LAB-GROWN MEAT: TASTY -CHICKEN/MUTTON OF THE FUTURE
Post no-1419 Dt 01/10/2019
Compiled & shared by-DR RAJESH KUMAR SINGH ,JAMSHEDPUR,JHARKHAND, INDIA,
9431309542,rajeshsinghvet@gmail.com.
In 1931, Winston Churchill predicted that the earth would be consuming lab-grown meat by the 1980s. Although his timing was off by four decades, his prediction was not. As the world struggles to meet the needs of 9-10 billion mouths by 2050, while simultaneously addressing the negative environmental impacts of factory farming, food is increasingly becoming a product of human design— the first cultured meat products are expected to appear in supermarkets as soon as 2021.
Cultured meat, also called lab-grown clean meat, in vitro meat, imitation meat, synthetic meat, artificial meat or bio-manufactured meat is meat which includes muscle cells, fat cells, connective tissue, blood, and other components, produced by in vitro cultivation of animal cells, without actual slaughtering of animals/birds. Cultured meat can also be produced from cells taken from the feather of chicken. It is produced by using tissue engineering techniques. White meat is an ideal material for meat culture due to its anaerobic activity, low fat content, and plasticity. Cultured meat can be “an alternative protein source to feed the world”. There are limited dedicated research activities going on throughout the world and cultured meat has not yet been commercialized. The consumer interest in plant-based and “clean meat” (also known as lab-grown or cultured meat) in the US, India and China shows high levels of acceptance.
It has been suggested that cultured meat is livestock agriculture’s lab-based response to the vertical farming movement. Meat is “grown” from animal muscle cells through tissue culture in controlled laboratory conditions. These are then combined with fat cells and additives for texture, flavour and colour. The cell-to-fork process takes two to six weeks.
Laboratory grown ‘clean meat’ may become available in India by 2025, allowing consumers to enjoy animal products without supporting inhumane and unsustainable industrial animal agriculture.
Animal welfare organisation Humane Society International (HSI) India and the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) in Hyderabad have joined hands to develop laboratory grown meat in India.
The effort to develop clean meat has emerged due to the unsustainable methods of large-scale industrial animal agriculture.The practices neglect basic animal welfare, and consequently pose a threat to the environment and food security.In 2013, the first cultured beef burger (clean meat) was produced and cooked. At that point, the cost of that one patty was USD 375,000.However, since then, in the past 5 years, Memphis Meat, a clean meat company founded by Indian origin cardiologist Dr Uma Valeti has produced meatballs which cost about USD 1300 and Mosa Meat, the company which produced the beef patty has now brought it down to USD 30 per pound. While the price is still high, research is on across clean meat companies to reduce the cost further by scaling up the production
For consumers who have a dietary preference for animal meat clean meat can be consumed, while eliminating the drawbacks of the current meat consumption trends.
To produce ‘clean meat’ cells from an animal are taken and grown outside of the body in a petri dish. Clean meat production requires far less land and water than conventional meat production and therefore alleviates repercussions of exponential climatic change.
The technology obliterates the severe environmental damages resulting from poor waste management prevalent in current farming practices.It does not require antibiotics, produces no bacterial contamination and ensures the welfare of animals.The taste will be the same because clean meat is meat . However, instead of slaughtering an entire animal for different part of its body, the technology in clean meat can develop those parts based on biopsy taken from different parts of the animals’ body.
Methods
It starts with cells extracted from an animal and cultured to develop into strands of muscle tissue fit for human consumption after cooking. Collection of cells can be made through a biopsy; cells from chicken feather.
Maintaining a Primary Culture
1. Extract myosatellite cells from primary tissue Use of “primary cells” from a living or recently slaughtered animal, or using a population of “immortalised” cells, that will keep on dividing is essential. The most viable cells are to be chosen
2. Plate cells in gelatinized flasks
3. Initiate serum starvation
4. Administer growth media every 48 hours Plant-based nutrients are added to grow cells in a bioreactor. 20ml of fresh Growth Media are added to the flasks every 48 hours to promote proliferation without differentiation, until cells are ready to be frozen down. A combination of DMEM, sodium bicarbonate, horse serum, and penicillin promote cell attachment when plated. A combination of McCoy’s Solution, sodium bicarbonate, chicken serum, and penicillin promote cell proliferation without differentiation.
5. Ensure optimum environmental conditions during incubation Normally, optimum proliferation with minimal differentiation was maintained when cells were kept in in T75 flasks for incubation at 37.5o C and exposed to a constant flow of 5% Co2
6. Passage cells to new flasks once desired confluency has been reached Cells may reach appropriate confluence for passaging 96 hours after plating. Flasks with a confluence between 80% and 90% will be produced at 5 x 106 to 2 x 107 cells per flask with minimal amounts of cell differentiation. Many factors such as contamination and changes to their environment or feeding schedules can lead to cell death. Maintenance and prevention of death of cells is a difficult process. Once cultivated for primary culture, cells must be maintained for 40 to 60 cell divisions in order to determine their immortality. To retain immortality, myosatellite cells must be kept at optimum conditions throughout the culturing and storage process.
7. Production of clean meat The resulting product is 100 percent real meat, is often called “clean meat” because the product is cleaner, but without the antibiotics, E. coli, salmonella, or waste contamination – all of which come standard in conventional meat production. The pure muscle tissue – basically, lean mince, rather than something with the taste and texture of a chop or steak, which means adding fat cells and connective cells to give it “a bit more taste”.The production of clean meat is significantly more environmentally friendly, much like clean energy.
8. Freeze and store cells in Nitrogen tank for ATCC deposit A large robot and data scientists are involved in collecting data from all of the machines in the lab to identify the best ingredients.
