The Facts Behind Cell-Based Meat

By Emily Chen

Eating one hamburger wastes more water than 2 months of showering
30% of the world’s fresh water consumption is from raising animals for food
Meat does more damage to the atmosphere than all transportation combined

These are just some of many shocking facts about the effect of meat production on our environment. It would blow your mind to learn just how much effort goes into making one hamburger, and herds of cattle produce obscene amounts of greenhouse gases, damaging our atmosphere beyond imagination. Infographic from the World Economic Forum detailing the amount of water that goes into making a burger. Note the 2,500 litres for the beef patty. For reasons like this, as well as the inherent cruelty of farming animals for food, many people choose vegetarianism or veganism as their food practice of choice. And looking at the brutality of the animal husbandry, it’s difficult to argue that eating meat is the morally superior option. At the same time, people will never choose to give up meat. Our bodies are wired for an omnivorous lifestyle, and meat-eaters (myself included) can all agree: meat is delicious. So what can we do? The first option that has presented itself is plant-based meat, made out of plant-based protein sources and engineered to behave and taste like meat. However, this has faced backlash from many, who consider it “fake meat” and believe it doesn’t taste the same. Recently, however, “cell-based meat” has come into the public eye as a new alternative. Cell-based meat (also known as cultured, cultivated, clean, and slaughter-free meat) works by taking a live adult animal’s muscle stem cells, and then growing it in a nutrient-filled environment to create real meat -- without even hurting a single animal. Here are just some of the facts:

Cell-based beef is projected to use 95% less greenhouse gas emissions, 98% less land use, and up to 50% less energy.
Cell-based beef reduces the amount of antibiotics needed for cows (since the meat is lab-grown and in a clean environment), which, as a nice side benefit, will help to fight the ever-growing problem that is super-bacteria resistant to antibiotics (but that’s a whole other issue).
Cell-based meat has the potential to end animal suffering by eliminating the need for the mass-production and mass-slaughter of animals for food. One chicken’s cells could produce chicken nuggets for the whole world.

Traditional meat production is extremely damaging to our environment. Cows pump out constant greenhouse gases into our environment, take up land for grazing, consume incomprehensible amounts of water, and are being bred and slaughtered in an endless, cruel cycle of death. And given the fact that Earth’s population is still growing, we’ll require even more resources to produce enough food to feed the world traditionally. However, cell-based meat provides a solution to all of that. It’s still a new technology, and it may have unknown flaws awaiting discovery, but it has the potential to revolutionize not just the food industry, but also our treatment of both animals and the environment. And it gives the added benefit of food safety - avoiding diseases transferred through meat such as salmonella, swine flu, Mad Cow Disease, and much, much more. So where do we go from here? Cell-based meat is still in the early stages of development, so you won’t quite be able to find it stocking the shelves; however, that just makes it more important than ever to support it and its potential for our planet. The more people that know about the potential of cell-based meat, the sooner we’ll take our first step towards a cleaner, kinder world. Watch this video to learn more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GgP6jo5DTM Sources https://www.huffpost.com/entry/hamburgers-stats-that-will-bl_b_5560046 https://science.time.com/2013/12/16/the-triple-whopper-environmental-impact-of-global-meat-production/ https://medium.com/track-and-food/plant-and-cell-based-meat-explained-6c09dedad041 https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/02/this-is-how-much-water-is-in-your-burger/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/briankateman/2020/02/17/will-cultured-meat-soon-be-a-common-sight-in-supermarkets-across-the-globe/#c94566b7c66a