January 17, 2025 • 43 mins
These proteins are real meat produced without having to rear and slaughter animals. Anney and Lauren explore the developing industry of lab-grown meats.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello, and welcome to Savior production of iHeartRadio. I'm Annie Reese.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
And I'm Lauren vocal Baum, and today we have an
episode for you about lab grown meat.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Yes, I'm sorry, I just I act surprised as if
I don't know what is coming.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
You're like, oh, really, heck? Was that what I spent
three days reading about?
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Yeah, because there is a lot to go through with
this topic.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Oh my goodness, there is. Okay, So I suggested it,
and I knew it was going to It's one of
those things like I knew it was going to be
a lot, I didn't know it was going to be
as much as it is.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
And I yeah, yep. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Also, like neither of us are biologists or engineers of
any kind, uh, let alone biological engineers. And so yeah,
we're doing our best. We're doing our best.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
That's all we can do. That's all we can do. Yeah,
it's intense. It's intense. And recently in a listener mail
someone did suggest this. I know it's been suggested before,
but it's a topic that's moving a lot, is changing
(01:31):
a lot.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
It's very fast paced, and it's very competitive as well.
And so there's also right, like my other caveat in
addition to we were I mean I was an English major. Yeah,
neither of us were science majors. Also, like a lot
of what's going on with this is proprietary, and so
(01:53):
many things written about it for public consumption are a
little bit purposefully vague. So and it is moving so quickly,
so there's like so much news. Like the history section
is an overview of some of the high points.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yes, yes, well was there any particular reason this was
on your mind, Laurid.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
No, I don't think so. I think it was just,
you know, a line item in the topic spreadsheet that
we have, and I was like, maybe today.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
You and these ambitious I appreciate it. I know you've
said it's because it kind of ran out of the
less but a good way to start out the year.
Lab growing sure, Yeah, yeah right.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
You can also see vaguely related our meat alternative episode
called The Bleeding Edge of Meat Alternatives. Good pun there,
good for past us. Yes, well, I guess that brings
us to our question. Sure, sure, lab grown meat?
Speaker 1 (03:10):
What is it? Well?
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Lab grown meat, also called cultured or cultivated meat among
many other names, is real animal meat that is grown
in a lab in vitro instead of being grown in
an animal, you know, in vivo. The idea is to
create meat that cooks and eats like meat that has
been butchered from an animal, without needing to butcher an animal.
(03:36):
Very basically, here, scientists can use bioengineering to take like
cells what are good at growing different cells from animal tissue,
generally without harming the animal, and then use some kind
of growth medium and environmentally controlled tank in order to
get the cells to develop and divide and grow into
a piece of tissue with like ideally similar texture and
(03:59):
flavor properties to whatever cut of meat from the original animal.
And this is biotechnology that is still in its like
preliminary to mid preliminary stages, you know, like more research
needs to be done, but if it could be worked
out to be done with sustainable energy at industrial scale
(04:21):
for a reasonable cost, it could mean revolutionizing everything from
like animal welfare to agricultural impact on the environment, to
human worker welfare to like the prevalence of food born
illness and antibiotic resistance. And I need to say that
(04:41):
in that previous sentence the word if was doing some
like real heavy lifting. But like a the research does
have implications for all all kinds of interesting stuff in
other fields like medical therapy and be industrialized. Meat production
is like bad enough that even just mildly improving any
(05:06):
of the stuff I mentioned above would be so good
and is worth looking into. Lab grown meat is truly
futurist stuff, but also like tantalizingly within reason, which is
something that you don't get very often with futurism. The
process of making it is like a very fancy brewery
(05:28):
or like butter or yogurt system, because yeah, like you're
culturing it, but growing meat is very much more complicated
than growing yeaster bacteria. It's sort of like if John
Hammond had decided to solve world hunger instead of creating
a theme park full of dinosaurs.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Yeah, maybe you should have thought about that. It seems
like it would have been a good plan. But I
don't know. I'm not I'm not a billionaire here we are.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
But okay, so again, I'm going to be doing a
lot of summarizing here. I really hope that my summaries are,
you know, like as clear and accurate as they can be.
As far as they go, y'all write in if you
know more about this than I do. But okay, yeah,
so you might see a lot of other different terms
(06:26):
for lab grown meat. Advocacy groups tend to like terms
like slaughter free meat or clean meat. Shout out to
NPR's Ketzel Levine for calling it schmeat back in two
thousand and eight. I think that's the one we should
go with personally, but no one asks me about these things. Okay,
so you're starting with animal cells, and the starter cells
(06:49):
that you're using can differ. If you're going to biopsy
cells from an animal, you're looking to nab some kind
of like multipotent to plury potent stem cells. That that is,
cells that can differentiate into different kinds of tissue, maybe
like embryonic stem cells or maybe adult muscle stem cells.
In the case of poultry, you can also obtain cells
(07:09):
from a fertilized egg, and so however you get them,
Scientists work with their cell samples and select ones from
which they prove that meat could be grown well, and
then they'll bank those cell lines for use across many, many,
many batches of meat without having to go back and
harvest more. The cell cultures are fed with stuff that
(07:32):
cells used to grow in vivo and under normal circumstances,
you know, like a kind of mix of water, sugars,
amino acids, vitamins and minerals and salts. The cultures are
grown in bioreactors, which sounds a little scary, but it's
really just like a monitored vat in which you can
control the inputs of nutrients and oxygen and heat, and
(07:54):
you can also observe the cells consumption and their outputs
to see how they're doing. You can grow meat in
batches or continually. How long it takes obviously depends on
the proprietary process, but I've seen numbers as low as
like three weeks per portion of meat, which, if you're thinking,
sounds like a long time for something to be developing
(08:16):
in a lab. Like think about how much shorter it
is than the time it takes to grow a chicken
or a fish, or definitely a cow.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
One of the issues here is definitely texture. Like you know,
you can solve for flavor and color by adding different
stuff to the mix. You know from building blocks that
meat naturally contains to additives like say a turmeric extract
something like that. Left to its own devices, a lot
of these meat cultures will grow in like thin layers.
(08:51):
So if you want like a chicken cutlet or a
slice of like salmon locks kind of stuff, you're pretty gold.
And those thin layers are easy to like press or
grind and then shape into say a beef burger or
a chicken nugget, or like a deli type loaf. But
(09:12):
if you think about something complex, like a ribi steak
or a thick piece of salmon sashimi, you know, with
like the bands of fat in it, ah so good,
or a chicken thigh, that's more difficult. Other technologies like
three D printing are sometimes incorporated to help create the structure.
Once you've grown the muscle fibers and the fat cells,
(09:35):
you can also grow the meat inside of some kind
of scaffolding made up of something like collagen gel. Some
companies are working on biological methods to like encourage that
cell differentiation within single pieces of meat to create the
different bands of muscle, fiber and fat. Another thing that
is difficult with all of this is probably going to
(09:58):
be getting people to accept it. Uh, Like we're currently
dealing with really unfortunate and personally, probably for a lot
of y'all, too frustrating distrust of science in our society,
certainly here in the United States, and and I guess,
like to be fair, like what you put in your
(10:19):
mouth is very personal, and so people can be particularly
entrenched in their ideas about food. That being said, I've
read a lot of different anecdotes about people who have
eaten dishes made with like the top of the line
samples of these things, and they've pretty roundly reported that
like it tasted and felt like conventionally grown meat.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Yeah. I think the like popular story is, oh, this
tastes like chicken, and they're like, it's right, chicken, it's chicken.
