Lab-grown meat companies such as US–based Mission Barns and Israel-based Aleph Farms (includes Leonardo Dicaprio as investor), are making cultured meat from animal cells. This process is often marketed to be more environmentally friendly than beef because it’s predicted to need less land, water and greenhouse gases than raising cattle.

But in a preprint, not yet peer-reviewed, researchers at the University of California, Davis, have found that lab-grown or “cultivated” meat’s environmental impact is likely to be “orders of magnitude” higher than retail beef based on current and near-term production methods.

Researchers conducted a life-cycle assessment of the energy needed and greenhouse gases emitted in all stages of production and compared that with beef. One of the current challenges with lab-grown meat is the use of highly refined or purified growth media, the ingredients needed to help animal cells multiply. Currently, this method is similar to the biotechnology used to make pharmaceuticals. This sets up a critical question for cultured meat production: Is it a pharmaceutical product or a food product?

“If companies are having to purify growth media to pharmaceutical levels, it uses more resources, which then increases global warming potential,” said lead author and doctoral graduate Derrick Risner, UC Davis Department of Food Science and Technology. “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.”

The scientists defined the global warming potential as the carbon dioxide equivalents emitted for each kilogram of meat produced. The study found that the global warming potential of lab-based meat using these purified media is four to 25 times greater than the average for retail beef.

A more climate friendly burger in the future?

One of the goals of the industry is to eventually create lab-grown meat using primarily food-grade ingredients or cultures without the use of expensive and energy-intensive pharmaceutical grade ingredients and processes.

Under that scenario, researchers found cultured meat is much more environmentally competitive, but with a wide range. Cultured meat’s global warming potential could be between 80% lower to 26% above that of conventional beef production, they calculate. While these results are more promising, the leap from “pharma to food” still represents a significant technical challenge for system scale-up.

“Our findings suggest that cultured meat is not inherently better for the environment than conventional beef. It’s not a panacea,” said corresponding author Edward Spang, an associate professor in the Department of Food Science and Technology. “It’s possible we could reduce its environmental impact in the future, but it will require significant technical advancement to simultaneously increase the performance and decrease the cost of the cell culture media.”

Even the most efficient beef production systems reviewed in the study outperform cultured meat across all scenarios (both food and pharma), suggesting that investments to advance more climate-friendly beef production may yield greater reductions in emissions more quickly than investments in cultured meat.

Risner said even if lab-based meat doesn’t result in a more climate-friendly burger, there is still valuable science to be learned from the endeavor.

“It may not lead to environmentally friendly commodity meat, but it could lead to less expensive pharmaceuticals, for example,” said Risner. “My concern would just be scaling this up too quickly and doing something harmful for the environment.”

The post Lab-grown meat telling convenient lies about carbon footprint? appeared first on Green Prophet.

Each time you sit down to eat a meal with meat products, do you ever take a minute to think about what it took to get this food on your plate? Every year, 70 billion land animals are slaughtered for consumption worldwide. While many organizations and law enforcement across the globe work to ensure the slaughter of animals is done without inflicting pain on the animals, it is nearly impossible to ensure that all slaughterhouses are following these rules. In addition, slaughtering animals in general is an inhumane practice and is done for the sole purpose of feeding us. However, the cultivated meat industry and specifically lab meat is taking the world by storm and may be the end of animal slaughter.

What is lab-cultivated meat?

Lab-grown or cultivated meat uses animal cells to grow meat in a lab as an alternative to slaughter. Labs growing cultivated meat take animal cells from a live, healthy animal in a harmless skin sample. This innovative way of producing meat was originally concocted in the early 2000s but was brought to media attention in 2013 when a cultivated meat patty was tried at a conference in London for a lump sum of money. Later Singapore was the first country to begin sales of cultured meat.

Israel is one of the leaders in the cultivated meat industry. In 2020, the company SuperMeat opened a restaurant in Tel Aviv called “The Chicken” which offered a cultivated chicken burger to see if their customers noticed the difference. Other Israeli companies developing cultivated meat are Aleph Farms and Believer Meats.

Environmental impact

A carnivore diet takes a major toll on one’s carbon footprint. In fact, meat makes up 60% of greenhouse gas emissions. Beef is the world’s most detrimental food product in carbon emissions due to methane production which makes up 32% of greenhouse gas emissions.

