Health Hotline Magazine | April 2024

nonprofit that advocates for cultivated meat, describes it as using “microbial hosts as “cell factories” for producing specific functional ingredients.” In short, microorganisms—this could be yeast, fungi, algae, or bacteria—are “programmed” to produce specific ingredients by inserting the genetic instructions from another species into their cells. This all happens inside industrial-scale fermenters, or bioreactors, where the cells, fed by the growth medium, continue to replicate, eventually leading to the “meat” that can then be shaped and sold. Is cultivated meat more environmentally friendly? Proponents of cultivated meat say it has a smaller environmental footprint, especially when it comes to emissions, compared to raising the actual animal, but a not yet peer-reviewed study by researchers at University of California, Davis paints a different picture. The researchers, from the Department of Food Science and Technology, conducted a “life-cycle assessment of the energy needed and greenhouse gases emitted in all stages of production” of cultivated meat and then compared that with conventional beef. They found that cultivated meat’s environmental impact is “likely to be orders of magnitude higher” than conventional beef based on current production methods (emissions four to 25 times higher and fossil fuel “depletion” three to 17 times higher compared to regular beef). Currently, cultivated meat producers use highly purified pharmaceutical-grade growth media, which is very resource intensive, and leads to higher emissions; according to lead author Derrick Risner, “if this product continues to be produced using the “pharma” approach, it’s going to be worse for the environment and more expensive than conventional beef production.” One of the cultured meat industry’s main goals is to move away from pharmaceutical-grade growth media to food-grade ingredients, but even in this scenario, the researchers found that, while cultured meat would be more “environmentally competitive,” it still wouldn’t outperform “efficient beef production systems,” (e.g., pastured and grassfed beef). One of the problems with cattle is that they produce lots of the greenhouse gas methane (CH4), but according to a 2019 review, methane doesn’t stick around in the atmosphere like CO2, and so the researchers argue that while cultivated meat could lead to less overall emissions initially, this effect

wouldn’t last long term because methane eventually dissipates, CO2 does not. Cultured meat emissions are almost entirely CO2. Referring to their model, the researchers said, “…cattle systems generally result in greater peak warming than cultured meat, [but]

For references, email customerservice@naturalgrocers.com So, is cultured meat the future of food? As it stands now, cultured meat is just another form of factory “farmed” meat, with no real benefits to the environment or our health. And the reality is that most people just want to eat real food. What if we were just more mindful in our food choices and the impact they have on the environment? What if we choose to buy meat that has been regeneratively and/or organically grown? Then we know we are contributing to a system that is not just sustainable, but regenerative. Natural Grocers ® | 35 the warming effect declines and stabilizes… while the CO2-based warming from cultured meat persists and accumulates even under reduced consumption…” The researchers point out that this is not a green light to over-consume meat—raising animals does create emissions—but cultured meat does not come out ahead when it comes to reducing emissions. Researchers from the University of Nebraska have also found that grazing cattle can even offset their CO2 and methane emissions by increasing the carbon-capturing abilities of the soil—healthy soil can capture and lock in larger amounts of CO2 and methane. So then there is the question of land. Proponents argue that producing cultured meat requires less land, and indeed, it does. But that’s not necessarily an advantage. Livestock is intimately tied to the health of the land, especially the soil. Through smart grazing practices—practiced in regenerative and organic agriculture—animals contribute to soil fertility, biodiversity, carbon storage, a healthy water cycle, and can actually repair environmental damage, restoring soil health. Indeed, many experts agree that putting livestock back on the land, with well-managed grazing practices, is a solution to climate change. Finally, there’s the question of nutrition. Animal protein is an important source of a variety of nutrients for humans (iron, zinc, vitamin B12, omega-3 fatty acids, in the case of grassfed beef, etc.), and as it currently stands, it’s not known if cultured cells can uptake micronutrients like iron, at least at the levels needed for human nutrition. Zooming out