Meet Your Man-Made Meat
August 9th, 2009 | 
Author: 
I am finally back at the blog; lured back by this weekend’s CNN web article and soon to air show on In Vitro Meat. (Sunday August 9, 7pm ET, CNN International.) It is a topic I have considered carefully as I covered it in Thanking the Monkey (p184) in a section headed “In Vitro Meat: The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread?” [1] Then, later in this piece, you will see that I cannot resist the perfect segue from In Vitro Meat into Food Inc, a film I have been meaning to plug since I saw it on opening weekend last month.
A few years back, the MTV reality show “Big Urban Myth” examined the myth that Kentucky Fried Chicken had changed its name to KFC for legal reasons, because the chain was no longer using chickens. Instead it was said to be using headless, featherless, brainless, organless, living lumps of chicken-meat that were the result of genetic modification. As there was suspicion that the myth was being spread by animal rights activists, I was interviewed as to my knowledge of the truth of the accusation. I assured viewers that unfortunately KFC was still using real chickens, raised in hideous conditions on factory farms and slaughtered with no protection from the federal Humane Slaughter Laws. Funny, not all of those facts made it into the final cut for MTV.
Who would have thought that a few years later the myth would be on the verge
of becoming reality?
So how does it work? The CNN report describes some In Vitro Meat production as follows:
“‘Pork’ is made from pig ovaries retrieved from slaughterhouses, which are fertilized with pig semen, transforming them into embryos. They are then placed in a nutrient solution, where they grow and develop.”
Ick, ick, ick, ick, ick.
In Thanking the Monkey I quote an article in the New York Times that describes a process that sounds similar, but which I find somewhat less disturbing — at least there is no mention of semen and embryos:
“The process works by taking stem cells from a biopsy of a live animal (or a piece of flesh from a slaughtered animal) and putting them in a three-dimensional growth medium - a sort of scaffolding made of proteins. Bathed in a nutritional mix of glucose, amino acids and minerals, the stem cells multiply and differentiate into muscle cells, which eventually form muscle fibers. Those fibers are then harvested for a minced-meat product.”[2]
While that’s still not something I am going to eat, I realize that the product isn’t aimed at me, it is aimed at people who are currently consuming the muscle fibers from the legs of animals — animals who have been factory farmed and then slaughtered. And some of those folks have been known to turn up their noses at my veggie burgers! Go figure.
The process is not limited to beef or pork. Pescatarians concerned about the scientific prediction that every major fishery will have collapsed by 2048 might choose a creation that is said to resemble fish sticks. These alluring delicacies have been produced by slicing a bit of muscle from the abdomen of a goldfish and placing it in a serum solution to grow. The serum can be made from Maitake mushroom. Apparently researchers have battered the fish sticks, fried them in olive oil, and then subjected them to a “sniff panel.” While the panelists weren’t allowed to eat the fish sticks they said they smelled appetizing. Yum, yum.
The current CNN piece on In Vitro meat, to which you will find a link in today’s DawnWatch alert, opens with the line: “Meat is murder? Well, perhaps not for much longer.” That is indeed, for animal advocates, the immediate obvious advantage of in vitro meat: Omnivoric appetites could be sated with no suffering. The process could spell the end of factory farms and slaughterhouses.
There are other related benefits:
Environmental:
Laboratory meat production would not foul rivers with manure or heat up the atmosphere with methane. It would end soy farming for animal feed, which is responsible for rainforest destruction. And as a third of marine catch becomes fish meal, most of which goes to feed factory farmed animals, in vitro meat, and not just the fish finger type, would help save the fast emptying oceans from devastation.
Health:
The researchers explain that not only would intro meat reduce the risks of diseases such as swine or avian flu, and also save us from salmonella, it could actually be designed to be healthful. For example, saturated fat could be swapped out for healthful fats high in omega amino acids. People might one day walk into the local health joint and order a delicious burger with the fat profile of a strip of salmon — hold the mercury.
Then there is the issue of antibiotics. On modern factory farms animals are doused with antibiotics to curtail the spread of disease in the cootie-conducive jam-packed environments. You might think that’s a good thing, given the state of our health system: millions of uninsured Americans probably rely on the antibiotics in their cheap daily burgers as the only medication to which they have access. But sadly those antibiotics no longer work for humans. Some of our last defenses against several serious human infections are currently being given to cattle, the result being that the bacteria fast become resistant and thereby remain deadly to us. The advent of in vitro meat would leave what’s left of our lifesaving antibiotics for curing human illness.
Now for the downside:
I don’t see any. But I will briefly share what I have seen on a few comment pages.
There are some comments stating concern over the employment fate of livestock farmers. Could the comments be posted by folks still unaware that the vast majority of animals are now raised on factory farms, which are not farms at all? Factory farms, where one person might be in charge of thousands of animals trapped in a huge shed, have already put actual farmers out of business.