Fooled you. Yeah, but yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
There are a lot of different companies out there working
with this on everything from like yes, chicken and beef
to pork, to seafood like fish and shrimp and lobster
to perhaps shall we say, uncommon meats like zebra or
I'll pack up. There are other companies looking to replicate
other animal proteins like milk and eggs.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Wow, yeah, yep, my goodness. Well what about the nutrition.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Gosh, don't eat a burgeoning industry. Hypothetically, the meat products
that come out of this process are about the same
as conventionally grown meat.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
But you know, I guess it.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Depends that's what that's what they're looking to do anyway, Yes, yes,
depends on how you cook it.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Well, we do have some numbers for you.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
We do, okay, So as of twenty twenty four, there
were over two hundred cultured meat startups working across every
continent that you know isn't Antarctica. For the past few years,
they have been backed by investments ranging like right around
a billion dollars a year. The reports have varied, but
(12:23):
I'm gathering it's about a billion, and okay, Like globally speaking,
meat is a luxury, but it's something that we humans
eat a lot of, especially as we like societally gain
the means to do so financially and you know, agriculturally
or trade wise. So for example, the world population has
(12:47):
more than doubled since the early nineteen sixties, but meat
consumption has more than quadrupled during that time as countries
have developed. Some eighty billion animals are slaughtered every year
to produce some three hundred and forty million metric tons
of meat. And that's a lot of animals. It's also
(13:12):
really hard on the environment. Meat industry, livestock contribute somewhere
between like fifteen to eighteen percent of the world's greenhouse
gas emissions. That's more than the transportation industry. These animals
also consume some eight percent of our fresh water, and
caring for them requires about thirty percent of our land.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Yeah, and getting to make a difference in those numbers
is a really huge part of why this is such
a burgeoning industry.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
But it's also like scale.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
I cannot emphasize hard enough how much scale is an
issue here. Like, Okay, as of twenty twenty three, this
cultivated chicken producer called Upside could produce about fifty thousand
pounds of chicken meat every year, and they think that
that facility could expand up to like four hundred thousand
(14:11):
pounds of chicken meat every year. In contrast, as of
twenty twenty two, the US butchered some fifty nine billion
pounds of conventionally grown chicken.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
So that's more. That's some. Yeah, Yeah, that's a few
factors more.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
And yeah, so don't be too afraid of it just yet.
But also how we even got to hear has been
a journey.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
It certainly has, and we will get into that after
a quick break for a word from our sponsor, and
we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you, Okay. So,
(15:02):
while the idea of lab grown meat has been around
for a while, a lot of the history is fairly
recent and has to do with concerns around food security,
climate change, health, the environment, and animal welfare. So looking
back in eighteen ninety four, a French chemistry professor allegedly
(15:24):
predicted we'd be eating lab grown meat by the year
two thousand. So far, so far in the future. Yes,
And also allegedly Winston Churchill mentioned cultured meat in the
context of human consumption in nineteen thirty one or nineteen
thirty two quote, we shall escape the absurdity of growing
(15:47):
a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or
wing by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Yeh, yes, And he did actually write this, It's in
an essay call fifty years Hence I think he wrote
it as a speech in nineteen thirty one and then
published it in Popular Mechanics in nineteen thirty two, And
it's been republished in a book of his essays called
Thoughts and Adventures if you'd like to read the whole thing.
But yes, when he wrote it fifty years hence was
(16:17):
the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
So far in the future. Yeah, but it wasn't until
the two thousands that experimenting with labgrown meat really took off.
Many of the early scientists in the fields started by
culturing animal muscle tissue. A lot of debate ensued in
the following decades of the pros and cons around this
(16:41):
kind of meat and the process behind it. There were
definitely earlier proof of concepts though, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Starting in nineteen ninety four, this Indonesian Dutch researcher by
the name of Willem van Ellen filed a few patents
for lab cultured meat processes. He got the idea in
medical school following World War Two, during which he had
been a prisoner of war of the Japanese army, so,
like you know, he had seen hunger, and then in
school he was struck by these experiments that were attempting
(17:12):
to use stem cells to culture human skin for burn victims.
He apparently spent the rest of his life attempting to
get people on board with growing meat in vitro. Those
patents were later bought by this American startup called Hampden Creek,
which later became known as eat just which will be
(17:33):
coming back to later.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Yes. Also dating back to the nineteen nineties, range Cats
and Annot Zurr were experimenting with cultured meats. Their two
thousand and three project, Disembodied Cuisine was the first recognized
example being grown from live animal cells and then eaten.
(17:56):
It was a quote bio art project where frog that
provided the sales for the meat were hopping around next
to the frog steaks that were grown from the cell
from their cells. At the end of the project's run,
people ate the frog meat grown from these frog cells,
(18:16):
and the frogs were released. Apparently at least a few
people spit it out. Well you know early, it was early.
You know you might be looking at the frog. Well, no,
you made it weird.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Yeah, I guess. Speaking of projected dates of when this
kind of thing would be available, In the year two
thousand and eight, PETA offered a million dollar prize to
anyone who could create commercially viable lab grown chicken within
a deadline of just four years.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Wow. Very hopeful.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Not a lot of money for the amount of setup
that that requires. But yeah, that did not occur. I
think they extended the deadline and to another four years
and it still did not occur.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
So here we are, yes, well, here we are. A
Dutch scientist Mark Post is frequently credited with creating one
of the first instances of lab grown edible meat when
he debuted a lab grown beef burger on live TV
in twenty thirteen. Yeah, it took three months to grow
(19:27):
and it was dubbed the three hundred and thirty thousand
dollars Burger. Post went on to found the company Mosa
Meat two years after this high profile cultivated meat debut.
Researchers could produce a product much more cheaply, in some cases,
like a hamburger, for about eleven dollars. Ten years later,
(19:49):
different sources put it anywhere from ten dollars to fifty dollars,
so a vast difference whatever the case. Yep. San Francisco's
startup Upside Foods, who we've mentioned a little bit previously
known as Memphis Meats, has been a big name in
this conversation. The company was founded in twenty fifteen by
(20:12):
cardiologist Uma Valetti, who got the idea after a visit
to Slaughterhouse and he was thinking, like, we've got to
improve this. At his work. He'd seen how heart cells
could be grown in a lab environment and thought, why
can't we do this with meat. It took years of
experimentation before he and his team finally got it right.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Also in twenty fifteen, the restaurant that listener Nava wrote
to us about, Bistro in Vitro, debuted fictionally. This was
never a real restaurant, unfortunately, No, only ever a fictional
such a good didn't know, I know. But their menu
(21:02):
is still online, so yeah, just Bistro dashinvitro dot com.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Go check it out. It's really funny.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Also, right around this time, I think twenty fifteen to
twenty seventeen, people in the industry were saying it would
take several years for lab grown meat to scale to market,
so like mid twenty twenties.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Yes, and this brings us to space our space news,
because you know we love space news always always. In
twenty nineteen, astronauts on the International Space Station embarked on
a quest to cultivate the first lab grown beef in space.
Okay again in the briefest, most basic terms. Cow cells
(21:50):
were sent to the ISS, where they were then mixed
with a nutrient soup and placed in a three D bioprinter.
What a world or what a galaxy? I don't know.
This resulted in the first space printed cultivated beef steak.