After the livestock has been slaughtered, there are additional greenhouse gases that go into the atmosphere from the transportation of livestock, processing in factories, and then the packaging of the final product. In total, the entire process, from the initial raising of livestock to the final destination of stocking groceries stores is a constant carbon dump.

Deforestation is also a major problem when it comes to livestock farming. Much of the land livestock is raised on has been deforested for the sole purpose of raising more and more cattle. In addition, the constant grazing of livestock diminishes grassland productivity to the point where grass can no longer grow. Eventually, farmers need to revert to unconventional methods of crop irrigation by using polluting fertilizers so livestock can be raised.

And don’t forget about the extensive water use that goes into farming. It takes 1,799 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef. This comes from the keeping of land, cleaning, and drinking requirements of the cattle. Especially in the heat of summer and in bad drought conditions, water use can exceed a considerable amount and massively increase the amount of water needed to grow livestock.

Is lab meat kosher?

There has been much speculation on the increasing popularity of cultivated meat in Israel. Especially for religious Jews and Rabbis who keep kosher, many are questioning the reliability of the industry.

For meat to be kosher, the animal must be in good health, killed a certain way, drained of its blood, and salted. In addition, only certain parts of an animal can be consumed. All these parts of keeping kosher in relation to meat make the discussion of cultivated meat more complicated.

However, back in January of this year, the Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rabbi David Lau declared that the steak made from Aleph Farms is kosher, marking a monumental decision in the cultivated meat industry. He claimed that because the meat was grown instead of slaughtered, the meat is not actually meat, and can be thought of like a vegetable. Because the meat does not contain milk nor dairy and no blood from an animal, Rabbi David Lau declared it to be parve. Dozens of other rabbis from the Tzohar Rabbinical Organization have also called cultivated meat kosher.

While Rabbi Lau’s ruling is particularly for the meat produced in Aleph Farms, it is still unsure if all cultivated meat can be considered kosher as there needs to be a careful inspection at all cultivated meat companies and they need to be certified to be kosher. In addition, many may argue that it is not kosher as cultivated meat has animal origins as it is derived from animal cells.

Rabbi Genack from the Orthodox Union Kosher Division has questioned the reliability of cultivated meat being kosher as he has said that even microscopic specimens of cells derived from a living animal would not be considered kosher. In order for the meat to be kosher, the cells need to be taken from a kosher slaughtered animal.

Another aspect of the cultivated meat industry is the question of how Orthodox Jews can keep their legitimacy when choosing meals to ensure they don’t sin on Jewish law. Rabbi Yonathan Neril from The Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development is an environmental advocate for cultivated meat.

While he believes that in itself lab-grown meat is kosher, it should not be mixed with dairy. According to Neril who tells Green Prophet: “If Jews start eating lab-grown meat with cow’s cheese, then they might come to mistakenly eat cow’s meat with cow’s cheese, which would be a violation of Jewish law.”

Neril insists that Jews mixing cultivated meat with normally derived cheese can fray on the principle of marit ayin, which is when the action of an observant Jew may seem unkosher when in actuality it is.

This term is coined by the judgment of others’ skepticism; the Jew is technically adhering to the law. However, Rabbi Neril added, “If lab-grown meat and lab-grown cheese replace animal meat and animal cheese in mainstream consumption, then it could be that over time, it would no longer be a problem in Jewish law to eat the lab-grown meat and lab-grown cheese together.”

Earth or Tradition?

Unfortunately what this means for the kosher community is one’s own personal opinion. With the current emergencies that face our climate, it is important to consider the environmental benefits of choosing cultivated meat. The environmental advantage of cultivated meat is enormous and can massively decrease global greenhouse gases. In addition, kosher law requires slaughter, which is devastating in itself.

The final decision is still in the hands of Jews, which reflects the ideals of modernity. Is it time we update the traditional laws of Judaism and put what’s facing us in the climate first in line? Are Orthodox Jews willing to sacrifice what’s traditional for the sake of our planet?

The post Is lab meat kosher? appeared first on Green Prophet.

Are you starting a new laboratory or optimizing an old one? You must know that each laboratory needs standard supplies for an easy workflow and accurate test results. 

