Will Vegetarians Eat Cultured Meat?
Amanda Leung, Tufts University
Vegetarianism may be defined as a person who does not eat meat, whether that be for moral, religious, or health reasons. You may be asking yourself, why would a cultured meat organization care about vegetarians? Well, that’s because two of the top reasons people decide to follow a vegetarian diet is due to ethical and environmental concerns. Producing cultured meat has been in the works for years and a part of its appeal is that it doesn’t harm animals and has the potential to reduce the carbon footprint caused by livestock. Humans are naturally omnivores and providing a morally and environmentally friendly meat option for vegetarians could change the score.
Cultured meat, also referred to as cell-based meat or cultivated meat, could have financial, health, animal welfare, and environmental advantages over traditional meat. The idea behind it is to produce animal meat without having to slaughter animals. Animals would still be used but they wouldn’t be harmed and a much smaller portion would be needed. Stem cells from an animal muscle would be harmlessly extracted and a nutrient-rich medium would be added for growth, independent from the animal, before being placed in scaffolding for the cells to grow on. This could produce meat products for sausages, burgers, and nuggets. Some companies are even working toward producing steaks, which requires more complex processes.
In a few decades, cultured meat has the potential to efficiently supply the world’s demand for meat products. For those still hesitant, all of this could happen without the need for genetic modification. Down to its core, lab-grown meat is just extracted stem cells from animals that are given the nutrients it needs to grow. The proliferation happens naturally and scientists don’t need to manipulate its DNA. The same could not be said about many common foods and crops that we consume daily, including corn, potatoes, and milk. Many think the vegetables they consume are natural and authentic but the reality is that the vast majority of crop’s genetic sequences have been tweaked to change the amounts of certain chemicals a plant produces, introduce pest resistance, or prevent browning or bruising. In fact, 94% of soybeans planted in the United States were genetically modified according to statistics reported by the FDA in 2018.
If that’s not enough to convince you, while health benefits of vegetarianism include things such as lower weight and blood pressure, it can also introduce health risks such as anemia, growing deficiencies, and nervous disorders. This is because animal meats provide essential nutrients for the human body like vitamin B12, which may be found in meat, fish, and egg products. While vitamin B12 can also be obtained through the consumption of foods such as yogurt and fortified nutritional yeast, they are often found in lower concentrations so you’ll need to make sure you’re eating enough of the right foods to maintain healthy vitamin B12 levels. Humans are naturally omnivores and need those nutrients in order to be healthy. The introduction of cultivated meat to the market would provide a meat alternative that vegetarians would feel more encouraged to eat and more comfortable with eating.
So, what do you say? Would you switch to consuming cultured meat once it’s table ready?
References
Encyclopedia of Bioethics. 11 Aug. 2020 .” Encyclopedia.com, 5 Sept. 2020, www.encyclopedia.com/science/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/animal-welfare-and-rights-ii-vegetarianism.
“Cultured Meat.” In Vitro Meat, Future Food, May 2020, www.futurefood.org/in-vitro-meat/index_en.php.
Ellis, Emma Grey. “I’m a Vegetarian-Will I Eat Lab-Grown Meat?” Wired, Conde Nast, 27 Nov. 2019, www.wired.com/story/vegetarian-ethics-lab-grown-meat/.
“Reasons Why People Turn to Vegetarian Diet” by Raluca Andreea Ion
