What is lab-grown meat, and how is cultured meat made?

70 billion land animals, and possibly trillions of marine animals, are killed for human consumption each year. A majority of these animals are raised in factory farms, where they experience brutal forms of abuse in severely overcrowded and putrid conditions for the entirety of their short lives.

Major meat producers often defend factory farming as the most efficient way to meet the global demand for meat. But evidence shows that these facilities are disastrous for the environment, nearby communities, consumer health, and animal welfare.

It shouldn’t have to be this way. It's time to fix our broken food system. It's time to look for alternatives. Lab-grown meat could hold the key.

What is lab-grown meat?

Lab-grown meat is a miracle of modern science. Scientists can harvest a small sample of cells from a living animal and cultivate the sample to grow outside of the animal's body, shaping the fully formed sample into cuts of meat. Fish fillets, hamburgers, and bacon would all have the same taste consumers know and love, and no animals would need to be bred, confined, or slaughtered to create these real meat products.

How is lab-grown meat made?

The term “lab-grown meat” might sound off-putting, but labs are only involved now, in order to support ongoing research and development. Once they begin to produce at scale, lab-grown meat companies will swap out laboratories for facilities that resemble microbreweries—a far cry from the industrial farms that profit off of the horrific exploitation, abuse, and slaughter of sentient animals.

Instead of killing animals for their meat, the process of making lab-grown meat starts with the careful removal of a small number of muscle cells from a living animal, typically using local anesthesia to provide relief from pain. The animal will experience a momentary twinge of discomfort, not unlike the feeling of getting a routine blood test at the doctor’s office. This process is much less harmful than the lifetime of pain and terror animals experience leading up to their horrific final moments at the slaughterhouse.

Then, a lab technician places the harvested cells in bioreactors before adding them to a bath of nutrients. The cells grow and multiply, producing real muscle tissue, which scientists then shape into edible “scaffoldings.” Using these scaffoldings, they can transform lab-grown cells into steak, chicken nuggets, hamburger patties, or salmon sashimi. The final product is a real cut of meat, ready to be marinated, breaded, grilled, baked, or fried—no animal slaughter required.

Is lab-grown meat actually meat?

The short answer is, yes! Lab-grown meat is real meat. It has the exact same animal cells as what we traditionally consider “meat”—the flesh of an animal. The difference has to do with how it gets to your plate: lab-grown meat comes from cells harvested from a living animal, while conventional meat comes from an animal that’s raised and killed for human consumption.

The idea that no animal has to be raised or killed may be enough to convince ethically-minded consumers to opt for lab-grown meat over conventional meat products. And, based on what companies and researchers have already shared about lab-grown meat, additional health benefits and reduced environmental impacts may also make lab-grown meat a more enticing choice for consumers. What also makes lab-grown meat different is that it often doesn’t contain the same growth hormones and saturated fats associated with conventional meat.

Artificiality

Lab-grown meat isn’t artificial meat. It’s real animal flesh. It just happens to grow in a lab, not on a factory farm. Scientists are even working to ensure that lab-created muscle tissue mimics the exact texture of traditionally-grown meat.

Thanks to this innovation, meat-lovers can still enjoy the products they already know and love, with the knowledge that no animals were brutally raised or slaughtered for their meal.

Health

Due to its high cholesterol and saturated fat content, meat consumption can lead to chronic disease. However, lab-grown meat has the potential to reduce the negative health impacts of meat-eating. When growing meat in a lab, food scientists can actually control the quantities of harmful cholesterol and saturated fat in each cut.

Lab-grown meat can also address the growing threat of antibiotic resistance. Factory farms administer high amounts of antibiotics to animals in order to keep them alive in filthy conditions. But overusing these antibiotics can actually make the surviving bacteria stronger, rendering antibiotics ineffective against them. According to the World Health Organization, at least 700,000 people die each year from antibiotic-resistant infections—a number that could soar to 10 million by 2050 if factory farming continues to be the norm. Fortunately, lab-grown meat is pretty resilient against bacteria like E. coli on its own, and, as such, would require fewer antibiotics.

Another perk is that lab-grown meat contains no growth hormones. Factory farms use these hormones to unnaturally boost the growth of farmed animals, and studies have shown that growth hormones can lead to harmful health impacts. The European Union commissioned researchers to examine six growth hormones used in the raising of cattle, and they concluded that the growth hormones had “developmental, neurobiological, genotoxic, and carcinogenic effects.”

While it doesn’t contain harmful antibiotics and growth hormones of traditional meat, lab-grown meat does contain the same amount of protein that is crucial to the health and proper functioning of our bodies, and we can get more than enough beneficial proteins from plant-based sources. That said, lab-grown meat will offer new options to consumers looking for proteins that are kinder to their health, as well as to the planet and animals.

Environment

The scientific research is clear: factory farming is an environmental disaster. The industrial farming of animals is a major driver of climate change, deforestation, air and water pollution, and other planetary hazards.