There are many different tools used for specific functions. However, some laboratory supplies are must-haves, regardless of your scientific practice. Check with your laboratory equipment supplier and go through this checklist of those necessities.

• Beakers & Test Tubes – Whether they’re broad or petite, your laboratory needs beakers and test tubes. To properly mix, dissolve, or stir solutions and chemicals, these lab instruments are necessary to perform essential laboratory tests.
• Microscopes – Microscopes can especially be necessary for microbiological uses. These can be as high-powered or low-powered as you need them to be so you can perform your practice as easily and accurately as possible. As an extension, microscope slides are a necessity as well. 
• Pipettes and Burettes – These tools are used to dispense specified amounts of liquid. Very small quantities of liquid can be transferred using these tools, and every lab needs a few. 
• Burners – No matter what your scientific practice is, chances are you need a heat source. Burners are perfect for heating, burning, or melting substances for a chemical reaction. You can purchase burners according to your requirements for a heat source, including butane, propane, or alcohol.
• Funnels & Bottles – These tools are larger versions of pipettes and burettes. Their various sizes and stem lengths help carry larger quantities of liquid from one place to another. 
• Mechanical Equipment – Any scientific engineer will need mechanical tools. These could look like drill presses, shapers, milling machines, and other quality pieces of machinery. 
• Safety Equipment – Safety is the most important factor in a laboratory, and safety equipment comes in many forms. These can include safety goggles, lab coats, fire extinguishers, first aid kits, an eyewash station, fire blankets, safety gloves, and so much more. 

Other Lab Equipment

There are hundreds of types of lab supplies that make a laboratory the most efficient workspace necessary. Temperature test machines, photometers, spectroscopy equipment, freezers, microtome blades, and test swabs are just some of the common types of lab supplies. Does your lab have everything it needs?

• Pipettes and Burettes – These tools are used to dispense specified amounts of
  liquid. Very small quantities of liquid can be transferred using these tools, and
  every lab needs a few.
• Burners – No matter what your scientific practice is, chances are you need a
  heat source. Burners are perfect for heating, burning, or melting substances for a
  chemical reaction. You can purchase burners according to your requirements for
  a heat source, including butane, propane, or alcohol.
• Funnels & Bottles – These tools are larger versions of pipettes and burettes.
  Their various sizes and stem lengths help carry larger quantities of liquid from
  one place to another.
• Mechanical Equipment – Any scientific engineer will need mechanical tools.
  These could look like drill presses, shapers, milling machines, and other quality
  pieces of machinery.
• Safety Equipment – Safety is the most important factor in a laboratory, and
  safety equipment comes in many forms. These can include safety goggles, lab
  coats, fire extinguishers, first aid kits, an eyewash station, fire blankets, safety
  gloves, and so much more.

Other Lab Equipment
There are hundreds of types of lab supplies that make a laboratory the most efficient
workspace necessary. Temperature test machines, photometers, spectroscopy
equipment, freezers, microtome blades, and test swabs are just some of the common
types of lab supplies. Does your lab have everything it needs?

The post <strong>Essential Lab Supplies for Any Practice</strong> appeared first on Green Prophet.

Cultured meat is meat produced by in vitro cell culture of animal cells, instead of from slaughtered animals. It is a form of cellular agriculture. This is different from meat alternatives made from plants because in cultured meat, original meat cells were used from a real life cow. This has been going on for a decade or so with limited commercial success.

Memphis Meat, Mosa Meat and Aleph Farms are a few companies looking to break through. They offer meaty competition to Beyond Meat and the lab-grown plant-based “meat” burgers satisfying vegetarians everywhere.

And if it can be done for meat, entrepreneurs are hoping a cruelty-free dairy product should be done too. Vegans want it, the question is how can they drink a real milk milkshake or cheesecake while preventing animal cruelty?

The Israeli start-up Imagindairy is milking new technology to leave the cow out of the dairy equation. The company is creating true milk proteins that are indistinguishable from the real thing via a natural process using fermentation. 

Recreating Casein and Whey

Imagindairy recreates nature-identical, animal-free versions of whey and casein proteins that can be used to produce dairy analogs. They have the flavor and texture – and, importantly, the functionality and nutritional value – of their animal-based counterparts. They also are lactose-free, serving consumers with lactose intolerance or sensitivity. At the same time, the company lowers the burden of dairy livestock on the environment.