The experiment was the brainchild of Israeli food company Alif Farms,
(22:15):
and they wanted to prove that you can make lab
grown meat anywhere.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
That is one of the hypothetical eventual perks of something
like this is that it could be done during long
term space exploration.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Yeah yeah, I mean go read about it. It's pretty wild.
It's amazing.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
Yeah, yeah, we could do a whole thing just on that.
But continuing our timeline, in twenty twenty, another Israeli startup
called super Meat opened a test kitchen that served did
not sell because it wasn't technically legally approved, but they
(22:56):
served these like fancy cultured chicken sandwiches. That experiment is
no longer running, but the company still is. As of
twenty twenty three, their lab grown chicken was recognized as kosher.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
And another thing, if you're interested, you can go read
about It's like if people think it's actually vegetarian or
actually sure, like oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Yeah, yeah, like no, it's not vegetarian, it's meat. It's
made of it's made of animal.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
But people are having these conversations Oh yeah, oh absolutely no,
which is great, to be honest, it is. It is.
Singapore became the first country to allow the sale of
lab grown meat in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Yes, they specifically approved lab grown chicken brand good meat
from eat Just Incorporated for retail, though right now eat
just is in Singapore is working on not producing fully
lab grown meat products, but rather like supplementing plant based
(24:08):
proteins with small percentages of lab grown meats, like three
percent lab grown meat as of twenty twenty four. Meanwhile,
back in twenty twenty one, Hong Kong startup Avant Meats
debuted this test run of grouper filets grown from cultured meat.
The chef who worked with them said that they had
(24:29):
a texture like crabcakes. But yeah, Avant is one of
the many companies focusing on seafood.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Huh, I'm so intrigued, So intrigued, Okay. In twenty twenty three,
the Department of Agriculture in the United States approved the
sale of cultivated chicken, a year after the FDA gave
their own approval. They were specifically approving the submission of
Upside Foods because they're reviewing these products company by company. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Yeah, they also approved another company's cultured chicken from Good Meat.
A lot of these places really enjoy all caps in
their names anyway, good meat. But yes, these products can
carry like the familiar USD inspected symbol that comes on
conventionally grown meat.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Yeah, it is still pretty niche and cost prohibitive for many.
But Upside in particular has partnerships with some big chefs
and restaurants. Yeah, some of the deandres people like that.
Yeah yeah, yeah yeah. Yeah. On the other hand, some
US states have banned it Alabama and Florida as of
(25:42):
this recording, or are trying to ban it.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Yeah, And these bands have different levels of prohibition. I
think Florida is the most stringent where it's not only
Florida's not only banned the manufacture of lab grown meat
in state, but also the distribution and sale with like
fines and even imprisonment on the line.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Right now, as.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Of twenty twenty five, Nebraska is considering bands like only
on the manufacture and direct sales in like grocery stores
in state. Like, citizens could still buy it online if
they wanted to. All of these bands are ostensibly in
the name of promoting and protecting existing farms and farming jobs.
(26:26):
You know, although I do want to which is noble,
which is absolutely noble, But I do want to say
again that like those are not going to be replaced
anytime soon, if ever, by this technology, and be like,
some of this is just some disingenuous anti science clap
(26:47):
trap trigger warning for Ron DeSantis. He said about signing
this bill in Florida that Florida is quote fighting back
against the global elites plan to force the world to
eat meat grown in petritish or bugs to achieve their
authoritarian goals.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Sorry, I'm sorry so much. I would love to just
tear down in that.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
In that single sentence, it's wow, I yeah, so so right,
like and I'm sorry, Like, I don't I don't mean to.
I don't mean to make fun of people who are
merely ignorant about a topic, except for when they have
(27:36):
run for office and are there and are making decisions
that affect the rest of us.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Yeah, yep, sorry anyway, Yeah, yeah, okay, I'm glad you
gave me the trigger warning. I just I just I
just want people. I just like science so much it
(28:03):
can't do everything, but.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
It can help.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
It's trying to help anyway. Books are fine, get out
of here. Books are great at any rate. Yes, yes,
at any rate. We are not the only country that's
kind of grappling with some of this. Other countries are
still hammering out the legal framework. Some like India, are
(28:25):
planning on funding research into cultivated meats, while others like
Italy are worried about how this impacts their country's food
history and culture. Are at least some on the far
right are the right wing portion of the government has
proposed banning it with steep, steep fines for non compliance. Yeah, yeah,
(28:48):
it's and I think I think caution is good.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Caution is great. And like again, like lab grown meat
is not looking to replace something like like domination of
controlled origin PERSCUDO or something like that. You know, like,
we're not No one is trying to put small farmers
out of jobs.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
But if we can.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Decrease the literal evils of industrial scale meat production, that
would be terrific. That would be really good. Some countries
are a little bit more forward thinking, perhaps not to
accidentally name drop a show that I used to work
on about futurist topics. Israel approved a lift farms beef
(29:37):
steaks for sale in late twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
The UK became the first country in Europe to legalize
lab grown meat for pet food in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
There are a number of applications that the different companies
have put in with the UK's Food Standards Agency for
human foods, including for cultured steak, other beef products, chicken,
and for.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Gra Wow I know right, wow, like harmless for gra
that's amazing, that would be awesome, so cool. Oh my goodness. Well,
research is on going. Recently, people in the industry have
(30:21):
been looking at ways to utilize immortalized cell lines that
eliminate the need to go back to the animal in
question for a sample. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
Very Basically, immortalized cell lines are cells that have mutated
so that they keep dividing and thus growing new tissue,
like beyond the point that normal cells will. This mutation
can be induced, So from what I understand, the benefit
here is that if you can isolate like a really
efficient or otherwise desirable cell line and then immortalize it,
(30:55):
that saves a lot of.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Work down the line.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Other labs are are working on inducing pluripotents by reprogramming
cell nuclei.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Other other research.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Includes coming up with like cheaper plant based alternatives to
the traditional cell growth medium, which traditionally has been fetal
bovine serum, which is a expensive and be a byproduct
of the meat industry, so using it in order to
make lab grown meat like low key evades the point
(31:29):
of lab grown meat. Also, there is cell biology research
into more efficiently like prodding cells to differentiate into the
blend of fats and proteins that are seen in conventional meat.
The density of cells grown within the product is another challenge.
Lots of lots of different avenues depending on what each
(31:52):
individual company is looking to work with. But currently even
higher ups at the companies who are producing and promoting
this stuff, like like Upsides Coo won Amy Chen say
that entry of these products into the mass market is
(32:12):
at least ten years off.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
And this is one of the I kept bringing up
different like the kind of moving goalposts for dates in
this because it's one of the things that I find
inherently charming and silly about a lot of futurist conversation
is that like it's always twenty to forty years away,
and you know it's always going to be like, oh yeah,
(32:38):
sure we thought that ten years ago, but maybe in
another ten years.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
I don't know. It's like when your flight is delayed
and they're always like, oh, oh, only thirty minutes, and
you're like, oh, okay, thirty hours later, it's like nobotty minutes.
You're like, because you're willing to wait around for that
(33:02):
thirty minutes. But yeah, I mean, I'm really interested to
see where this goes. And oh yeah, I would try
it at a heartbeat. Oh absolutely. I mean that I would
eat anything.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
I feel like you and I are a poor sampal
size for this question, because right like, I'm like, yeah, sure, yeah, basically,
as long as I'm pretty sure it's not gonna harm me,
I'm going to try to eat it if it's offered.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
To me as food. Yeah, I did. I did some
research and I was like, where can I get it?
