Cultured & Alternative Foods News and Discussions

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caltrek
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See also: https://www.sciencealert.com/company-se ... -to-eat-it

caltrek’s comment: I hesitate to even post this video and article as I have provisionally become a recent convert to the virtues of a plant based whole foods diet. Mammoth meatballs and other cultured meat products will thus probably not be recommended for your health, at least not by the nutritionists that I follow such as T. Colin Campbell.

Edit: Here is yet another article regarding mammoth meatballs: https://www.motherjones.com/environment ... -methane/
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Anti-innovation and consumer choice? Italy moves to ban lab-grown meat, cheese and fish

3 April 2023

First it was Nutri-Score. Now Italy is waging war on lab-grown food to preserve its famous gastronomic heritage.

https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2 ... e-and-fish
weatheriscool
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Lab-grown chicken meat is getting closer to restaurant menus and store shelves
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/lab-gro ... d=98083882
One CEO calls it "a watershed moment."
ByDevin Dwyer and Sarah Herndon
April 4, 2023, 2:00 AM

EMERYVILLE, Calif. -- A scientific quest to feed the world, protect animals and simultaneously cut down on greenhouse gas emissions is on the cusp of a major milestone in the U.S., advocates say.

In the last five months, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has cleared two American producers of lab-grown meat to bring their products to market, finding "no questions" about the companies' claims the protein is safe for human consumption -- though critics still have concerns about the industry's financial viability relative to long-term output.
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Lab-Grown Meat Up To 25 Times Worse for the Environment Than Beef
by Ben Taub
May 10, 2023

Introduction:
(IFL Science) Growing burgers and steaks from cultured cells may be seen as the future of the meat industry, but a new analysis indicates that the mass-production of lab-grown meat using current technologies could be considerably worse for the environment than real beef. At present, animal cell-based meat (ACBM) is only produced at a very small scale and at an economic loss, although the as yet un-peer-reviewed study suggests that scaling up the process could release between four and 25 times more emissions than the global beef industry.

According to the study authors, “[billions of] investment dollars have specifically been allocated to [the ACBM] sector with the thesis that this product will be more environmentally friendly than beef.” However, while it’s true that lab-grown meat eliminates the land, water, and antibiotic requirements of cattle raising, the researchers explain that much of the interest in cultured meat has been driven by inaccurate analyses of carbon emissions.

Further Extract:
…much-hyped reports have attempted to analyze the environmental impact of cultured meat produced with food-grade growing medium components. However, at present, the process is only possible using pharmaceutical-grade nutrient mixes, which are purified to a much higher level.
It’s this purification process that currently accounts for most of the emissions associated with ACBM production, the researchers say. In particular, the removal of endotoxins – which are released by bacteria in the environment – is absolutely essential for the creation of cultured meat, as even small amounts of these toxins in the growing medium can prevent cells from proliferating.

…Offering a solution, the authors suggest that the development of cell lines that can tolerate higher levels of endotoxins may reduce the need for energy intensive purification processes, thereby slashing the environmental impact of lab-grown meat.
Read more of the IFL Science article here: https://www.iflscience.com/lab-grown-m ... eef-688 59

From a presentation of the study results:
(bioRxiv) Looking forward, the overall demand for meat is expected to double by 2050 (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nation (FAO), 2019), and this trend has raised concerns about the environmental impact of scaling up meat production to meet these expected demands. When the top three livestock production systems are examined from an environmental perspective, beef is the most impactful per kilogram, though this value varies significantly by production system (Poore & Nemecek, 2018). The environmental impact of beef production includes greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from enteric fermentation and manure, nutrient loading in the nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, reduction in biodiversity from overgrazing, and deforestation from land-use change (Gilbert et al., 2018; Steinfeld et al., 2006)

Alternative Protein Products and Animal Cell-Based Meat (ACBM) Several methods or system alternatives have been proposed to reduce the environmental impact of human-consumed proteins including alternative protein production, regenerative agriculture, and bovine methane reduction (“clean cow”) efforts (Cusworth et al., 2022; Min et al., 2022; Molfetta et al., 2022). During the last five to ten years, alternative proteins or meat alternatives have gained popularity with a multitude of stakeholders. These stakeholders have coalesced around this concept to augment or replace conventional beef production (Tziva et al., 2020). The interest of these stakeholders is multifaceted and includes concerns for animal welfare, environmental concerns, and/or profit-seeking motivations. The multifaceted nature of these stakeholders can be illustrated by non-profit groups like The Good Food Institute which exhibits interests in a mix of social activism, scientific inquiry, and financial investment.

Despite the highly limited availability of ACBM products, investment in ACBM companies has continued to increase with a total investment of over $2 billion at the time of writing (Turi, 2021).
Read more of the study results here: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.110 ... .full.pdf
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"Game-changing" BBy tech keeps essential nutrients in powdered breast milk
By Ben Coxworth
May 25, 2023
https://newatlas.com/good-thinking/bby- ... east-milk/

While many studies show that natural human breast milk is the best food for babies, storing the stuff in a frozen state has its drawbacks. That's where a new laser-enabled system comes in, which allows the milk to be powdered without any loss in nutrients.

Nursing mothers will often pump and store breast milk so it can be fed to their infant when they're not around – such as when the baby is in a hospital's neonatal care unit, for instance. They may also donate excess milk for consumption by babies who are orphaned, or whose mothers are unable to produce milk of their own.

