Lab-Grown Meat: What Makes It Different and Where Is It Currently Available?

Several companies around the world are working on cultivating and producing lab-grown meat as a viable alternative to traditional livestock meat.

What Makes Lab-Grown Meat Different?

Cultured, cell-based, lab-grown, or cultivated meat is all made by putting animal fat or muscle stem cells into a culture medium where cells can be fed. This allows the cells to grow.

These cells get processed within a huge vessel of steel known as the bioreactor. This enables the cells to appear and taste like real meat cuts.

CNBC reports that cultured meat's proponents posit that this meat is more environmentally friendly and healthier compared to traditional livestock meat. The Smithsonian Magazine adds that companies hope that this novel innovation could serve as an alternative to the meat that is produced by killing animals.

According to the Green Queen, there are a number of reasons why environmentalists and food scientists favor the cultivation and production of lab-grown meat.

For one, because it is grown in the lab, this meat is slaughter-free and does not involve any animal killings. On top of this, it is also free of hormones and antibiotics necessary to help traditional livestock grow and be free from contamination.

Culturing lab-grown meat also helps with food security. This is especially vital, given the breakdown of the supply chain and the vulnerability of food production due to the climate crisis. Having cultivated meat can help buffer the supply for the wide demand and boost the self-sufficiency of local supply productions.

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Where Is Lab-Grown Meat Available?

Good Meat, a lab-grown meat producer, has been approved to sell its lab-grown meat in Singapore. In fact, this meat has been available in the country since December 2020.

Across the whole world, Singapore was the first country to approve selling cell-cultivated meat, the Smithsonian Magazine adds. Now, the United States comes in second.

Just recently, Good Meat and another US-based company, Upside Food, have received the go signal from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to culture and sell lab-grown chicken. The approval was granted after the USDA reviewed the products' labeling and manufacturing procedures, MailOnline explains. Good Meat's manufacturing partner, Joinn Biologics, has also been granted approval from the USDA to produce cultured meat.

Both of these companies received an earlier go signal from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The FDA declared that the lab-grown chickens of these companies are safe to consume.

The lab-grown poultry cultivated and sold by these companies will be labeled as cell-cultivated chicken.

Now, both companies have started filling orders for high-end restaurants in Washington, D.C. and San Francisco. MailOnline adds that they hope that their meats will be available in various grocery outlets by 2028.

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Check out more news and information on Lab-Grown Meat on Science Times.