It was like you can't, you cannot. You essentially cannot,
which is unfortunate. It is kind of funny, though, isn't
it that like, essentially I'll just be eating chicken.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Yeah yeah, and like kind of processed chicken, but you'll
be so excited to do it. I will be, but
I I was gonna say that, yeah, if anyone has
tried it, yes, oh, we need to know. We need
to know everything about it, especially because a lot of
the circumstances under which you can try these products, if
(34:10):
you can, are very fancy circumstances.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Indeed, so yes, yes, oh listeners, please please write in
in the meantime. I think that's what we have to
say about lab grown meat for now. I could have
kept reading for years, but yes, yes it is. We
do already have some listener mail for you, though, and
we are going to get into that as soon as
(34:33):
we get back from one more quick break for a
word from our sponsors. And we're back. Thank you, sponsors, Yes,
thank you, and we're back with Oh, listener, it's Dexter's lab.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
Oh oh, I get you. Okay, it was difficult to
follow at the beginning.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
That's I understand. I understand, and we woke up the
I mean, oh no, I'm sorry. It's just a kitten.
She'll be asleep in another four seconds. Lauren's kitten is
joining us today via lap yes, yes, not laptop via
lapp Yes, but sometimes does sort now she does. That's true.
(35:28):
Chaos Engine, little Bruce anyway, Anyway, a rope. Guava is
such a lovely fruit. When we were in Saint Kitts
earlier this year, I had a lot of it. Many
people have a guava tree or two in their yard
along with a breadfruit tree. I had guava and a
fruit cup in a Danish as a barbecue sauce mixed
(35:50):
into yogurt. I don't recall the last time I saw
fresh guava where I live in Pittsburgh, so I took
advantage while I was there to eat a definitely something
that is enjoyable. I love nutmeg. It is a great spice.
I use it in a variety of dishes to add
more flavor. I find it will provide a nice bump
(36:12):
to all sorts of things. Use it in chili, alfredo, oatmeal, etc.
The best thing to do is to get the whole
nutmegs and use a microplane to add it. Some people
only want to use it around the holidays, but don't
feel restricted. Enjoy loved hearing the great variety in the
Listener mail episode. As mentioned, I love the variety of
(36:34):
things that people send in. It is so wonderful to
hear about all these different things, such a beautiful world
of people and food to discover. Oh that is true.
That is so true. It's so true, it's so lovely.
We can't thank y'all enough for writing is absolutely and
(36:55):
sharing these things with us. But yeah, I'm I feel
like we're gonna have to This great chili debate is
gonna have to We're gonna have to deal with this
sooner or later. I feel like I fear we have
(37:15):
awoken a sleeping giant. I think that we have, which
is a good segue. And you are oh yes, okay,
So Haley wrote you asked for chili opinions in the
recent listener, Male and I have big chili opinions. I
grew up in Missouri with a good mix of both
(37:36):
Midwestern and Southern traditions. I loved chili growing up, but
my mom wasn't the greatest at it.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Sorry, Mom. Hers was mostly tomato juice with a stray
bean and clump of unseasoned ground beef here and there.
I do tend to agree with Annie that chili is
in a camp of its own between soup and stew,
specifically because there are so many ways to make it.
I think the addition of beans somehow makes it not
a stew in my mind, and yes, there must always
(38:03):
be beans. Chili should also always be a savory salt bomb,
in my opinion, not a cinnamony chocolate sweet concoction. I
do respect of a good meaty, slash less tomato forward chili.
I'll la steak and Shake a fast food restaurant that
I dearly miss. If you know, you know, and if
you don't, you should find out. But I like mine
(38:24):
to have more tang and spice. My chili ingredients include
only a small amount of tomato sauce, tons of spice,
ground turkey, three types of beans, corn, peppers, onions, and garlic.
And then come the controversial ingredients Frank's red hot sauce
and chopped pepper chinie. I find that the vinegar perfectly
(38:44):
balances out all of the rich umami from the meat
and tomatoes and gives it that little extra bite. I
am also quite often given the side eye for requiring
a half peanut butter sandwich, preferably on wheat bread to
dip into my chili. I prefer unsweetened natural peanut butter,
but wouldn't turn down jiff if that was all that
was available. I long moved away from Missouri to the
(39:06):
Pacific Northwest and haven't met anyone yet that isn't shocked
by my chili opinions. I wrote to you guys a
while back and mentioned that I was having a rough time.
Though this is very vague, I wanted to report that
I found myself in a much better spot in life.
Thank you for being here for me through the ups
and downs.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
Oh of course, of course, thank you for listening. Yes, yes, oh,
anything we can do to help hold back the tide
of all of this is stuff that we are glad
to do. And those are some chili opinions. I adore this.
(39:45):
It's so cool.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
I've never heard of a peanut butter sandwich situation.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Though.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Now I'm thinking about it, and I'm like, that sounds great.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
That sounds fantastic, doesn't it.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
I mean, I know how you feel any about peanut butter,
so like, of course you're going to be like, yeah,
diep a peanut butter sandwich in anything that makes it better.
Speaker 1 (40:05):
Oh yeah, but I think that I can see that
actually working really well. Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh, oh
my gosh, I know we did talk about I can
never remember the state so people can write in and
yell at me. But there we did talk about how
some somewhere Simon rolls and oh right, chili.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, cinnamon rolls is the thing that you
serve with chili, right, which still sounds like a great
idea to me.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
Totally want to try that, yes, But so the funny
thing is that after we talked about are some of
our chilly thoughts in the listener mail the most recent
listener mail, I had laid awake at night, I know, joke,
(40:55):
was laying awake and I was thinking about, like, I've
I've got to nail down what I think chili ish,
and I was wrestling with it. And I sent this
email to Lauren and super producer Andrew, and I was like,
this is I'm struggling with this because my mom's spaghetti
(41:16):
sauce is very similar to chili, and also one of
my favorite chilies doesn't have beans, and I don't know
what to make of all this. So I'm still wrestling.
I'm still wrestling with it, but I do love I
love your description of your mom's not so great chili.
(41:38):
I feel like I've also had that chili. So yeah, yeah,
I think a lot of your additions would be really good.
Oh yeah, absolutely, I've never heard of pepper chini's and chili.
That is a new one for me, but sounds great.
I have a friend of the show Cody in there,
(41:59):
like row they always include Pepperccini's because it, yeah, like
the vinegar really helps just add this like depth to
the dish. M. Well, now I'm thinking we need to
have some kind of Savor chili cookoff. I please keep
(42:21):
them coming in because oh yeah, yeah, fascinated, but yes
we will.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
I'd have to take a moment and like write, write
my recipe down. But but we could both share our
personal recipes if you wanted to.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
We could. I think I might get some judgment for mine,
but I'm not scared. No, no, no, y'all are the best. Yeah, yes, well,
please keep those coming in. Thank you so much to
both of these listeners for writing in. If you would
(42:56):
like to write to us, you can. Our email is
hello at savorpod dot com. We're also on social media.
Speaker 2 (43:01):
You can find us on Twitter moving into blue Sky
a Facebook for now, I guess, and Instagram at saber pod.
And we do hope to hear from you. Saber is
a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, you
can visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to.
Speaker 1 (43:16):
Your favorite shows.