Ordinarily, the pumped milk is stored in a freezer. In a hospital setting, this means that staff have to take the time to thaw the milk for each feeding. Additionally, the freezers take up space and use a lot of electricity, plus clinics in impoverished regions may not even have freezers in the first place.
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caltrek wrote: Sat May 13, 2023 2:55 pm Lab-Grown Meat Up To 25 Times Worse for the Environment Than Beef
by Ben Taub
May 10, 2023

Introduction:
(IFL Science) Growing burgers and steaks from cultured cells may be seen as the future of the meat industry, but a new analysis indicates that the mass-production of lab-grown meat using current technologies could be considerably worse for the environment than real beef. At present, animal cell-based meat (ACBM) is only produced at a very small scale and at an economic loss, although the as yet un-peer-reviewed study suggests that scaling up the process could release between four and 25 times more emissions than the global beef industry.

According to the study authors, “[billions of] investment dollars have specifically been allocated to [the ACBM] sector with the thesis that this product will be more environmentally friendly than beef.” However, while it’s true that lab-grown meat eliminates the land, water, and antibiotic requirements of cattle raising, the researchers explain that much of the interest in cultured meat has been driven by inaccurate analyses of carbon emissions.

Further Extract:
…much-hyped reports have attempted to analyze the environmental impact of cultured meat produced with food-grade growing medium components. However, at present, the process is only possible using pharmaceutical-grade nutrient mixes, which are purified to a much higher level.
It’s this purification process that currently accounts for most of the emissions associated with ACBM production, the researchers say. In particular, the removal of endotoxins – which are released by bacteria in the environment – is absolutely essential for the creation of cultured meat, as even small amounts of these toxins in the growing medium can prevent cells from proliferating.

…Offering a solution, the authors suggest that the development of cell lines that can tolerate higher levels of endotoxins may reduce the need for energy intensive purification processes, thereby slashing the environmental impact of lab-grown meat.
Read more of the IFL Science article here: https://www.iflscience.com/lab-grown-m ... eef-688 59

From a presentation of the study results:
(bioRxiv) Looking forward, the overall demand for meat is expected to double by 2050 (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nation (FAO), 2019), and this trend has raised concerns about the environmental impact of scaling up meat production to meet these expected demands. When the top three livestock production systems are examined from an environmental perspective, beef is the most impactful per kilogram, though this value varies significantly by production system (Poore & Nemecek, 2018). The environmental impact of beef production includes greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from enteric fermentation and manure, nutrient loading in the nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, reduction in biodiversity from overgrazing, and deforestation from land-use change (Gilbert et al., 2018; Steinfeld et al., 2006)

Alternative Protein Products and Animal Cell-Based Meat (ACBM) Several methods or system alternatives have been proposed to reduce the environmental impact of human-consumed proteins including alternative protein production, regenerative agriculture, and bovine methane reduction (“clean cow”) efforts (Cusworth et al., 2022; Min et al., 2022; Molfetta et al., 2022). During the last five to ten years, alternative proteins or meat alternatives have gained popularity with a multitude of stakeholders. These stakeholders have coalesced around this concept to augment or replace conventional beef production (Tziva et al., 2020). The interest of these stakeholders is multifaceted and includes concerns for animal welfare, environmental concerns, and/or profit-seeking motivations. The multifaceted nature of these stakeholders can be illustrated by non-profit groups like The Good Food Institute which exhibits interests in a mix of social activism, scientific inquiry, and financial investment.

Despite the highly limited availability of ACBM products, investment in ACBM companies has continued to increase with a total investment of over $2 billion at the time of writing (Turi, 2021).
Read more of the study results here: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.110 ... .full.pdf

That study is by scientists from UC Davis. Couple of (very) important points to note:

1. Their research centre is funded by the beef industry – https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/31/clim ... davis.html
2. It's a preprint, not yet peer-reviewed.

So I think it's safe to dismiss it, for now.
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Lab-grown chicken gets US approval, set to make its restaurant debut
By Michael Franco
June 22, 2023
https://newatlas.com/science/lab-grown- ... estaurant/
Good Meat's cultured chicken has been on sale in Singapore since late 2020. Now, the company has announced that it's cleared all regulatory hurdles in the US and will offer its product at a Washington, DC restaurant in short order.

The full clearance from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), which was announced yesterday (June 21), means that Good Meat is deemed safe to eat and can now be shipped across state lines country-wide. The USDA approval dovetails with a US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearance that was granted four months earlier.

According to the terms of the Federal Meat Inspection Act, the clearance also means that Good Meat will be regulated by the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Services. This agency typically places inspectors inside slaughterhouses, but in the case of Good Meat, the inspectors will take up posts inside the labs where the company cultures its meat.

Good Meat is the cultivated meat division of Eat Just, Inc., a food technology company. It creates its chicken by first harvesting cells from either eggs or live animals in a painless process. These cells are then "immortalized," meaning that they can continuously divide and create more meat without needing to be replenished. The cells are nurtured in a bioreactor where they are kept at the ideal temperature and given nutrients to grow. In four to six weeks, the meat is harvested.
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weatheriscool wrote: Thu Jun 22, 2023 7:25 pm Lab-grown chicken gets US approval, set to make its restaurant debut
By Michael Franco
June 22, 2023
https://newatlas.com/science/lab-grown- ... estaurant/
...

The full clearance from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), which was announced yesterday (June 21), means that Good Meat is deemed safe to eat and can now be shipped across state lines country-wide. The USDA approval dovetails with a US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearance that was granted four months earlier.

...

More on that:
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