In vitro meat

As Lore wrote in her article about hybrid meat a while ago, we could reduce our ecological impact by using less meat. Cows and other types of cattle produce a lot of methane, which makes the meat industry largely responsible for global warming. To put an end to global warming, we should eat about 10% less red meat. Unfortunately, meat consumption has only been on the rise over the last few years. But what if I were to tell you that we could help the environment and still have our steak?

That’s right! In vitro meat, or ‘shmeat’, is laboratory produced meat, grown in test tubes. Although this doesn’t really seem appetizing, it does taste like ‘normal’ meat and it would be a great solution for global warming.

Producing this test tube meat involves taking muscle cells from one animal and adding a protein that will help the cells grow into large portions of meat. Right now the production of shmeat is still in a testing phase, but it stands a good chance of being produced in large quantities soon. If it passes all the tests, one animal’s muscle cells could provide in vitro meat for the entire world population for several hundred years!

Well I’m getting hungry. Maybe I should have some shmeat for dinner?

Freya Van Durme