“New Study Finds Lab-Grown Meat May Have Greater Environmental Impact Than Real Meat”

Researchers have found that the environmental impact of lab-grown meat may be greater than that of consuming real meat, according to new research.

site transferFuturismNatural meat from farms is seen as harmful to the environment, but new research shows it is less harmful than lab-grown meat.

Corresponding author Edward Spang, assistant professor at the University of California, Davis, said lab meat “is not a panacea for the environment.”

By assessing the energy cycle required and greenhouse gas emissions involved in all stages of production of laboratory-grown meat compared to conventional beef, researchers found that the global warming potential, an environmental measure measured in kilograms of CO2 emissions, of laboratory-grown meat is between four times greater and 25 times the average store-bought beef product.

One of the biggest drawbacks, say the researchers, is the need for high-fidelity growth media, the incubators that allow cells to multiply in a laboratory setting.

“If this product continues to be produced using a drug approach,” says lead author and PhD graduate student Derek Reisner, “it will be worse for the environment and more expensive than conventional beef production.”

The researchers say that the problem with laboratory meat manufacturers is that they rely too much on pharmaceutical ingredients, so if they focus more on nutritional ingredients, their products will be able to compete with traditional meat in terms of the environment.

And if meat processing companies succeed in the laboratory by relying more on food ingredients, they can reduce the global warming rate of conventional meats by between 80 percent to 26 percent.

The site concludes that companies have started working to combine pharmaceuticals and food ingredients to produce meat, but it notes that competing with traditional meat will take time.