“The unique protein structure of dairy milk is what provides its characteristic texture, flavor, and nutritional value. Whey is a key source of highly biologically available protein,” says explains Eyal Afergan CEO of Imagindairy. 

Awarding the full, guilt-free dairy experience 

In response to growing awareness of animal welfare and the environmental impact of animal farming, supermarket shelves have become buoyant with alternative plant-based milk and dairy analogs. There has been almond milk, but almond milk is hurting the bees. There is also oat milk, but that’s full of pesticides. And plant-based dairy alternatives fall short of meeting consumers’ taste demands. 

There is no details on “what” the raw materials are for recreating the cow milk in the lab. Because at one point plant-based ingredients will be needed for the process. How will they be sourced? Will they be organic? Will they use wheat or rye or plants grown with pesticides? Questions we will want to know the answers to.

“Our vision was to deliver an animal-free version of the primary dairy proteins — whey and casein — that can allow product makers to match real dairy products in terms of protein concentration, nutrient profile, and the full sensory experiences of the animal-derived versions,” says Afergan. “I look forward to being able to give my kids such treats as a cup of nutritious, tasty milk or creamy yogurt without the hard impact on animals or on the environment they must inherit.”

Imagindairy’s technology can be readily integrated into existing dairy food production facilities. The start-up already raised US$1.5M in seed funding, led by The Kitchen FoodTech hub, with contributions from the Israeli Innovative Authority, CPT Capital, New Crop Capital, and Entrée Capital, and will soon enter its A-round funding series.

The post Imaginedairy engineers milk without the cow appeared first on Green Prophet.

Consumers envision cultivated meat to be a significant part of the meat market; Study reveals compelling support among young Britons and Americans.

The research, published on May 11, 2021 by the journal Foods, affirms that cultivated meat is likely to make up a major part of consumers’ future diets. The study showed patterns of greater openness to trying such products by younger generational groups: 87-89% of Gen Z adults, 84-85% of Millennials, 76-77% of Gen X, and 70-74% of Boomers were at least somewhat open to trying cultivated meat. 

Led by Keri Szejda, the researchers surveyed a large, representative sample of 2,018 US and 2,034 UK consumers, assessing indicators of adoption among the general population, and by generational segments.

The majority of consumers surveyed were not familiar with cultivated meat, yet upon being presented with a description of the innovation, the respondents, on average, imagined that cultivated meat could make up about 40% of their future meat intake, with conventional meat constituting around 60%. 

Lab-grown meat on the market includes companies like Memphis Meats, Mosa Meat and Aleph Farms. They differ from meat alternative companies such as and which use plant proteins such as peas, to make vegetable-based meats that taste like meat. 

Honing in on the findings of the survey, which segmented the participants by age and by degree of enthusiasm, 40% of consumers were “very” or “extremely likely” to try cultivated meat in both the US and the UK. This group of enthusiastic triers was categorized as the “early majority” group. Of the early majority group, an overwhelming 98-99% of them said they would consider welcoming it as a regular item in their shopping basket.

The vast majority of the early majority are omnivores (94-95%) who consume meat 2-3 times per day in a typical week.

“In order to turn this expected acceptance into actual consumption patterns over time, it is critical to develop the right products, based on the right solutions,” says Didier Toubia, Co-Founder and CEO of Aleph Farms, which commissioned the research.

“In the long term, Aleph Farms‘ vision is to provide a better alternative to industrial livestock farming, which represents approximately 70% of global meat production today.”

Younger generations — the early adopters

“The results suggest that cultivated meat is likely to be widely accepted by the general public, especially the younger generations and an eager group of early adopters who appreciate its benefits across a wide range of social issues.

These groups tend to embrace change and need little encouragement to try new food innovations,” notes Szejda, Ph.D., Founder and Principal Research Scientist of North Mountain Consulting Group. “Additionally, we observed an increase in support for the technology once consumers had access to additional information, underscoring the importance of effective science communication for consumer adoption.” 

Sociodemographic analyses comparing the early majority groups to the general population suggest that the early majority are more often younger (Gen Z or Millennials), male, more liberal, and more educated. In the US and the UK, an average of 77% of Gen X and 74% of Boomers were open to trying it, in comparison to 85% of Millennials, and 89% of Gen Z.