Speaker 2 (43:18):
Thanks us always to our super producers Dylan Fagan and
Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and we hope
that lots more good things are coming your way.
Hello, and welcome to Savior production of iHeartRadio. I'm Annie Reese.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
And I'm Lauren vocal Baum, and today we have an
episode for you about lab grown meat.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Yes, I'm sorry, I just I act surprised as if
I don't know what is coming.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
You're like, oh, really, heck? Was that what I spent
three days reading about?
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Yeah, because there is a lot to go through with
this topic.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Oh my goodness, there is. Okay, So I suggested it,
and I knew it was going to It's one of
those things like I knew it was going to be
a lot, I didn't know it was going to be
as much as it is.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
And I yeah, yep. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Also, like neither of us are biologists or engineers of
any kind, uh, let alone biological engineers. And so yeah,
we're doing our best. We're doing our best.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
That's all we can do. That's all we can do. Yeah,
it's intense. It's intense. And recently in a listener mail
someone did suggest this. I know it's been suggested before,
but it's a topic that's moving a lot, is changing
(01:31):
a lot.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
It's very fast paced, and it's very competitive as well.
And so there's also right, like my other caveat in
addition to we were I mean I was an English major. Yeah,
neither of us were science majors. Also, like a lot
of what's going on with this is proprietary, and so
(01:53):
many things written about it for public consumption are a
little bit purposefully vague. So and it is moving so quickly,
so there's like so much news. Like the history section
is an overview of some of the high points.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yes, yes, well was there any particular reason this was
on your mind, Laurid.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
No, I don't think so. I think it was just,
you know, a line item in the topic spreadsheet that
we have, and I was like, maybe today.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
You and these ambitious I appreciate it. I know you've
said it's because it kind of ran out of the
less but a good way to start out the year.
Lab growing sure, Yeah, yeah right.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
You can also see vaguely related our meat alternative episode
called The Bleeding Edge of Meat Alternatives. Good pun there,
good for past us. Yes, well, I guess that brings
us to our question. Sure, sure, lab grown meat?
Speaker 1 (03:10):
What is it? Well?
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Lab grown meat, also called cultured or cultivated meat among
many other names, is real animal meat that is grown
in a lab in vitro instead of being grown in
an animal, you know, in vivo. The idea is to
create meat that cooks and eats like meat that has
been butchered from an animal, without needing to butcher an animal.
(03:36):
Very basically, here, scientists can use bioengineering to take like
cells what are good at growing different cells from animal tissue,
generally without harming the animal, and then use some kind
of growth medium and environmentally controlled tank in order to
get the cells to develop and divide and grow into
a piece of tissue with like ideally similar texture and
(03:59):
flavor properties to whatever cut of meat from the original animal.
And this is biotechnology that is still in its like
preliminary to mid preliminary stages, you know, like more research
needs to be done, but if it could be worked
out to be done with sustainable energy at industrial scale
(04:21):
for a reasonable cost, it could mean revolutionizing everything from
like animal welfare to agricultural impact on the environment, to
human worker welfare to like the prevalence of food born
illness and antibiotic resistance. And I need to say that
(04:41):
in that previous sentence the word if was doing some
like real heavy lifting. But like a the research does
have implications for all all kinds of interesting stuff in
other fields like medical therapy and be industrialized. Meat production
is like bad enough that even just mildly improving any
(05:06):
of the stuff I mentioned above would be so good
and is worth looking into. Lab grown meat is truly
futurist stuff, but also like tantalizingly within reason, which is
something that you don't get very often with futurism. The
process of making it is like a very fancy brewery
(05:28):
or like butter or yogurt system, because yeah, like you're
culturing it, but growing meat is very much more complicated
than growing yeaster bacteria. It's sort of like if John
Hammond had decided to solve world hunger instead of creating
a theme park full of dinosaurs.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Yeah, maybe you should have thought about that. It seems
like it would have been a good plan. But I
don't know. I'm not I'm not a billionaire here we are.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
But okay, so again, I'm going to be doing a
lot of summarizing here. I really hope that my summaries are,
you know, like as clear and accurate as they can be.
As far as they go, y'all write in if you
know more about this than I do. But okay, yeah,
so you might see a lot of other different terms
(06:26):
for lab grown meat. Advocacy groups tend to like terms
like slaughter free meat or clean meat. Shout out to
NPR's Ketzel Levine for calling it schmeat back in two
thousand and eight. I think that's the one we should
go with personally, but no one asks me about these things. Okay,
so you're starting with animal cells, and the starter cells
(06:49):
that you're using can differ. If you're going to biopsy
cells from an animal, you're looking to nab some kind
of like multipotent to plury potent stem cells. That that is,
cells that can differentiate into different kinds of tissue, maybe
like embryonic stem cells or maybe adult muscle stem cells.
In the case of poultry, you can also obtain cells
(07:09):
from a fertilized egg, and so however you get them,
Scientists work with their cell samples and select ones from
which they prove that meat could be grown well, and
then they'll bank those cell lines for use across many, many,
many batches of meat without having to go back and
harvest more. The cell cultures are fed with stuff that
(07:32):
cells used to grow in vivo and under normal circumstances,
you know, like a kind of mix of water, sugars,
amino acids, vitamins and minerals and salts. The cultures are
grown in bioreactors, which sounds a little scary, but it's
really just like a monitored vat in which you can
control the inputs of nutrients and oxygen and heat, and
(07:54):
you can also observe the cells consumption and their outputs
to see how they're doing. You can grow meat in
batches or continually. How long it takes obviously depends on
the proprietary process, but I've seen numbers as low as
like three weeks per portion of meat, which, if you're thinking,
sounds like a long time for something to be developing
(08:16):
in a lab. Like think about how much shorter it
is than the time it takes to grow a chicken
or a fish, or definitely a cow.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
One of the issues here is definitely texture. Like you know,
you can solve for flavor and color by adding different
stuff to the mix. You know from building blocks that
meat naturally contains to additives like say a turmeric extract
something like that. Left to its own devices, a lot
of these meat cultures will grow in like thin layers.
(08:51):
So if you want like a chicken cutlet or a
slice of like salmon locks kind of stuff, you're pretty gold.
And those thin layers are easy to like press or
grind and then shape into say a beef burger or
a chicken nugget, or like a deli type loaf. But
(09:12):
if you think about something complex, like a ribi steak
or a thick piece of salmon sashimi, you know, with
like the bands of fat in it, ah so good,
or a chicken thigh, that's more difficult. Other technologies like
three D printing are sometimes incorporated to help create the structure.
Once you've grown the muscle fibers and the fat cells,
(09:35):
you can also grow the meat inside of some kind
of scaffolding made up of something like collagen gel. Some
companies are working on biological methods to like encourage that
cell differentiation within single pieces of meat to create the
different bands of muscle, fiber and fat. Another thing that
is difficult with all of this is probably going to
(09:58):
be getting people to accept it. Uh, Like we're currently
dealing with really unfortunate and personally, probably for a lot
of y'all, too frustrating distrust of science in our society,
certainly here in the United States, and and I guess,
like to be fair, like what you put in your
(10:19):
mouth is very personal, and so people can be particularly
entrenched in their ideas about food. That being said, I've
read a lot of different anecdotes about people who have
eaten dishes made with like the top of the line
samples of these things, and they've pretty roundly reported that
like it tasted and felt like conventionally grown meat.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Yeah. I think the like popular story is, oh, this
tastes like chicken, and they're like, it's right, chicken, it's chicken.