As the looming threat of irreversible climate change grows even closer, the need to address industrial animal farming becomes more urgent. According to the United Nations, animal agriculture contributes an estimated 14.5% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. And the shocking truth is that emissions from factory farms could be even higher than we think. Because of the lax environmental regulations in many countries, these emissions can easily go unreported.

Lab-grown meat could offer a solution, with the potential to meet consumer demand for meat products without paying the heavy toll that industrial animal agriculture takes on the planet. Studies show that producing lab-grown meat using renewable energy would have a significantly lower carbon footprint than even the most “sustainably-raised” traditional meat products.

As some researchers have pointed out, lab-grown meat production takes a lot of energy. Currently, a number of lab-grown meat producers rely on fossil fuels to power their facilities, which may not result in a net reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. However, as it stands, lab-grown meat requires just a fraction of the intensive land use, deforestation, and freshwater that conventional meat production requires. If companies can find a way to power their facilities using renewable energy, lab-grown meat will be a net positive for the planet.

Do animals die for lab-grown meat?

Lab-grown meat doesn’t come from slaughtering animals. Instead, it comes from harvesting the cells of a living animal. In fact, cells taken from a single cow can produce an astonishing 175 million quarter-pounder burgers. To put this in perspective, a typical factory farm would need to raise and kill 440,000 cows to produce the same amount of product. While some cultured meat is created using by-products of animal slaughter, many cultivated meat companies are starting to create meat without any links to the slaughterhouse whatsoever.

Can vegans eat lab-grown meat?

Lab-grown meat is not technically vegan, because it contains cells taken from real, living animals.

In truth, vegans and vegetarians aren’t the target market for lab-grown meat. Lab-grown meat is designed to appeal to omnivorous consumers. When lab-grown meat hits the market, it will allow omnivores to continue eating meat, without worrying about the ethical and environmental implications of factory farming. “The companies developing lab-grown meat believe this is the product most likely to wean committed meat-eaters off traditional sources,” reports The Guardian.

Although animals are still kept in captivity for its production, the small herds required for cellular agriculture pale in comparison to the thousands of animals crammed into a single factory farm. A future where lab-grown meat is the norm has the potential to significantly reduce animal suffering on a global scale.

Lab-grown meat pros and cons

Of course, we can’t be exactly sure how lab-grown meat will impact the world until it hits store shelves. Companies are still making tweaks and addressing unanswered questions surrounding the new innovation. Every new innovation has potential positive and negative impacts. Researchers and companies are still working through some uncertainty surrounding the introduction of lab-grown meat on a massive scale.

Why is lab-grown meat bad?

Some lab-grown meat contains an animal by-product known as fetal bovine serum (FBS). Slaughterhouses obtain fetal bovine serum by collecting blood from the unborn calves of pregnant cows after they’re killed. San Francisco-based lab-grown meat producer Eat Just uses a “very low level” of the serum in its chicken, which is the first lab-grown meat product to hit the market.

However, companies are quickly pivoting to find alternatives to FBS. In response to ethical concerns about using a slaughterhouse byproduct in the otherwise lab-grown meat, Dutch startup Mosa Meat revealed this year that it had successfully eliminated FBS from its process. Eat Just is also developing an animal-free alternative to fetal bovine serum.

Another controversy surrounding lab-grown meat is its price. While Forbes reports that the price of cultured meat has decreased to as low as 9.80 per burger, some companies are still reportedly working with a cost of around 50 per serving—significantly more expensive than conventional meat. As production costs fall rapidly, prices will hopefully drop—and controversies will subside—as companies scale up operations and make use of cheaper, kinder alternatives to fetal bovine serum. Many predictions show the price of cultured meat eventually becoming the same, or even less than, the price of conventional meat.

Why is lab-grown meat good?

For years, scientists have been warning the world about the need to reduce our meat consumption. And, people are starting to listen. Nearly one in four Americans are looking to cut down on their meat consumption. The popularity of plant-based meat alternatives like the Beyond Burger and Impossible Burger indicates that omnivores are willing to opt for products that mimic the taste and texture of conventional, animal-based meat. The introduction of lab-grown meat offers consumers another way to get the taste, texture, and nutrition they want from traditional meat, without the environmental impact or animal cruelty. As Brian Spears of the startup New Age Meats puts it, “People want meat. They don’t want slaughter.”

The environmental impacts of our diet don’t stop at greenhouse gas emissions. The world’s appetite for seafood has harmful effects on our oceans, leading to overfishing, factory fish farming, and water pollution. Replacing traditional seafood with cultivated seafood can protect our ocean from these impacts. Michael Selden, CEO of cultivated seafood startup Finless Foods, notes: “The ocean is a very fragile ecosystem, and we are really driving it to the brink of collapse. By moving human consumption of seafood out of the ocean and onto land and creating it in this cleaner way, we can basically do something that’s better for everybody.”

