Cellular Agriculture — Alternative Animal Products
The way we grow and produce food is not sustainable. To produce just one pound of beef requires 1,799 gallons of water. Our current production method of animal meat and dairy products is wasteful. The average family uses 180 gallons of water a week and 9,400 gallons of water annually. Beef from one cow requires more water than an entire family uses in one year. I think that is crazy.
Today, we have 7.8 billion people on our planet. And these numbers will only continue to grow exponentially. CDC estimates that 11% (790 million people) of the world’s population do not have access to water. Every year, 1.2 million people died from unsafe water resources. Poor water quality kills 4,000 children daily.
Truthfully, we do have enough water and food resources for everyone. We currently use 69% of fresh water in the world for meat production. If we could allocate some of the water resources used for meat production to people in need, we could feed millions of additional people. The problem with the lack of food distribution occurs in two processes: food loss and food waste. Food loss refers to food loss in the early stages of agriculture, such as harvest and transportation. Food waste refers to food that is perfectly healthy but is thrown away for a bruise or imperfection.
Raising livestock takes a lot of land. Livestock takes up nearly 80% of global agricultural land but produces less than 20% of the world’s supply of calories. This means that majority of agricultural land produces only a limited supply of what we consume. Raising livestock is also draining our water.
All of this impacts global warming. Raising livestock contributes to 14.5% of greenhouse gases (gases that warm the Earth’s atmosphere), the second-highest source of emissions, even more than all of the emissions from transportation combined. Agriculture releases methane, which is more harmful than Carbon Dioxide. Raising livestock is also one of the leading causes of deforestation, biodiversity loss, and water pollution.
We need to transform the way we produce animal products. The ‘normal’ method will not sustain us. We need to find an alternative to raising livestock that is not destroying our environment or draining our water resources.
Cellular Agriculture is the Solution
Cellular agriculture will transform the way we produce food. Cellular agriculture is the production of creating food using cell cultures. Scientists use cell culture to grow animal products in labs instead of raising livestock. There are two types of production, cellular and acellular. Cellular agriculture is the production of once-living or still living cells, such as meat. Acellular agriculture is the production of animal-derived products, such as cheese. Cellular and acellular agriculture make up the grand topic of cellular agriculture. For now, we will focus on the production of cellular products. Cellular agriculture will forever change the food industry. Cellular agriculture is the future of the food industry. Cellular agriculture is the solution.
Cellular agriculture is creating animal products without animals. It will disrupt the market. Cellular agriculture does not need the miles of agricultural land that we currently use. It will save a lot of our resources and restores the land to its natural habitat.
To learn more about why cellular agriculture is a viable option:
Cruelty-free Meat Will Disrupt the Food Industry Without Killing Animals for Food Products
Cultured meat is meat grown in a lab. First, stem cells are extracted from small tissues in an animal. The stem cells are put in a medium to “proliferate”. A cell medium is made of everything it needs to duplicate and grow, such as oxygen, sugars, salts, and proteins. In this medium, cells proliferate by increasing the number of stem cells. The stem cells are then put into bioreactor tanks that expose them to the same environmental factors that replicate how they would be treated in the original animal. The cells are grown into tissues the same way they do in animals. It all started because we only took a small piece of their DNA. This produces unstructured meat.
As it sounds, unstructured meat is meat that does not have a concrete form. Structured meat, on the other hand, does have a certain shape. To create structured meat from the cultured meat, the stem cells need a scaffold. A scaffold is like a mold that the cells grow into. The scaffold shapes the cells to a certain form to create specific shapes. Scientists are looking to improve current methods of using a scaffold in cultured meat.
A benefit to cultured meat is that producing foods in labs eliminates any harmful toxins in animals that would otherwise be in our food and scientists can genetically modify products. Raising livestock sometimes entails that animals get harmful diseases. These can include anthrax, brucellosis, and more. Producing cell-based meats using cellular agriculture means we can adjust meat to ensure that it is safer and healthier to consume. Genetically modifying products is also a fascinating topic. We can improve crop yields, reduce costs for food or drug production, reduce the need for pesticides, enhance the nutrient composition and food quality, and create resistance to pests and diseases.
A challenge for cellular foods is making sure they have an appealing taste. For cellular agriculture products to survive in the food market, they must taste like meat. Scientists are working on improving the taste of their cell-based products for more customer approval. Companies in the cellular agriculture field are also testing and improving the taste of certain agricultural products.
Memphis Meats is a company working on creating and improving cellular agriculture products. So far, they have created cell-based chicken, meatballs, beef, duck, and even seafood. They are one of the many companies striving to build upon food technology to ensure a healthier and safer alternative. Memphis Meats continues to change the world with ground-breaking food technology.