Fooled you. Yeah, but yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
There are a lot of different companies out there working
with this on everything from like yes, chicken and beef
to pork, to seafood like fish and shrimp and lobster
to perhaps shall we say, uncommon meats like zebra or
I'll pack up. There are other companies looking to replicate
other animal proteins like milk and eggs.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Wow, yeah, yep, my goodness. Well what about the nutrition.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Gosh, don't eat a burgeoning industry. Hypothetically, the meat products
that come out of this process are about the same
as conventionally grown meat.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
But you know, I guess it.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Depends that's what that's what they're looking to do anyway, Yes, yes,
depends on how you cook it.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Well, we do have some numbers for you.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
We do, okay, So as of twenty twenty four, there
were over two hundred cultured meat startups working across every
continent that you know isn't Antarctica. For the past few years,
they have been backed by investments ranging like right around
a billion dollars a year. The reports have varied, but
(12:23):
I'm gathering it's about a billion, and okay, Like globally speaking,
meat is a luxury, but it's something that we humans
eat a lot of, especially as we like societally gain
the means to do so financially and you know, agriculturally
or trade wise. So for example, the world population has
(12:47):
more than doubled since the early nineteen sixties, but meat
consumption has more than quadrupled during that time as countries
have developed. Some eighty billion animals are slaughtered every year
to produce some three hundred and forty million metric tons
of meat. And that's a lot of animals. It's also
(13:12):
really hard on the environment. Meat industry, livestock contribute somewhere
between like fifteen to eighteen percent of the world's greenhouse
gas emissions. That's more than the transportation industry. These animals
also consume some eight percent of our fresh water, and
caring for them requires about thirty percent of our land.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Yeah, and getting to make a difference in those numbers
is a really huge part of why this is such
a burgeoning industry.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
But it's also like scale.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
I cannot emphasize hard enough how much scale is an
issue here. Like, Okay, as of twenty twenty three, this
cultivated chicken producer called Upside could produce about fifty thousand
pounds of chicken meat every year, and they think that
that facility could expand up to like four hundred thousand
(14:11):
pounds of chicken meat every year. In contrast, as of
twenty twenty two, the US butchered some fifty nine billion
pounds of conventionally grown chicken.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
So that's more. That's some. Yeah, Yeah, that's a few
factors more.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
And yeah, so don't be too afraid of it just yet.
But also how we even got to hear has been
a journey.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
It certainly has, and we will get into that after
a quick break for a word from our sponsor, and
we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you, Okay. So,
(15:02):
while the idea of lab grown meat has been around
for a while, a lot of the history is fairly
recent and has to do with concerns around food security,
climate change, health, the environment, and animal welfare. So looking
back in eighteen ninety four, a French chemistry professor allegedly
(15:24):
predicted we'd be eating lab grown meat by the year
two thousand. So far, so far in the future. Yes,
And also allegedly Winston Churchill mentioned cultured meat in the
context of human consumption in nineteen thirty one or nineteen
thirty two quote, we shall escape the absurdity of growing
(15:47):
a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or
wing by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Yeh, yes, And he did actually write this, It's in
an essay call fifty years Hence I think he wrote
it as a speech in nineteen thirty one and then
published it in Popular Mechanics in nineteen thirty two, And
it's been republished in a book of his essays called
Thoughts and Adventures if you'd like to read the whole thing.
But yes, when he wrote it fifty years hence was
(16:17):
the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
So far in the future. Yeah, but it wasn't until
the two thousands that experimenting with labgrown meat really took off.
Many of the early scientists in the fields started by
culturing animal muscle tissue. A lot of debate ensued in
the following decades of the pros and cons around this
(16:41):
kind of meat and the process behind it. There were
definitely earlier proof of concepts though, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Starting in nineteen ninety four, this Indonesian Dutch researcher by
the name of Willem van Ellen filed a few patents
for lab cultured meat processes. He got the idea in
medical school following World War Two, during which he had
been a prisoner of war of the Japanese army, so,
like you know, he had seen hunger, and then in
school he was struck by these experiments that were attempting
(17:12):
to use stem cells to culture human skin for burn victims.
He apparently spent the rest of his life attempting to
get people on board with growing meat in vitro. Those
patents were later bought by this American startup called Hampden Creek,
which later became known as eat just which will be
(17:33):
coming back to later.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Yes. Also dating back to the nineteen nineties, range Cats
and Annot Zurr were experimenting with cultured meats. Their two
thousand and three project, Disembodied Cuisine was the first recognized
example being grown from live animal cells and then eaten.
(17:56):
It was a quote bio art project where frog that
provided the sales for the meat were hopping around next
to the frog steaks that were grown from the cell
from their cells. At the end of the project's run,
people ate the frog meat grown from these frog cells,
(18:16):
and the frogs were released. Apparently at least a few
people spit it out. Well you know early, it was early.
You know you might be looking at the frog. Well, no,
you made it weird.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Yeah, I guess. Speaking of projected dates of when this
kind of thing would be available, In the year two
thousand and eight, PETA offered a million dollar prize to
anyone who could create commercially viable lab grown chicken within
a deadline of just four years.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Wow. Very hopeful.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Not a lot of money for the amount of setup
that that requires. But yeah, that did not occur. I
think they extended the deadline and to another four years
and it still did not occur.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
So here we are, yes, well, here we are. A
Dutch scientist Mark Post is frequently credited with creating one
of the first instances of lab grown edible meat when
he debuted a lab grown beef burger on live TV
in twenty thirteen. Yeah, it took three months to grow
(19:27):
and it was dubbed the three hundred and thirty thousand
dollars Burger. Post went on to found the company Mosa
Meat two years after this high profile cultivated meat debut.
Researchers could produce a product much more cheaply, in some cases,
like a hamburger, for about eleven dollars. Ten years later,
(19:49):
different sources put it anywhere from ten dollars to fifty dollars,
so a vast difference whatever the case. Yep. San Francisco's
startup Upside Foods, who we've mentioned a little bit previously
known as Memphis Meats, has been a big name in
this conversation. The company was founded in twenty fifteen by
(20:12):
cardiologist Uma Valetti, who got the idea after a visit
to Slaughterhouse and he was thinking, like, we've got to
improve this. At his work. He'd seen how heart cells
could be grown in a lab environment and thought, why
can't we do this with meat. It took years of
experimentation before he and his team finally got it right.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Also in twenty fifteen, the restaurant that listener Nava wrote
to us about, Bistro in Vitro, debuted fictionally. This was
never a real restaurant, unfortunately, No, only ever a fictional
such a good didn't know, I know. But their menu
(21:02):
is still online, so yeah, just Bistro dashinvitro dot com.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Go check it out. It's really funny.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Also, right around this time, I think twenty fifteen to
twenty seventeen, people in the industry were saying it would
take several years for lab grown meat to scale to market,
so like mid twenty twenties.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Yes, and this brings us to space our space news,
because you know we love space news always always. In
twenty nineteen, astronauts on the International Space Station embarked on
a quest to cultivate the first lab grown beef in space.
Okay again in the briefest, most basic terms. Cow cells
(21:50):
were sent to the ISS, where they were then mixed
with a nutrient soup and placed in a three D bioprinter.
What a world or what a galaxy? I don't know.
This resulted in the first space printed cultivated beef steak.