There are also people within the animal rights movement, whose commitment seems to be not just to saving the animals but also to saving the souls of those who currently consume them. They hope to persuade people, or perhaps scare them, into changing their sinful ways. In Vitro meat could end the animal suffering, and end mass animal execution, while still allowing the majority of humans to be omnivores. It would save the animals but not punish the people who eat them. Bummer, eh? Not really. Surely those intent on punishing people are an unfortunately raucous yet tiny minority of our movement.[3]
Many articles on In Vitro Meat suggest that even carnivores will find the product hard to swallow. They talk about “the yuck factor.” As you saw above, I would call it the ick factor. But we have all seen yuck factors to be surmountable. A lot of children feel pretty yucky when they first learn that spare-ribs come from Wilbur. But they get over it. I bet it turns out to be even easier for them to get over learning that their meat came from a petri dish — after all, isn’t that pretty much how it looks in the supermarket fridge section anyway, all wrapped up in plastic? As for the yuck factor for adults — when they learn about our current meat supply, in vitro meat will seem comparatively yuckless. That brings us to Food Inc.
I saw Food Inc the weekend it opened in New York last month. I am thrilled to learn is now in 155 theatres and doing phenomenal box office for a documentary. The Rotten Tomatoes website tells us that 72 out of 74 reviews of this film were positive. I believe the two thumbs downs came from one reviewer who upchucked his just-eaten burger all over his date’s shoes during the cattle feedlot scene, and one who has a job application in at Monsanto.
Critic Roger Moore, from the Orlando Sentinel wrote,
“After you see what IBP is doing to cattle, what Tyson is doing to chickens, what farmers are doing to us and what Monsanto is doing to farmers in the new documentary Food, Inc., you may never eat again.”
Well not meat anyway. Unless it is in vitro.
First, let me get past complaints that animal advocates, including myself, had about the film. It gives organic animal products way too high a sell. The viewer is taken on tours of organic farms where animals happily roam through fields. We are given the impression that those farms are typical of the organic sector. In Thanking the Monkey I discuss the shocking laxity of organic standards. If you have the book you have read about the cows on the Horizon organic farm who live mostly in the barn. You may have also read of new guidelines for organic standards that insist that cows get at least one third of their diet from pasture, four months out of the year. That’s one ninth of their diet from pasture –hardly what most people imagine or what Food Inc implies.
Even scenes on the better farms to which we are taken are troubling. For example, we watch Joel Salatin and his workers slaughtering chickens by hand under more humane conditions than in industrial slaughterhouses. As he chats merrily with the camera, the hens soon to be slaughtered await their fate while crammed together in tiny cages stacked high on top of each other on the summer day. They have a hen’s eye view of their companions being killed. I suspect that most of us were taught as children that birds are stupid — probably too dumb to realize what was going on and what was about to happen to them. But people who have spent time with hens in sanctuaries or on farms where the birds are acclimatized to nonharmful humans, know that isn’t true. Hens will come when they are called, and they enjoy affection. They can count, and can even be taught to play tic tack toe.[4] And such skills are less impressive than the way a mother hen will raise and care for a full flock of chicks.
Los Angeles Times, November 27th, 2008
I have personally spent close time not with chickens, but with similarly abused birds, turkeys. My meeting with Olivia was life-changing. So were the weeks I spent over last Thanksgiving with lovely Bruce and Emily turkey. So I was horrified during those scenes on Salatin’s farm and disturbed by the blasé manner of the farmer and filmmakers .
Overall, however, the film is fantastic in its ability to teach millions of people about factory farming and the insidious power of the industries that control our food supply. While the lead spokesperson in the film, Michael Pollan, is not an animal rights guy, his anti factory farming message has hit home for for millions of people. He nudges people in our direction as he challenges them to think seriously about animal welfare and to reassess their diets.
I particularly loved how clearly Food Inc drew the connection between the oppression of animals and humans, something I have been thinking about much of late. We meet a Mexican family whose whole income goes to pay for the diabetes medication needed by the father. I found myself thinking that if he were only educated to eat properly, he wouldn’t have diabetes and need the medication. Then I saw the family at the supermarket, unable to afford a bunch of carrots while the
subsidized junk food, and hamburgers, were so much cheaper. The solution is not simple, but mass awareness can be the first step toward change, and Food Inc is helping on that front.
I am going to share with you the trailer for Food Inc. Don’t be tempted to think that the trailer shows you all the good bits — the whole movie is strong, and gripping. Go see it. And take every member of your family, and every friend.
Footnotes:
1. I think I may have stolen that sliced bread line from Bruce Friedrich.
2. 12/11/05 The 5th Annual Year in Ideas,” — “In Vitro Meat” by Raizel Robin
3. Chicago Sun Times 7/16/06 CONTROVERSY; Pg. B05 Traci Hukill
4. Boston Globe 9/01 CASINO OFFERS $10,000 FOR BEATING CHICKEN AT TIC-TAC-TOE; Online Associated Press
Posted in Animal Advocacy, Education, Media Alerts, Uncategorized | 
Tags: Food Inc, in vitro meat, test tube meat, Vegan, Vegetarian
There is a downside you might not have considered. Dr. T. Colin Campbell, lead researcher in the largest study on diet in history, “The China Study,” firmly believes that animal protein is a cancer and heart disease enabler.
