Meat in vitro can it be considered meat or a “novel food”? Scientific data is still too fragmented on this new technology and companies entering this promising market are careful not to reveal their manufacturing techniques. But the sanitary and nutritional quality of this product, finally ultra-transformed with antibiotics and fungicides among others, is by no means guaranteed.
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Will we really consume one day a steak produced in a laboratory? According to the British agency in charge of the protection of public health, a third of the English say they are ready to taste it. This new food market is estimated at 2.7 billion dollars by 2030. To fully understand all the challenges of this new form of food, here are the explanations of Jean-Francois Hocquette, researcher at the National Food Research Institute (Inrae) to understand the manufacturing process.
How is meat produced in the laboratory?
A biopsy is performed on a living animal. It is about working from stem cells which have a great capacity to multiply when they are in a suitable culture medium. They then turn into muscle fibers. The operation is performed in an incubator.
What is this culture medium made of?
To live and reproduce, these living cells need sources ofenergy in the form of carbohydrates and of lipids. We must also allow them to produce protein from’amino acids which must also be provided. From hormone and growth factors are also necessary for the manufacture of cells. In the laboratory, they are provided by serum of bovine fetuses, taken from slaughterhouses. However, companies are currently working to find a more ethical and less expensive solution without fetal bovine serum.
Can we produce all types of meat?
Veal, lamb, pork, duck, or even fish. Some companies target chicken first because its muscle structure is a little easier to replicate than that of cattle. A French company answering to the name of Gourmet started, as for it, by the liver fat. Strategies differ based on cost. Companies are focusing on expensive products to get to market faster with quality products at expensive prices. Conversely, others choose the low end to reach a market of mass. They prefer to present an unsophisticated product that will not be expensive to introduce, for example, into lasagna or nuggets.
Is the product obtained really what is called “meat”?
Some defend the idea that we cannot call the result of this culture “meat”. Biologically, when you slaughter an animal, you get muscle, the same way a winemaker harvests grape. The grape turns into wine. Muscle, on the other hand, becomes meat because at the time of slaughter it is hard due to the phenomenon of rigor mortis. It then becomes acidic and enzymes activate, cut the proteins and make it tender. It is maturing.
All companies that produce cultured meat ignore this essential step. They are content to produce muscle cells, which they pile up to give something resembling minced beef. Some start-up are working on other types of red meats to achieve a carpaccio-like product. They therefore work on fine muscles. You can’t make rib steak, for example.
Can we talk about an ultra-processed food?
If there are missing vitamins or iron to the final product, start-up concerned add what is needed to make the composition the same as real meat. We can indeed consider that it is an ultra-processed food in this case. These companies refute this idea and argue that they are simply replicating a biological process that occurs naturally in an animal’s body. To avoid the contamination coming from outside, you can also choose to add antibiotics in the culture medium. From fungicides can also be used to prevent the appearance of mushrooms.
Nutritionally, is it similar to regular meat since it is mostly muscle?
Today, it is difficult to verify the health and nutritional quality of this product because there is not enough scientific data available. If these data exist, they are not freely accessible. As a result, no third-party organization can analyze this information to confirm that cultured meat is quite safe for humans.
We can speak of a media bubble based on very weak scientific support
When cells multiply a very large number of times, a genetic drift is always potentially possible. The reproduction of genetic material is not 100% reliable. Cells make mistakes. And there may be many given this high multiplication. This is what happens, for example, with cancerous cells. The technology is so new that we are entitled to ask ourselves questions and verify that certain risks are zero.
Why do we not have access to these essential scientific elements?
Voluntarily, scientific companies in the sector do not want to communicate their results for reasons of commercial competition. They want to preserve their secrets and their technique. In 2020, we only counted 327 research articles validated by the scientific community, which is relatively few. At the same time, we had identified more than 12,000 press articles on this subject… In my career as a researcher, I had never noticed such a ratio! We can speak of a media bubble based on very weak scientific support.
The United States opened its first artificial meat factory in early November. Their ambition is to grow 23 tonnes of fake meat per year. Can culture in the laboratory really be adapted to the scale of industrial production?
In the case of an extension of this technique to an industrial level, the culture medium and its components (hormones, growth factors, etc.) would be necessary in much greater proportions. There is also the question of incubators, whose sizes are now adapted to those of laboratories, and not to large-scale production. Some companies that develop this technique advance the end of slaughter as a key argument to praise the merits of their work. But that doesn’t hold if they use fetal serum. They claim to want to develop a synthetic medium and therefore manufacture synthetic hormones. Today, the only cultured meat on the market is produced using fetal bovine serum. The sale is made in Singapore.
Could this marketing be extended one day to France and Europe?
In Europe, you cannot use implants hormonal with animals in traditional breeding, unlike the United States, South America or Australia. The European legislator considers that adding a supplement of hormones to those already existing in animals could potentially represent a risk. It would therefore be difficult to understand that Europe accepts the addition of hormones to produce “cultured meat”. Moreover, “cultured meat” is not considered as meat but as a “novel food” whose sanitary quality must be demonstrated to eyes European legislation.
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