The experiment was the brainchild of Israeli food company Alif Farms,
(22:15):
and they wanted to prove that you can make lab
grown meat anywhere.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
That is one of the hypothetical eventual perks of something
like this is that it could be done during long
term space exploration.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Yeah yeah, I mean go read about it. It's pretty wild.
It's amazing.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
Yeah, yeah, we could do a whole thing just on that.
But continuing our timeline, in twenty twenty, another Israeli startup
called super Meat opened a test kitchen that served did
not sell because it wasn't technically legally approved, but they
(22:56):
served these like fancy cultured chicken sandwiches. That experiment is
no longer running, but the company still is. As of
twenty twenty three, their lab grown chicken was recognized as kosher.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
And another thing, if you're interested, you can go read
about It's like if people think it's actually vegetarian or
actually sure, like oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Yeah, yeah, like no, it's not vegetarian, it's meat. It's
made of it's made of animal.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
But people are having these conversations Oh yeah, oh absolutely no,
which is great, to be honest, it is. It is.
Singapore became the first country to allow the sale of
lab grown meat in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Yes, they specifically approved lab grown chicken brand good meat
from eat Just Incorporated for retail, though right now eat
just is in Singapore is working on not producing fully
lab grown meat products, but rather like supplementing plant based
(24:08):
proteins with small percentages of lab grown meats, like three
percent lab grown meat as of twenty twenty four. Meanwhile,
back in twenty twenty one, Hong Kong startup Avant Meats
debuted this test run of grouper filets grown from cultured meat.
The chef who worked with them said that they had
(24:29):
a texture like crabcakes. But yeah, Avant is one of
the many companies focusing on seafood.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Huh, I'm so intrigued, So intrigued, Okay. In twenty twenty three,
the Department of Agriculture in the United States approved the
sale of cultivated chicken, a year after the FDA gave
their own approval. They were specifically approving the submission of
Upside Foods because they're reviewing these products company by company. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Yeah, they also approved another company's cultured chicken from Good Meat.
A lot of these places really enjoy all caps in
their names anyway, good meat. But yes, these products can
carry like the familiar USD inspected symbol that comes on
conventionally grown meat.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Yeah, it is still pretty niche and cost prohibitive for many.
But Upside in particular has partnerships with some big chefs
and restaurants. Yeah, some of the deandres people like that.
Yeah yeah, yeah yeah. Yeah. On the other hand, some
US states have banned it Alabama and Florida as of
(25:42):
this recording, or are trying to ban it.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Yeah, And these bands have different levels of prohibition. I
think Florida is the most stringent where it's not only
Florida's not only banned the manufacture of lab grown meat
in state, but also the distribution and sale with like
fines and even imprisonment on the line.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Right now, as.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Of twenty twenty five, Nebraska is considering bands like only
on the manufacture and direct sales in like grocery stores
in state. Like, citizens could still buy it online if
they wanted to. All of these bands are ostensibly in
the name of promoting and protecting existing farms and farming jobs.
(26:26):
You know, although I do want to which is noble,
which is absolutely noble, But I do want to say
again that like those are not going to be replaced
anytime soon, if ever, by this technology, and be like,
some of this is just some disingenuous anti science clap
(26:47):
trap trigger warning for Ron DeSantis. He said about signing
this bill in Florida that Florida is quote fighting back
against the global elites plan to force the world to
eat meat grown in petritish or bugs to achieve their
authoritarian goals.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Sorry, I'm sorry so much. I would love to just
tear down in that.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
In that single sentence, it's wow, I yeah, so so right,
like and I'm sorry, Like, I don't I don't mean to.
I don't mean to make fun of people who are
merely ignorant about a topic, except for when they have
(27:36):
run for office and are there and are making decisions
that affect the rest of us.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Yeah, yep, sorry anyway, Yeah, yeah, okay, I'm glad you
gave me the trigger warning. I just I just I
just want people. I just like science so much it
(28:03):
can't do everything, but.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
It can help.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
It's trying to help anyway. Books are fine, get out
of here. Books are great at any rate. Yes, yes,
at any rate. We are not the only country that's
kind of grappling with some of this. Other countries are
still hammering out the legal framework. Some like India, are
(28:25):
planning on funding research into cultivated meats, while others like
Italy are worried about how this impacts their country's food
history and culture. Are at least some on the far
right are the right wing portion of the government has
proposed banning it with steep, steep fines for non compliance. Yeah, yeah,
(28:48):
it's and I think I think caution is good.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Caution is great. And like again, like lab grown meat
is not looking to replace something like like domination of
controlled origin PERSCUDO or something like that. You know, like,
we're not No one is trying to put small farmers
out of jobs.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
But if we can.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Decrease the literal evils of industrial scale meat production, that
would be terrific. That would be really good. Some countries
are a little bit more forward thinking, perhaps not to
accidentally name drop a show that I used to work
on about futurist topics. Israel approved a lift farms beef
(29:37):
steaks for sale in late twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
The UK became the first country in Europe to legalize
lab grown meat for pet food in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
There are a number of applications that the different companies
have put in with the UK's Food Standards Agency for
human foods, including for cultured steak, other beef products, chicken,
and for.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Gra Wow I know right, wow, like harmless for gra
that's amazing, that would be awesome, so cool. Oh my goodness. Well,
research is on going. Recently, people in the industry have
(30:21):
been looking at ways to utilize immortalized cell lines that
eliminate the need to go back to the animal in
question for a sample. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
Very Basically, immortalized cell lines are cells that have mutated
so that they keep dividing and thus growing new tissue,
like beyond the point that normal cells will. This mutation
can be induced, So from what I understand, the benefit
here is that if you can isolate like a really
efficient or otherwise desirable cell line and then immortalize it,
(30:55):
that saves a lot of.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Work down the line.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Other labs are are working on inducing pluripotents by reprogramming
cell nuclei.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Other other research.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Includes coming up with like cheaper plant based alternatives to
the traditional cell growth medium, which traditionally has been fetal
bovine serum, which is a expensive and be a byproduct
of the meat industry, so using it in order to
make lab grown meat like low key evades the point
(31:29):
of lab grown meat. Also, there is cell biology research
into more efficiently like prodding cells to differentiate into the
blend of fats and proteins that are seen in conventional meat.
The density of cells grown within the product is another challenge.
Lots of lots of different avenues depending on what each
(31:52):
individual company is looking to work with. But currently even
higher ups at the companies who are producing and promoting
this stuff, like like Upsides Coo won Amy Chen say
that entry of these products into the mass market is
(32:12):
at least ten years off.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
And this is one of the I kept bringing up
different like the kind of moving goalposts for dates in
this because it's one of the things that I find
inherently charming and silly about a lot of futurist conversation
is that like it's always twenty to forty years away,
and you know it's always going to be like, oh yeah,
(32:38):
sure we thought that ten years ago, but maybe in
another ten years.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
I don't know. It's like when your flight is delayed
and they're always like, oh, oh, only thirty minutes, and
you're like, oh, okay, thirty hours later, it's like nobotty minutes.
You're like, because you're willing to wait around for that
(33:02):
thirty minutes. But yeah, I mean, I'm really interested to
see where this goes. And oh yeah, I would try
it at a heartbeat. Oh absolutely. I mean that I would
eat anything.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
I feel like you and I are a poor sampal
size for this question, because right like, I'm like, yeah, sure, yeah, basically,
as long as I'm pretty sure it's not gonna harm me,
I'm going to try to eat it if it's offered.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
To me as food. Yeah, I did. I did some
research and I was like, where can I get it?