Here is what Memphis Meats is doing:
Just is another company working with cellular agriculture to find viable alternatives in the food industry. Just makes plant-based alternative products. They are best known for creating animal-free mayo and egg-free cookie dough. Recently, they have made an egg-free scrambled egg. Just is making great strides to improve the production of meat and get raising livestock out of the picture.
Impossible Foods is also making great endeavors in using plant-based substitutes for meat products. Impossible Foods has produced numerous meat foods from plants. They have made the impossible burger, impossible pork, impossible sausage, and more. They aim to create food that is healthy and tastes good. Impossible Foods is also working on improving its food safety, specifically health and nutrition. They have revolutionary technology that goes into all their meatless meats, such as an ingredient, heme.
Beyond Meat is yet another company pioneering towards better alternatives to cell-based products and getting animals out of the food picture. They also create food from plant-based alternatives. Their mission is that shifting from animal to meatless meats will positively impact four global issues: human health, climate change, constraints on natural resources, and animal welfare. Their products provide the same level of protein a traditional pound of meat has but used 99% less water and 93% less land to do so.
Dairy without Cows, Goats, and Sheep
Dairy products introduce another sustainable issue. The problem is we need another method to recreate the milk, yogurt, cheese, and icecream everyone loves. Cellular agriculture provides the pathway to create dairy products without animals.
How would we create milk without animals?
We can use DNA from a cow, an equivalent of yeast, and sugars to create a cellular-based alternative. This goes through a fermentation process to produce milk without the need for animals.
The company, Perfect Day, is working on changing the process of dairy production, but not the taste. First, they asked the question: what makes milk, milk? They discovered that the proteins, whey and casein, are the secret ingredients. It was these two molecules that can ensure milk production without cows, goats, or sheep. Then, Perfect Day introduced the DNA from a cow to create an animal-free version of milk proteins. They make the proteins with microflora (an organism, such as bacteria, yeast, and fungi) because microflora has a safe and healthy history in food production. By giving the microflora the “genetic blueprint” of whey and casein, the microflora can produce milk proteins, identical to what cows produce. Perfect Day then puts the proteins in fermentation tanks to produce more. These proteins have been proven identical to the ones found in milk. There is also not even a single trace of lactose, cholesterol, hormones, etc. Because of this, the proteins are Generally Recognized as Safe by the FDA. The result is a protein that we all can enjoy and love. All of this was done without a thousand-pound cow. It was done with cellular agriculture.
The process of using whey and casein can also be used for creating other dairy products without animals. Perfect Day is revolutionizing the “whey” we produce dairy and is disrupting the dairy market. Everyone can enjoy the same ice cream on a hot day and milk with our cereal, but it will not be made from animals.
Benefits from Cellular Agriculture
Human Health
Cell-based products are much healthier and safer than “normal” agricultural products. Growing meat in a lab entails that we would not consume bacteria or harmful toxins that are in the animals’ feed. Scientists can also alter the specifics of food products that seem unhealthy.
Animal Welfare
“Normal” methods in the food industry exhaust animals. For example, in the food industry, there are two types of chickens, the chickens that are killed for meat and the chickens that lay eggs. Every year, 9 billion chickens are killed for their meat, and 300 million are used in egg-laying production. Cellular Agriculture can right our wrongs by not relying on animals for meat products and instead being cruelty-free.
Climate Change and the Environment
Cellular agriculture will also help us fix the downfalls of the harmful environmental side of agriculture. We will use a fraction of the land, water, and feed while producing animal products and byproducts with cellular agriculture. Currently, our system of producing meat uses 69% of the world’s freshwater. If we can decrease these numbers even by a little, we will see a huge difference on our planet. The greenhouse gas emissions, specifically, methane, will also drastically decrease with cellular agriculture creating alternatives to meat-based products.
Many people in the world do not have access to food or water, but being able to produce clean healthy meatless meats in labs will transform that. We will still be able to consume our favorite foods but more sustainably.
Key Takeaways
Although cellular agriculture is a new field, it can provide solutions to keep feeding our population and people who are struggling with food security. Cellular Agriculture will disrupt the food industry with clean meat and alternative dairy options. The future of food is grown in a lab.
- One pound of beef requires 1,799 gallons of drinking water and animal agriculture is 80% of global agricultural land.
- We lose a lot of food during food loss (the food lost during early stages of production, such as harvest and transportation) and food waste (the food that is perfectly edible and healthy, but thrown away because it is not perfect). If we can find a way to stop the food loss and waste, we could feed more people.
- Cellular Agriculture will require less land, use less water, improve human health, support animal welfare, lessen greenhouse gas emissions, and be able to feed our growing population.
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