“In contrast to the younger eager adopters, the older generations are more wary of change,” explains Toubia. “Social proof is important to them and they want to be assured that a product is safe, functional, and beneficial before they adopt it. This is why transparency and trust are cornerstones of our company,” concludes Toubia.

There are also great ways to substitute fruit and vegetables for meat while bypassing the laboratories. 

The post Cultivated Meat Likely to Make Up 40% of Future Meat Intake, say Americans polled appeared first on Green Prophet.

Aleph Farms creates non-GMO, slaughter-free steak by cultivating and replicating bovine cells in the lab. The company has started building its BioFarm and blueprints for a farm on Mars.

Aleph Farms, a company that really has nothing to do with farms, is heading towards selling thin steaks made in a lab. The company based in Israel has started to build facilities called the BioFarm to mass produce steak made from cow cells. The idea is to create meat that is exactly like cow flesh, without causing additional animal suffering. And greenhouse gases. 

Taking a cue from my startup flux that launched a sneaky plan to grow cannabis in space (one of Aleph’s investors from Strauss was at my event a few years ago), Aleph also plans to create a meat lab for Mars. Cute renderings below.

(Sidenote: if you are interested in Mars contact my buddy Vera in California). 

Not sure how vegans will react to this development of meat in the lab and on space when we have so much to deal with at home on Earth but one vegan dog- and chicken-sitter we had agreed to eat our chickens eggs because of how they were raised. Freely and in the sunshine. So there are exceptions and concessions to be made among vegans. 

According to Aleph the steaks are grown from non-GMO cells of a living cow, and they taste, look and smell like meat. The company wants to create a terroir experience, eventually. 

The prototype of its commercial product was shown in Singapore this weekend as part of a virtual cooking demonstration. The company “beefed-up” its proof-of-concept from 2018, increased the size of its slaughter-free product, and adapted it to fit controlled, automated machines to fit large scale production and economics.

“One of the big challenges of cultivated meat is the ability to produce large quantities efficiently at a cost that can compete with conventional meat industry pricing, without compromising on quality,” says Didier Toubia, Co-Founder and CEO of Aleph Farms.

How to do meat cultivation in the lab?

Aleph Farms mirrors the natural process of tissue regeneration processes that occur in the cow’s body, but outside of it and under controlled conditions. The process is designed to use a fraction of the resources required for raising an entire animal for meat, and without antibiotics.

To successfully grow whole pieces of meat, compared to minced meat, Aleph mimics the extra-cellular matrix found in animals with a plant-based matrix that enables the cells to grow and form structured tissues of meat.

These ‘cell-banks’ as they call them yield an unlimited source of pluripotent, non-GMO cow cells’ for growing large quantities of meat without the dependency on living animals.

Aleph Farms has designed comfy lab conditions to simulate the biological process occurring in vivo (in the body of a cow), providing the warmth and basic animal-free elements needed to build tissue in nature.

This includes water, proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, and minerals.

“It’s delicious and guilt-free, I can’t taste the difference,” declares Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel at a recent tasting. “I have directed the State Secretary Tzahi Braverman to appoint a body to serve these
industries in order to connect and oversee all the stakeholders operating in this field. Israel will become a powerhouse for alternative meat and alternative protein.”

The next step seems to be recreating the terroir of single cows, and I think the Jewish grandmother I never had would say oy ve: “Meat can be cultivated from cells isolated from different animal breeds, have different cuts, and it elicits different emotions.

“We see Aleph Farms as crafters of experiences.” Toubia notes in a company press release. 

But we need real animals

When it comes to lab-grown meat, plant-grown meat like Impossible Foods, or just any old lab meat (meat glue?) environmentalists will raise eyebrows. The general feeling is that if you want meat, eat organic, or responsibly, hunt your own meat if you live in Canada (and have tags to do so), and eat simply. Eat whole foods. The less a product is processed or manipulated it’s likely better off for you. And for the planet. 

We got to a bad place fast because of fast food. Slow Food and fresh food can help us rewind. Growing meat in a lab is much like growing food using hydroponics (see Infarm). It’s a good solution for the interim (as we flail and people starve in some parts of the world) but where we need to go fast is to regenerative agriculture, biodynamic agriculture where all the parts feed into the whole. Mars is a nice story but I will stay on Earth, thank you. 