It was like you can't, you cannot. You essentially cannot,
which is unfortunate. It is kind of funny, though, isn't
it that like, essentially I'll just be eating chicken.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Yeah yeah, and like kind of processed chicken, but you'll
be so excited to do it. I will be, but
I I was gonna say that, yeah, if anyone has
tried it, yes, oh, we need to know. We need
to know everything about it, especially because a lot of
the circumstances under which you can try these products, if
(34:10):
you can, are very fancy circumstances.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Indeed, so yes, yes, oh listeners, please please write in
in the meantime. I think that's what we have to
say about lab grown meat for now. I could have
kept reading for years, but yes, yes it is. We
do already have some listener mail for you, though, and
we are going to get into that as soon as
(34:33):
we get back from one more quick break for a
word from our sponsors. And we're back. Thank you, sponsors, Yes,
thank you, and we're back with Oh, listener, it's Dexter's lab.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
Oh oh, I get you. Okay, it was difficult to
follow at the beginning.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
That's I understand. I understand, and we woke up the
I mean, oh no, I'm sorry. It's just a kitten.
She'll be asleep in another four seconds. Lauren's kitten is
joining us today via lap yes, yes, not laptop via
lapp Yes, but sometimes does sort now she does. That's true.
(35:28):
Chaos Engine, little Bruce anyway, Anyway, a rope. Guava is
such a lovely fruit. When we were in Saint Kitts
earlier this year, I had a lot of it. Many
people have a guava tree or two in their yard
along with a breadfruit tree. I had guava and a
fruit cup in a Danish as a barbecue sauce mixed
(35:50):
into yogurt. I don't recall the last time I saw
fresh guava where I live in Pittsburgh, so I took
advantage while I was there to eat a definitely something
that is enjoyable. I love nutmeg. It is a great spice.
I use it in a variety of dishes to add
more flavor. I find it will provide a nice bump
(36:12):
to all sorts of things. Use it in chili, alfredo, oatmeal, etc.
The best thing to do is to get the whole
nutmegs and use a microplane to add it. Some people
only want to use it around the holidays, but don't
feel restricted. Enjoy loved hearing the great variety in the
Listener mail episode. As mentioned, I love the variety of
(36:34):
things that people send in. It is so wonderful to
hear about all these different things, such a beautiful world
of people and food to discover. Oh that is true.
That is so true. It's so true, it's so lovely.
We can't thank y'all enough for writing is absolutely and
(36:55):
sharing these things with us. But yeah, I'm I feel
like we're gonna have to This great chili debate is
gonna have to We're gonna have to deal with this
sooner or later. I feel like I fear we have
(37:15):
awoken a sleeping giant. I think that we have, which
is a good segue. And you are oh yes, okay,
So Haley wrote you asked for chili opinions in the
recent listener, Male and I have big chili opinions. I
grew up in Missouri with a good mix of both
(37:36):
Midwestern and Southern traditions. I loved chili growing up, but
my mom wasn't the greatest at it.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Sorry, Mom. Hers was mostly tomato juice with a stray
bean and clump of unseasoned ground beef here and there.
I do tend to agree with Annie that chili is
in a camp of its own between soup and stew,
specifically because there are so many ways to make it.
I think the addition of beans somehow makes it not
a stew in my mind, and yes, there must always
(38:03):
be beans. Chili should also always be a savory salt bomb,
in my opinion, not a cinnamony chocolate sweet concoction. I
do respect of a good meaty, slash less tomato forward chili.
I'll la steak and Shake a fast food restaurant that
I dearly miss. If you know, you know, and if
you don't, you should find out. But I like mine
(38:24):
to have more tang and spice. My chili ingredients include
only a small amount of tomato sauce, tons of spice,
ground turkey, three types of beans, corn, peppers, onions, and garlic.
And then come the controversial ingredients Frank's red hot sauce
and chopped pepper chinie. I find that the vinegar perfectly
(38:44):
balances out all of the rich umami from the meat
and tomatoes and gives it that little extra bite. I
am also quite often given the side eye for requiring
a half peanut butter sandwich, preferably on wheat bread to
dip into my chili. I prefer unsweetened natural peanut butter,
but wouldn't turn down jiff if that was all that
was available. I long moved away from Missouri to the
(39:06):
Pacific Northwest and haven't met anyone yet that isn't shocked
by my chili opinions. I wrote to you guys a
while back and mentioned that I was having a rough time.
Though this is very vague, I wanted to report that
I found myself in a much better spot in life.
Thank you for being here for me through the ups
and downs.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
Oh of course, of course, thank you for listening. Yes, yes, oh,
anything we can do to help hold back the tide
of all of this is stuff that we are glad
to do. And those are some chili opinions. I adore this.
(39:45):
It's so cool.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
I've never heard of a peanut butter sandwich situation.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Though.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Now I'm thinking about it, and I'm like, that sounds great.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
That sounds fantastic, doesn't it.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
I mean, I know how you feel any about peanut butter,
so like, of course you're going to be like, yeah,
diep a peanut butter sandwich in anything that makes it better.
Speaker 1 (40:05):
Oh yeah, but I think that I can see that
actually working really well. Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh, oh
my gosh, I know we did talk about I can
never remember the state so people can write in and
yell at me. But there we did talk about how
some somewhere Simon rolls and oh right, chili.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, cinnamon rolls is the thing that you
serve with chili, right, which still sounds like a great
idea to me.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
Totally want to try that, yes, But so the funny
thing is that after we talked about are some of
our chilly thoughts in the listener mail the most recent
listener mail, I had laid awake at night, I know, joke,
(40:55):
was laying awake and I was thinking about, like, I've
I've got to nail down what I think chili ish,
and I was wrestling with it. And I sent this
email to Lauren and super producer Andrew, and I was like,
this is I'm struggling with this because my mom's spaghetti
(41:16):
sauce is very similar to chili, and also one of
my favorite chilies doesn't have beans, and I don't know
what to make of all this. So I'm still wrestling.
I'm still wrestling with it, but I do love I
love your description of your mom's not so great chili.
(41:38):
I feel like I've also had that chili. So yeah, yeah,
I think a lot of your additions would be really good.
Oh yeah, absolutely, I've never heard of pepper chini's and chili.
That is a new one for me, but sounds great.
I have a friend of the show Cody in there,
(41:59):
like row they always include Pepperccini's because it, yeah, like
the vinegar really helps just add this like depth to
the dish. M. Well, now I'm thinking we need to
have some kind of Savor chili cookoff. I please keep
(42:21):
them coming in because oh yeah, yeah, fascinated, but yes
we will.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
I'd have to take a moment and like write, write
my recipe down. But but we could both share our
personal recipes if you wanted to.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
We could. I think I might get some judgment for mine,
but I'm not scared. No, no, no, y'all are the best. Yeah, yes, well,
please keep those coming in. Thank you so much to
both of these listeners for writing in. If you would
(42:56):
like to write to us, you can. Our email is
hello at savorpod dot com. We're also on social media.
Speaker 2 (43:01):
You can find us on Twitter moving into blue Sky
a Facebook for now, I guess, and Instagram at saber pod.
And we do hope to hear from you. Saber is
a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, you
can visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to.
Speaker 1 (43:16):
Your favorite shows.
Speaker 2 (43:18):
Thanks us always to our super producers Dylan Fagan and
Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and we hope
that lots more good things are coming your way.
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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