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Artificial meat is the solution in the food crisis. Photo/Reuters
LONDON – Climate change that causes agricultural crop failure and many livestock die causing a food crisis. That is a great opportunity for the emergence of artificial meat developed in the laboratory. However, this trend is not massive and tends to move slowly.
Not many countries also focus on developing artificial meat. This causes artificial meat to be difficult to recognize by the public. The public is still trying to find out whether artificial meat is healthy or dangerous.
“So the artificial meat industry is quite new,” said Tasneem Karodia, co-founder of Mzansi Meat Co, a South African cultured meat company. “The first burger was made in the Netherlands in 2013. And maybe three to four years later, there are several companies. Now, we are together with more than 100 companies.”
Among these companies, they develop lamb, duck, beef, chicken, fish, artificial. The Good Food Institute reports they have also collectively received billions of dollars in investments.
Artificial meat or cultured meat basically means doubling the same process found inside the cow, outside the cow. In other words, meat grown in a laboratory is genetically indistinguishable from the real thing.
The first step to making one is to take a peppercorn-sized cell biopsy from a cow – allowing the animal to “run after it,” notes Karodia. The biopsies are taken back to the lab and placed in a bioreactor – a metal vat similar to the beer that is brewed. Biopsy is full of nutritious broth that contains all the ingredients cells need to grow and develop.
Here are the 3 most aggressive countries in developing artificial meat or cultivated meat.
1. Singapore
Until recently, Singapore was the only place in the world that sold artificial meat.
One restaurant that sells artificial meat is Huber’s Butchery and Bistro in Singapore. It’s the only restaurant in the world that has so-called cultured meat on its menu. The response from customers has been overwhelming.
The artificial meat is produced – Eat Just based in California, United States. They say the meat is ethical, clean and green – with no compromise on taste. Billions of dollars have been poured into the industry, but a big question mark hangs over its survival as something beyond novelty.
So far, only Eat Just has managed to get its product approved for public sale after regulators in Singapore – the only country in the world that allows the sale of laboratory meat – gave its chickens the go-ahead in December 2020.