Why Cultured meat?
It is because most food scientists believe that current methods of food production are unsustainable. Some estimate that food production will have to double within the next 50 years to meet the requirements of a growing population. During this period, climate change, water shortages and greater urbanisation will make it more difficult to produce food. Lab grown meat will help stop the slaughter of animals and protect the environment; industrial farming contributes to greenhouse gas emissions such as methane through agricultural waste and nitrous oxide via fertilizer use. The lab grown meat can be produced in a bioreactor in only two days, but it is not yet commercially available for mass consumption.
Advantages
Cultured meat, also called lab-grown or clean meat, starts with the collection of cells, usually done through a biopsy so the animals aren’t harmed. Just says it has also been able to get cells from a chicken feather. The most viable cells are chosen and then given the right nutrients they need to grow in a bioreactor. In the case of this chicken nugget, those nutrients are plant-based.
Not only does cultured meat avoid sacrificing animals, it could take fewer resources to produce than traditional livestock. Around 14.5 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions are from livestock, according to a report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
1. Avoids sacrificing of animals/birds
2. Take fewer resources to produce than rearing livestock/ birds.
3. Require less energy, take up less land, and release less methane and other greenhouse gases than conventional meat production.
4. Eliminate much of the cruel, unethical treatment of animals that are raised for food.
5. Reduce the considerable environmental costs of meat production; resources would be needed only to generate and sustain cultured cells, not an entire organism from birth.
6. Reduce the environmental footprint of meat by up to 60%.
7. Reduce land pressures
8. Fight anti-microbial resistance and food contamination.
9. Predicted to be three times as efficient as chicken, which is the most efficient conventionally produced meat.
10. Does not require the use of antibiotics.
Disadvantages
1. Very costly
2. Overly dry (from too little fat).
3. In the beginning it will taste bland
Questions to be answered
1. “Does cultured meat spoil at the same rate as conventional meat?
2. Does it allow the same growth of potentially harmful microbes?
3. Is its shelf life the same?
4. Does it have the same nutritional qualities?”
Future research areas In the process
• Design of bioreactors,
• To determine how to suspend large quantities of muscle cells in a bioreactor
• To explore plant based alternatives for the culturing process.
• Making sure of the cells to differentiate and form into myotubes.
• Estimation of actual time taken and labour needed to turn millions of tiny cells into meat
• Cells need to be grown on a very large scale in a commercial facility for its wide availability.
• Shortening the step involved in the bioprocess around the bioreactors, to grow muscle cells on a large scale that is economical and safe and high quality,
• Fast production of lab grown meat
• Establishment of accessible avian muscle cell line for the production of cultured meat is must.
• Establishment of an immortal chicken myosatellite cell line After the process
• Nutritional qualities -Proximate, aminoacid, fattyacid composition analysis of cultured chicken meat
• Sensory analysis of cultured chicken meat
Major concerns
Three major concerns are to do with price, taste, and naturalness and the related issue of safety. Consumer preference will decide the success or failure of lab-grown meat. Careful attention to texture and judicious supplementing with other ingredients could address taste concerns.
Clean meat production companies
1. Mosa Meat,
2. Memphis Meats- Cultured chicken and duck meat
3. Super Meat – Chicken
4. Finless Foods.
5. Tyson Foods,( United States, )
6. New Harvest- Chicken and turkey meat
7. Future Meat Technologies,
8. Impossible Foods
9. Beyond Meat,
10.Good Food Institute, a Washington, D.C The clean meat must be produced from high-quality cells from animals and cultivating them into meat
• Should be nutritious, tasty
• Should tastes like actual original traditional chicken meat.
• Should have highest level of quality
• We must keep the benefits of conventional meat while making several lab grown chicken meat products healthier, more nutritious and safer.
• Process should produce less waste and dramatically fewer greenhouse gas emissions.
• Must produce cultured meat on par or even lower than the traditional / conventional meat.
If the clean meat companies can succeed in creating authentic-tasting products that are also affordable, clean meat could make our daily eating habits more ethical and environmentally sustainable.
Regulatory bodies
To receive market approval, clean meat will have to be proved safe to eat. USDA and FDA announced that the two agencies would jointly oversee the production of cultured meat products. In the new plan, the FDA will oversee “cell collection, cell banks, and cell growth and differentiation,” and then the USDA will “oversee the production and labeling of food products derived from the cells of livestock and poultry.”
Common problems
Cultured meat research has already begun but is faced with many obstacles.
• Availability of cell lines,
• Efficient production of cells at a large scale, and cell growth using plant based media and scaffolds.
• Generating muscle cell lines that can be scaled up in a bioreactor and exploring plant based materials that can be used to grow these cells.
• Derive cell lines either from existing clonal or mass cultures or from primary culture.
• Subsequently, the cell lines will be adapted to suspension culture, while retaining their ability to differentiate into myotubes on a solid, plant based substrate.
• Validating animal serum for the growth medium, the nutrient bath, the cells need in order to survive and grow.
• Establishment of master cell bank for deposits
• A shift from animal agriculture to lab-based products can potentially reverse global warming, decrease foodborne illnesses and environmental pollution, and spare billions of animals.
• Establishment of an efficient method of culturing avian myoblast cells on a large scale, leading to further research in the field of cellular agriculture.
Conclusions
In vitro meat culture offers a solution to unsustainable meat production while still providing animal products to our growing population. Use of cheaper ingredients to feed the meat cells can be followed to lower the production cost of cultured meat. It should mimic the appearance, colour, flavour, texture, juiciness, tenderness and over all acceptability of the original conventional chicken meat. We must produce USDA and FDA approved cultured meat in a better way, so that it is nuticious, affordable, safe healthier and Usuatainable