In addition to being better for the planet, lab-grown meat companies promise to provide important health benefits for individuals. Food scientists can adjust the nutritional profile of lab-grown meat to offer the same protein consumers want, without the saturated fats and cholesterol of traditional meat.

When will lab-grown meat be available?

Right now, lab-grown meat companies are working to perfect their products, lower costs, and scale up operations. After their government approved the sale of lab-grown meats in 2020, consumers in Singapore got the first chance to taste lab-grown chicken. Thanks to new innovations and strategies to enable mass production—like a new "microcarrier" from UCLA researchers, which helps cultured meat cells grow quickly—consumers around the world will get their first taste of lab-grown meat in the near future.

Just this year, the US company Good Meat announced that it is building the world's largest bioreactors to produce cultivated meat. The 10 bioreactors, which will be operational in late 2024, will grow enough beef and chicken each year to supply tens of thousands of restaurants. This investment suggests that lab-grown meat will debut in the United States soon—and speaks to how confident companies are in cultured meat's commercial potential.

In March 2019, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) agreed that the agencies will jointly oversee the regulation of the products. This is a good sign for the industry as companies prepare to get FDA-approval and introduce their products to the market. According to Reuters, US consumers may even see the first products as early as 2023.

In spite of this progress, lab-grown meat faces another difficult obstacle on its way to consumers: the conventional meat industry. Animal-based meat producers have been challenging lab-grown meat by petitioning the USDA to change the definition of “meat” in an attempt to stall lab-grown meat’s regulatory gains, as well as to mislead consumers.

Thankfully, plant-based and alternative meat companies are facing the industry’s challenges head-on—and winning. Vegan dairy company Miyoko’s Creamery won a lawsuit against the powerful dairy lobby. When the State of California tried to prevent the company from using terms like “butter” and “cheese” to describe their products, a federal court ruled that gatekeeping these terms violated Miyoko’s freedom of speech. Their legal victory sets a powerful precedent that the meat and dairy industry’s use of regulatory loopholes to mislead consumers won’t work.

Will lab-grown meat replace traditional meat?

We don’t know when lab-grown meat will hit the consumer market, so it’s probably not likely to replace traditional meat in the next few years. However, once it does hit the market, lab-grown meat has the power to reach many consumers looking for a new, compassionate option. If the popularity of plant-based meat alternatives is any indication, hopefully, consumers will be eager to give lab-grown meat a go.

Lab-grown meat companies

Many innovative start-ups are developing lab-grown meats, and some have already previewed their products to the public. As the hype around these companies and their products grows, they have the potential to become household names.

For now, here are some names to know in the lab-grown meat industry:

• Eat Just: The maker of GOOD Meat lab-grown chicken, already being sold in Singapore. This California-based company also produces plant-based foods like the Just Egg.
• UPSIDE Foods: Formerly known as Memphis Meats, this company has produced cultured beef, chicken, and duck meat. Its investors include food giants Tyson Foods and Cargill.
• Shiok Meats: This Singapore-based company produces cell-based seafood, including shrimp, crab, and lobster. With its goal to reach consumer markets in 2022, Shiok Meats recently purchased another lab-grown meat company—Gaia Foods.
• BlueNalu: Startup BlueNalu raised $60 million in early 2021 to build its factory, and is developing lab-grown versions of mahi mahi and bluefin tuna. Considering the fact that tuna have been pushed to the brink of extinction by overfishing, the introduction of cultivated tuna could have a huge impact on the health of our oceans.
• Finless Foods: Silicon Valley startup Finless Foods is also producing lab-grown seafood, focusing on tuna. The company already makes plant-based tuna.
• Mosa Meat: Based in the Netherlands, Mosa Meat is currently scaling up production of its lab-grown beef, and what it calls “the world’s kindest burger.”
• Bond Pet Food: Thanks to Bond Pet Food, even our beloved companion animals can try lab-grown meat. This company is starting out with cultured chicken, with the goal of reducing the amount of chickens who have to suffer in factory farms for pet food products.

What you can do

Lab-grown meat is sure to take a bite out of the conventional meat industry’s portion of the protein market, with the potential to spare millions of animals in the process. Even though it has yet to hit store shelves, you can stay informed about the latest developments in the industry and spread the word about the benefits of lab-grown meat over factory farmed meat.

As always, the kindest action we can take for farmed animals is to leave them off our plates altogether. There are so many reasons to pick plant-based foods, and The Humane League can help you get started. Begin your journey to a more compassionate, plant-based lifestyle with these first steps.

From lab-grown meat to an ever-growing variety of delicious plant-based products, the future of food is rapidly changing. Together, we can reimagine our broken food system into one that works for the planet, for the animals, and for us all.

Join our movement to stand up to factory farms and end the abuse of animals raised for food.