HEALTH & WELLNESS
Is Lab-Grown Meat Healthy? The production process of meat-like products includes unethical practices BY MOHAMMAD ABDULLAH
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help mitigate climate change and minimize animal suffering. Researchers have been looking for alternatives to traditional meat production for some time. Singapore was the first country to greenlight the marketing of a cell-based meat product for human consumption. Although sales so far have only been in the form of “product demos” — most consumers aren’t willing to buy it because of the high production costs — lab-grown meat is hyped as eco-friendly, clean and healthy. Yes, it would significantly reduce the number of animals to be raised and the amount of feed for them, which would divert hundreds of millions of gallons of water and hundreds of thousands of acres of land to produce food for humans. According to Briana Dodson (https. brightly.eco), a 2019 study published in the journal Frontiers of Sustainable Food Systems found that producing lab-grown
meat could generate even greater concentrations of CO2 over time, as CO2 takes much longer to dissipate. Yet, there are many companies worldwide that can’t wait for their governments to give them greenlight to get started. But that would be like putting the cart before the horse, because it’s a brand-new industry and the regulatory agencies need time to review the submitted documents related to production procedures and practices. I retired from the USDA, FSIS, after many years of working in various positions. One of those was as a program review officer in the review and evaluation branch, where I conducted reviews of slaughter and processing plants nationwide. I can understand why the FDA and the USDA may be taking their time — after all, they need to carefully review all the information provided so they can formulate the appropriate rules and regulations for oversight.
WITH GRAPHICS © STEVE HUNTER
he growing business of food technology is revolutionizing the way we eat. In fact, some industry experts consider cellular agriculture the wave of the future. A growing number of startups are focused on developing labgrown meat. According to a report, 99 companies worldwide are now developing lab-grown meat components, services and end-products (“Global Market for Cultured Meat - Market Size, Trends, Competitors, and Forecasts (2022)”, https://www.researchandmarkets.com/). One reason for this paradigm shift is that traditional beef production makes a lot of methane, carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide — greenhouse gasses that contribute to global warming. According to Tom Philpott of Mother Jones (March-April 2022), the situation is so dire that many Generation Z and Millennials are held to have become vegans or vegetarians to
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ISLAMIC HORIZONS MAY/JUNE 2022