Also adherents to regenerative agriculture like Woody Harrelson and Kiss the Ground are pretty certain about the importance of farm animals in the food chain for helping steward sensibly-sized farms into being sustainable and successful. Grazing animals fertilize the land faster and better than a plant-based compost. Because no one wants to use Miracle Gro, sourced from the chemical industry, on the garden unless they have no choice.

Have you thought about composting on Mars?

Tim Anderson, a technologist who may have spent some years “sleeping at MIT” and who may have been a founder at Z Corp believes that animals are an important part of our human story. And how we protect not only our own internal biome but the landscape and culture. He popped up on my Facebook feed as a possible friend. I liked the picture of a chicken on his head. I too have taken pictures of myself with chickens, although much more coercively. 

I saw pictures of his farm and he didn’t look like a typical farmer, so I asked about any ideas he might have worth sharing about the process, the mission. 

Consider the constant wildfires in California, he said.

“Help California bring back the grazing animals. Those plants evolved to be eaten not just burned!” he wrote to me. 

I’d heard that message before. That wildfires are more frequent and intense because land stewardship has changed radically in the last 100 years. Read this block of “why”  information from University of California if it interests you. 

Livestock grazing reduces fire fuels more effectively than most mechanical methods. Grassland not grazed creates high levels of fine fire fuels which can pose fire hazards.  In addition, the invasion of ungrazed lands by shrubs also creates long-term fire fuel issues. 

 

Increased shrub cover from removal of grazing has caused “a general increase in fire hazard within the open spaces of the San Francisco Bay Area” and in the context of the landscape matrix as a whole, this increased hazard indicates a greater possibility of fire being spread into adjacent forested areas and residential communities.

 

Using livestock to treat fuels has significant potential for managing combustible vegetation.

Anderson tells me to take a look at pictures of his pigs in California and how they live for more insight into my questions.

“Most of what humans do is ridiculous to everyone but them,” Anderson writes. “Tunnel vision makes many odd thoughts and behaviors possible. Presumably on Mars there would be nutrient cycling just like on Earth, but much more obvious.

“We Turn Sewage into Meat in a Lab” would be an exciting slogan for many people, but many more would find it disturbing. There would be a compost pile on Mars. Maybe with worms and bugs in it. Mice and rats would get there of course, maybe on the first ships. So the vegan factory would be full of mouse traps and a compost tumbler that kill mice and worms as part of making meat that doesn’t kill cows,” Anderson offers as strange, but 100% sensible food for thought. 

Our great “elder” commenter, Pablo Solomon, environmental activist and artist always weighs in with a dose of much needed sensibility. From his ranch in Texas, Solomon writes:

“Okay, I admit I love beef. My mother’s side of the family have been ranchers for over 170 years here in Texas. I own a ranch now and once owned another. A well managed ranch is great for protein production, fibers for cloth, milk, cheeses, leathers and numerous other natural, sustainable products,” Solomon explains.

(We’ve been enjoying a weekly exchange where he picks a story from my newsletter and then provides some nuggets of wisdom on the story.)

He continues: “In my part of Texas, ranchers rotate cattle, sheep and goats in the pastures as each animal group tends to enjoy different plants. So we are keeping the pastures cleaner and less susceptible to wildfires. The animals naturally fertilize the soil. And the green plants absorb the CO2 released by the animals and use it in photosynthesis.

“The alleged dangers to the atmosphere from methane are so overblown as to be comical. In fact, were vegans and vegetarians so concerned about animal produced methane they would kill fluffy and fido and all other non productive feel good pets before killing off wonderfully productive livestock. And, the vegans eating so much vegetable matter to get enough nourishment creates relatively more human methane. Many ranch operators collect methane and use it to generate electricity. Many prominent vegans only use electricity.

“And of course, I have preached for decades about the “sin” of wasting our research minds and money on nerd toy crap like trips to Mars and driverless cars when immediate problems like providing clean water for humans and fresh water for agriculture remain unsolved.