My guess is that applies whether it comes from a formerly live animal or a petri dish.
Best to you and FYI, Mark
Are you a professional journalist? You write very well.
It’s starting to seem in vitro meat just might be possible, but it’s hard to see it being cheaper than the traditional method of meat production in the foreseeable future. And even if it can, eventually, become a cost-effective means of producing flesh, there is one more factor, in addition to those you mentioned, working against its acceptance: some people seem to derive additional gustatory pleasure from knowing their food suffered on its way to their mouths. I’m sure most vegetarians, once they’ve let people know their dietary preference, have encountered meat-eaters trying to provoke them by telling how they like to kill animals with their own hands, or, maybe how they prefer to eat them alive (especially if the omnivore is a Klingon trekky). Never mind that most of them have never killed their own meat (I have), and, if they had to go through the Zulu lion-hunting ritual, would never pass over into manhood. There’s no reason not to accept their endorsement of cruelty as heartfelt. For their sake, I hope that in vitro meat, preferably well-marbled, can be made a reality. Just as bad for their health, without any attendant animal suffering.
I never heard the urban myth about the new KFC name as an effort to avoid the word “chicken;” I’d heard they were avoiding the word “fried,” which had fallen out of favor, a more likely explanation. But I did get a viral email announcing that genetic engineering had produced a meat grapefruit. My response at the time was a question about how they managed to exercise the grapefruits to maintain their muscle tone. In fact, that turns out to be a real issue with in vitro meat. It is addressed by something along the lines of the electric ab stimulators you see on TV (they won’t give you a six-pack, btw).
Generating animal tissue for research I’m all for. To grow pre-sliced sandwich meat? If its the only means of bringing our culture closer to giving up the kind that‘s ripped from sentient beings, again, I’m for it. But, since, despite Michael Pollan we did not evolve as omnivores and do best on an herbivorous diet, the effort seems like a lot of wasted resources. In vitro meat is a solution without a problem.
Thaks for that John. I don’t know that I believe there are people, at least sane people, who really get gustatory pleasure from knowing the animal suffered. I suspect when they said that they were just trying to get your goat. : )
Thanks Mark. Indeed cancer would be a downside for the human animals consuming the petri dish meat. But it might be that whatever it is in animal protein that causes cancer and heart disease could be removed — for example, as mentioned, by replacing the beef fat with, say, fat with the nutritional make-up of salmon fat. Good golly that sounds icky to me — but not nearly as bad as the alternative that most of the public already consumes!
Indeed, the information seems like a boon, to the meat eating society. As I have not fully divulged meat from my diet, knowing that to fill my tummy might be without the loss of precious life is fantastic; I still find the In Vitro idea, well odd. It makes one ponder all the efforts that we take to avoid real change in our society. I also wonder what else they will put into the meat, especially when demand becomes more than supply. (if that is an issue) Definitely a subject that needs to be vetted, and considered.
I think the downside is pretty obvious. I mean, are we expecting that in vitro meat will replace animal meat permanently, or that it is a transition to a vegan society? Because if it’s the former, am I the only one who sees a problem?
If meat eaters eventually get over the ick factor of in vitro meat, I think this will serve to set BACK the general cause of animal rights rather than moving it forward. I mean, it’s true that right now, the vast, vast majority of animals die for meat, but as our society progresses, who knows what kind of horrific things we will make from animals? This will not make anyone see animals as less ripe for exploitation; it will make them see animals as experimental objects to be manipulated. And since that’s how we see them now, this isn’t the paradigm shift we’ve long been hoping for.
And of course, as someone who views all animals as equal, I will continue to have moral qualms with it just as any sane person would think eating disconnected muscle tissue from a human being is morally questionable.
I have a hard time even calling this a step in the right direction, but I suppose you could say it is since the number of animals suffering and dying would be greatly reduced, at least for a little while.
Amanda, I think your last line sums it up for me: ” I have a hard time even calling this a step in the right direction, but I suppose you could say it is since the number of animals suffering and dying would be greatly reduced, at least for a little while.” My main interest in this is in saving the animals (and the earth) which generally, but it now seems not always, involves working on changing the way people think. But changing the way people think is a long slow road, and many animals suffer horrendously as we travel it. I am all for any shortcut we can take, especially since my only interest in how other people think about animals is in regard to the impact it has on the animals.
There is an oft quoted line: “You teach the child not to hurt the butterfly, as much for the child as for the butterfly.” Uh… nice sentiment. But in truth, the butterfly has a lot more to lose. If you can stop the child from hurting the butterfly, regardless of whether the child understands why, you have saved the butterfly’s life.