats, especially those derived from vegetable sources.
I think you misinterpreted what I said above. I’m a sat fat lover. I’d be concerned those in control of the meat would cut out the sat fat.
I’d be extremely surprised if they left the sat fats in, since one of the primary talking points for in meatro (heh heh) is that it could be grown to have a “healthier” nutrition profile. Presumably, this means that every cut will taste like beef round and skinless chicken breast. Yet another reason to skip this latest (albeit thankfully far off) franken food concept.
I don’t consider the nutritional benefits of local/”real” foods and the economic benefits of corporate/”fake” foods to be mutually exclusive.
I think that if not for massive government distortions of the food production market and not to mention scientific research (which work symbiotically to make one another worse every day), it would be perfectly possible for high-quality “real” food to be mass-produced.
Growing food in vitro (assuming all of the scientific/nutiritional complications could be overcome) would just be the next step beyond that already far-off step.
I’m all for it. And that’s not because I’m Dutch myself.
One of the scientists who worked on it just appeared on a popular television show here in the Netherlands. His name is Mark Post, and he’s a vascular biologist at the University of Eindhoven. In the interview he indicated that the technology is obviously far from ready for real world applications, and that a lot of research and funds would still be required to possibly reach that point. Fortunately, if/when they do get there the technology could be used not only or necessarily to produce meat for consumption; it might be especially useful to replace or renew human organs when needed, for example.
Breaking News…..”We have developed a viable in vitro meat product”
McDonalds Executive…” What can we add to make it cheaper and last for years”
If you could grow meat this way it would give people even less reason to look after the environment.