2023-05-16 17:20:53
A company Australian has produced in a laboratory a giant meatball made from mammoth meat, a species that became extinct 12,000 years ago. As they explain, the objective is to start the path towards a more sustainable production of meat for human consumption. Is it a joke or are they serious? What has led you to make a complicated mammoth meatball?
The use of land, water, energy and chemicals (eg fertilizers) is used to calculate the environmental footprint of a product. In the specific case of ruminants, the basis of meat for use, the environmental footprint is high. And in general, animal-based proteins have a larger footprint than plant proteins.
This raises the legitimate and urgent challenge of seeking more sustainable ways of producing protein of animal origin. This universal need is the idea collected by the Australian company Vowfood to advertise its mammoth meatball, betting on laboratory meat as a solution to the problem. Although you have to read the fine print.
Sustainability is a good argument to convince consumers of the benefits of a business idea. But is it true that meat production in the laboratory is more sustainable than traditional production?
All Ingredients from Lab Meat Sustainability
If we investigate the published literature on the matter, all that glitters is not gold. One of the most recent publications on sustainability on this topic , published in ‘Sustainibility’, is financed by one of the companies producing laboratory meat. Therefore, it is not surprising that in its conclusions it benefits.
The study concludes that 1 kg of meat produced in this alternative way generates 87% less greenhouse gases, requires 39% less energy, demands 90% less land and 96% less water than 1 kg of meat obtained from livestock.
However, these estimates do not balance all elements of the equation. For example, the energy costs of generating, maintaining and cleaning a laboratory for the cultivation of animal cells are not taken into account. Neither is the energy cost of generating the necessary components for cell culture. Much less the land and water used by the factories where these components have been generated. What’s more, only meat production is taken into account and not the added value provided by livestock (milk production and derivatives, leather industry, land clearing, etc.).
In addition, the comparison is made by focusing on intensive farming, without considering small farmers and extensive farming. In short, an unfair comparison is made for livestock and beneficial for meat production in the laboratory.
energy and waste
In another article, published in ‘Enviromental Science & Technology‘, in this case without a conflict of interest, carry out a comparative study between laboratory meat production and livestock, based on estimates of energy expenditure. He concludes that while laboratory production might require smaller amounts of agricultural expenditure and land than ranching, those benefits would come at the expense of higher energy expenditure.
Along the same lines, a more recent article published in ‘Frontiers in Nutrition‘ concludes that it is difficult for artificial meat production to match the relatively low costs of conventionally produced meat. The work indicates that sterilization, a necessary process for the commercialization of these products, increases the energy and environmental cost of artificial meat production. And he comes to the conclusion that the amount of waste derived from artificial production is, today, greater than that generated in traditional production.
Without killing animals, but using artificial hormones and supplements
In addition to economic and environmental factors, we must also consider ethical and social ones, as explained in another article published in ‘Foods‘.
The possibility of producing meat without slaughtering animals is an obvious benefit. However, the artificial production process requires the use of chemical products, for example, hormones and artificial supplements, which transform these products into ultra-processed products, and many studies prove that this type of food has a negative effect on health.
In addition, in assessing the impacts it is necessary to consider how it affects farmers and ranchers, particularly small-scale producers, and those underdeveloped economies that depend on livestock production for income and wealth.
The Australian company promotes its meatball by explaining that it is made with mammoth meat. Is this true?
The fake mammoth meat: something similar to benign tumor tissue
If we analyze the methodology used for this “meatball”, we see, again, that it is not mammoth.
They have used a fragment of DNA that encodes a mammoth protein, myoglobin, which is present, with minor sequence modifications, in all mammals. As the mammoth sequence is not known exactly, they are based on a mixture with that of elephant myoglobin, the mammal evolutionarily closest to the mammoth. They have introduced the resulting DNA, a chimeric gene, into undifferentiated sheep cells, which they have subsequently stimulated with growth factors to divide and differentiate into muscle cells. At the moment, it is not suitable for human consumption.
In effect, we are talking about feeding ourselves meat made up of a group of cells grown in the laboratory to generate a mass (somewhat similar to benign tumor tissue) of transgenic sheep cells, into which a DNA sequence from mammoth and elephant hybrid myoglobin.
For the moment, we opted for a good chop from the cows that graze nearby.
This article was originally published onThe Conversation.
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