Great Food Reset: U.S. Agriculture Dept approves nation’s first ‘lab-grown’ meat from ‘steel tanks’ — chicken made from animal cells

https://nypost.com/2023/06/21/us-approves-nations-first-lab-grown-meat-chicken-made-from-animal-cells/

For the first time, US regulators on Wednesday approved the sale of chicken made from animal cells, allowing two California companies to offer “lab-grown” meat to the nation’s restaurant tables and eventually, supermarket shelves.

The Agriculture Department gave the green light to Upside Foods and Good Meat, firms that had been racing to be the first in the US to sell meat that doesn’t come from slaughtered animals — what’s now being referred to as “cell-cultivated” or “cultured” meat as it emerges from the laboratory and arrives on dinner plates.

The move launches a new era of meat production aimed at eliminating harm to animals and drastically reducing the environmental impacts of grazing, growing feed for animals and animal waste.

“Instead of all of that land and all of that water that’s used to feed all of these animals that are slaughtered, we can do it in a different way,” said Josh Tetrick, co-founder and chief executive of Eat Just, which operates Good Meat. …

The companies received approvals for federal inspections required to sell meat and poultry in the US.

The action came months after the Food and Drug Administration deemed that products from both companies are safe to eat. A manufacturing company called Joinn Biologics, which works with Good Meat, was also cleared to make the products.

Cultivated meat is grown in steel tanks, using cells that come from a living animal, a fertilized egg or a special bank of stored cells. In Upside’s case, it comes out in large sheets that are then formed into shapes like chicken cutlets and sausages.

Good Meat, which already sells cultivated meat in Singapore, the first country to allow it, turns masses of chicken cells into cutlets, nuggets, shredded meat and stays.

…

Chen acknowledged that many consumers are skeptical, even squeamish, about the thought of eating chicken grown from cells.

“We call it the ‘ick factor,’” she said.

The sentiment was echoed in a recent poll conducted by the Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Half of US adults said that they are unlikely to try meat grown using cells from animals.

When asked to choose from a list of reasons for their reluctance, most who said they’d be unlikely to try it said “it just sounds weird.” About half said they don’t think it would be safe.

…

Globally, more than 150 companies are focusing on meat from cells, not only chicken but pork, lamb, fish and beef, which scientists say has the biggest impact on the environment.

Cultivated meat begins with cells. Upside experts take cells from live animals, choosing those most likely to taste good and to reproduce quickly and consistently, forming high-quality meat, Chen said.

Good Meat products are created from a master cell bank formed from a commercially available chicken cell line.

Once the cell lines are selected, they’re combined with a broth-like mixture that includes the amino acids, fatty acids, sugars, salts, vitamins and other elements cells need to grow. Inside the tanks, called cultivators, the cells grow, proliferating quickly.

At Upside, muscle and connective tissue cells grow together, forming large sheets. After about three weeks, the sheets of poultry cells are removed from the tanks and formed into cutlets, sausages or other foods.

Good Meat cells grow into large masses, which are shaped into a range of meat products.

The Emeryville facility can produce up to 50,000 pounds of cultivated meat products a year, though the goal is to expand to 400,000 pounds per year, Upside officials said.

By comparison, the US produces about 50 billion pounds of chicken per year.

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50% of Americans say they are unlikely to try lab-grown meat https://t.co/KtiwvLgp9R pic.twitter.com/jG5EL9sOg1

— CNN (@CNN) June 22, 2023

Related:

CNBC 2018: Bill Gates and Richard Branson are betting lab-grown meat might be the food of the future –

CNBC: Billionaires, including Bill Gates, say there is no way to produce enough meat traditionally to feed the world population of the future…Dubbed clean meat, the efforts are distinct from “fake meat,” like the soy protein “chicken” you can find in your grocery store today. Unlike Morningstar or Boca Burgers, clean meat really is meat; it just grows in a lab instead of being part of an animal. …

Billionaires, including Bill Gates, say there is no way to produce enough meat traditionally to feed the world population of the future….Gates wrote on his personal blog, Gatesnotes.com, a few years ago. “Put simply, there’s no way to produce enough meat for 9 billion people. Yet we can’t ask everyone to become vegetarians. That’s why we need more options for producing meat without depleting our resources.”

MIT Technology Review: Bill Gates: Rich nations should shift entirely to synthetic beef –

Bill Gates: “I do think all rich countries should move to 100% synthetic beef. You can get used to the taste difference, and the claim is they’re going to make it taste even better over time. Eventually, that green premium is modest enough that you can sort of change the [behavior of] people or use regulation to totally shift the demand.”  … Gates: “I mean, these are good things – in fact, buying Beyond Burgers [a plant-based “meat” company that Gates invests in] actually drives demand, which will get the quality up and the rate premium down, so consumer behavior is important.

Report: Bill Gates owns 242,000 acres of farmland, making him America’s biggest private-farmland owner– Gates, whose net worth of nearly $121 billion makes him the world’s fourth-richest person, and his wife, Melinda Gates, hold an extensive farmland portfolio stretching over more than a dozen states, according to The Land Report.

We’re saved! Bill Gates says ‘I plan to fly a lot less’ & eat more synthetic meat to fight ‘climate change’ – ‘I am driving electric cars. I have solar panels’