In Vitro Meat

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In less than 30 years when the world population reaches its carrying capacity how will we feed everyone? Unless we start planting crops on the moon or go all out for cannibalism, we’ll need some new technology to feed the world. A large portion of humans’ diet is meat. In vitro meat or artificial meat offers a way to undo our food and environmental setbacks caused by traditional meat. Someday it will be in stores and if it’s a hit it might be the solution to solving how to feed people. Meat cultivation uses more land, water and resources to house, transport, and slaughter animals and their grain and food than it would cost to fund in vitro meat studies. In April 2008 the In Vitro Consortium first met at the Norwegian Food Research Institute. The consortium is “an international alliance of environmentally concerned scientists striving to facilitate the establishment of a large scale process industry for the production of muscle tissue for human consumption through concerted R&D efforts and attraction of funding fuels to these efforts.”Meat in both its production and its consumption has a number of destructive effects on not only the environment and humans but also live stock. Some of these effects are antibiotic resistant bacteria due to the overuse of antibiotics in livestock, meat-borne pathogens (e. coli), and diseases associated with diets rich in animal fats (diabetes). Meat consumption all over the world is increasing making meat a global issue. As a result many researchers have been trying to create meat substitutes to minimize the impact of consumption. Substitutes, to date, have been made from soybeans, peas, or even from animal tissues grown in a culture. What exactly is this “meat” grown in a culture? It’s called in ... ... middle of paper ... ...ver growing population I believe we either need to start reducing our consumption or start fixing the production. Works Cited Bhat, Z.f., and Hina Bhat. "Animal-free Meat Biofabrication." American Journal of Food Technology 6.6 (2011): 441-59. Print. Gonzalez, Julina Roel. ""The Philosophy of Food," Edited by David M. Kaplan." Ed. Michael Goldman. Teaching Philosophy 36.2 (2013): 181-82. Print. Carruth, Allison. "Culturing Food: Bioart and In Vitro Meat." Parallax 19.1 (2013): 88-100. Print. Chiles, Robert Magneson. "If They Come, We Will Build It: In Vitro Meat and the Discursive Struggle over Future Agrofood Expectations." Agriculture and Human Values 30.4 (2013): 511-23. Print. Stephens, Neil. "Growing Meat in Laboratories: The Promise, Ontology, and Ethical Boundary-Work of Using Muscle Cells to Make Food." Configurations 21.2 (2013): 159-81. Print.

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