Chapter 1

Each year, more than 60 billion sentient animals are reared in industrial conditions in order to
produce meat. Due to the growing population, rising affluence and urbanization across the
world, it is predicted that consumption of meat would be doubled by 2050 and the conventional
meat alone would be inadequate. Conventional meat production systems involving ruminant
animals, are responsible for the emission of greenhouse gases (GHG), contributing about 37%
of all the methane emission. About 22% of the food-borne pathogens (such as Salmonella,
Campylobacter and Escherichia coli) arise from meat products. This global enterprise is
currently the planet’s main source of human pandemic diseases and likely among its greatest
concentrations of human-inflicted suffering. Curbing this ongoing moral catastrophe should
thus be of high concern for people aiming to effectively help as many sentient beings as
possible. Moreover, animal agriculture contributes to climate change and makes inefficient use
of a significant portion of our available resources. Enter cultured meat, an alternative way of
synthesizing meat from animal tissue samples. Compared with conventional methods of meat
production which involve the breeding, raising, feeding, and slaughter of living animals
cultured meat instead involves using a cell sample to grow desired tissue in a controlled
environment, making use of biotechnology originally developed for medical research and
organ transplants. Proponents of cultured meat argue that this technology holds considerable
promise as a replacement for conventional meat. Indeed, cultured meat seems likely to over
vast benefits in terms of animal welfare, environmental impact and human health. In 2013, the
world’s first burger was made from cultured meat produced from bovine stem cells, but this
cost many thousands of dollars and involved the combining of at least 10 000 individual muscle
strips. Although, muscle strips and cultured meat products have been produced, there are still
many technical difficulties that will need to be resolved for the large scale production of
products acceptable as alternatives to conventional meat for discerning consumers. Cultured
meat, which is also known as synthetic or in vitro meat, is seen as having a number of
advantages relative to conventional meat in terms of efficiency of resource use (land, energy,
and water), lower greenhouse gas production, better animal welfare, and in the ability to
manipulate the nutrient composition of the product.
 Chapter 2
Human body health :
Meat consumption contributes to cardiovascular diseases and animal food-borne diseases.
Around 60% of all known human diseases and 75% of the most damaging emerging diseases
are zoonotic (animal transmitted) in origin. About 22% of the food-borne pathogens (such as
Salmonella, Campylobacter and Escherichia coli) arise from meat products. Cultured meat or
in vitro meat offers a safe and disease-free way forward to meet increasing meat requirement
without involving animal sacrifices and at the same time, reducing greenhouse emissions, as
compared to conventional meat. Cultured meat is a lab-grown meat produced using various
tissue engineering techniques in a culture medium. This meat has numerous advantages over
conventional meat including environment friendliness, healthy and free from foodborne and
nutrition-related diseases. Commercial in vitro meat production would also reduce animal
sacrifices, and also ensure a reduction in land, water and energy usage. In animal agriculture,
antibiotics are widely used in sub-therapeutic doses in order to promote animal tissue growth,
and as a low cost preventative biosecurity measure intended to cope with the aforementioned
disease transmission problem. However, this practice which has resulted in substantial
antibiotic contamination of waterways is now considered a leading cause of the global rise of
antimicrobial-resistant (multi resistant) pathogen strains. The World Health Organization
considers this one of today’s biggest threats to global health. Due to the aseptic and strictly
controlled environment required for its production, producing meat from cell cultures is safer
than conventional production through animal husbandry. Conventional risks of zoonotic
infection are bypassed when no live animals are directly involved in production. The only
current producer of cultured meat reports that antibiotics are not required during production. In
line with current medical standards, initial tissue samples from biopsies require screening for
infectious agents before eventual use in cultured meat production. The end product is thus safer
during storage, preparation and consumption than its conventional counterparts.

Agriculture contributions and harmed environment

The main causes of climate change are usually attributed to transportation and housing. This,
however, ignores another significant contributor: according to the UN Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO), animal agriculture is responsible for 14.5% of the world’s total GHG
emissions. Methane, whose global warming potential is 25 times greater than that of carbon
dioxide, makes up 44% of the animal industry’s total emissions. Most of this methane is emitted
by ruminants such as cows, sheep and goats as a natural by-product of their digestive processes.
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) maintains that a reduction of
greenhouse gas emissions of at least 50% by 2050 is necessary in order to avoid the worst
impacts of climate change. The livestock sector uses a great deal of water for feed production,
animal rearing, and sanitation. Water recycled from livestock manure is currently responsible
for around 33%of global nitrogen and phosphorous pollution, 50% of antibiotic pollution, and
37% of toxic heavy metals contaminating the world’s freshwater. Additionally, around 37% of
pesticides that end up in global freshwater supplies have their origin in the production of animal
fodder. Life cycle analyses have so far predicted that cultured meat would require 99% lower
land use and 82 – 96% lower water use than its animal agriculture equivalents. Subsequent
analyses have placed energy use predictions much higher due to the large amounts of electrical
energy that would be needed to provide sufficient heat to the culturing process. The
aforementioned life cycle analyses predict that cultured meat would produce 78 – 96% less
greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than conventional meat. Replacing all meat production
with cultured meat could reduce EU emissions by two orders of magnitude. Many natural
resources could be spared from depletion if cultured meat made a significant contribution to
the total meat supply, as illustrated in Latin America where pastures for cattle grazing have
been converted to soybean fields and the cattle have been moved on to pastures that have
replaced Amazon forests. This threatens biodiversity and also diminishes the capacity of rain
forests to absorb carbon dioxide. Carefully controlled conditions of myocyte culturing will
potentially minimise the spread of animal-borne diseases by following hygienic procedures
throughout the culturing process. By controlling conditions used in producing cultured meat it
should also be possible to eliminate its exposure to hazardous products like pesticides,
fungicides, heavy metals, aflatoxins, melamine, anabolic agents, and antibiotics, an outcome
that is difficult for conventional meat production.

Red : Cultured meat: state of the art and future

Blue : Cultured Meat: An Ethical Alternative To Industrial Animal Farming
Black : Cultured meat from muscle stem cells: A review of challenges and prospects