“As far as “terrified” cows being killed, what a joke. Cows are killed so fast they literally do not know what hit them–yes hit them. Goats and sheep do die terrifying and painful deaths from being killed by coyotes, wolves and other predators which are often protected by insanely broad laws. We use sheep dogs and burros to protect the animals, but the coyotes can often elude them. ( A few years ago, before we could eliminate one particularly vicious pack of coyotes they killed  over 50 young lambs in less than a week.)

“The terror these meat haters should care about is that of human parents watching their children die slow horrible deaths from diseases carried in dirty water and/or starving to death due to lack of water for agriculture.

“If you wish to avoid meat in your diet that is your choice. Do not try to forbid the rest of us from enjoying what we want to eat.( what is that mantra?–my body my choice ).  I could give a list of things some of the most prominent anti meat people should give up in their lives before meat.”

The post Are steak growers on Mars out to lunch? appeared first on Green Prophet.

While the Impossible Burger is taking on the world of beef Whoppers by storm and sorts of vegetable or insect-derived solutions are cropping up to give vegans and our future selves an alternative to meat, an Israeli company has just secured $12 million to grow real beef in the lab. Like Evogene which is growing tiny plants to hybridize them faster, Aleph is still only growing steaks big enough for Lilliputians but with the right R&D the company hopes to scale.

It’s been about five years since we heard about the first lab-grown hamburger. Since researchers have been able to dramatically improve upon the process of growing meat. What they haven’t been able to do well is to copy the texture and structure of the specific cuts you’d find at a butcher, like a steak.

This is what Aleph claims to have done. The company managed this using a bio-engineering platform from theTechnion – Israel Institute of Technology. The steak in the video below took a few weeks to grow and it cost about $50.

Aleph Farms is co-founded by The Kitchen Hub. Among the investors in a new $12 million round is VisVires New Protein (VVNP), Singapore; with Cargill, USA; and M-Industry – the industrial group of Migros, Switzerland, as new investors. Existing investors also joining this round include Strauss Group, Israel; Peregrine Ventures, Israel; CPT Capital, UK; Jesselson investments, Israel; New Crop Capital, USA and Technion Investment Opportunity Fund, Israel.

Aleph Farms’ unique non-GMO technology, co-developed with Professor Shulamit Levenberg of the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, relies on a natural process occurring in cows to regenerate and build muscle tissues.

The company discovered a way to isolate the cells responsible for that process and grow them outside of the animal to form the same muscle tissue typical to steaks. Consumers are not willing to compromise on taste, which is the driving force behind this startup’s goal to create, juicy, delicious steaks without harm to animals or the environment.

The injection of capital will allow Aleph Farms to accelerate product development of its slaughter-free meat and to transform Aleph’s prototype (released last December) into a commercial product. Its cultured meat will grow in large, clean bio-farm facilities similar to a dairy facility.

“This round has been highly successful and includes diverse food companies and VCs from multiple regions around the world,” says Matthieu Vermersch, Founder and Managing Partner of VisVires New Protein. “This is a vote of confidence in Aleph Farms’ leading 3D technology and its capabilities for growing real beef steaks. Strategic partners from the food industry are important because we need to build a sustainable ecosystem for cultured meat.”

Key concerns of the meat industry and regulators include sustainability of meat production, antibiotics resistance, and food-borne illnesses. Aleph Farms and other cell-based meat startups are providing new tools to address those challenges and to feed the growing world population without harming any animals.

Read more here about meat without murder. 

“We will be part of the long-term solution,” declares Didier Toubia, Co-Founder and CEO of Aleph Farms. “We intend to lead an open dialog with farmers and food and feed producers. In addition, we continue to work closely with the regulators to ensure our products will be completely safe, healthy and properly labelled. We welcome the collaboration with the USDA and FDA as an opportunity to promote transparency and build trust with all stakeholders.”

Die-hard environmentalists may not be for this solution and will suggest we just cut back on our appetite for meat. That if we want to eat healthfully and heartily (and biodynamically!) we should raise our own meat from farm to table, eat all parts, or be brave like my girlfriends Kari and Raven; and friends Randy and Dave in Northern, Ontario and just hunt for our own food. Simply to stay away from anything engineered in any way, including complicated vegan cheeses and what have you.

According to Jewish Law hunting is not permitted so kosher meat, might need to evolve into the lab. Who knows.

I feel growing meat in a lab is much like growing food using hydroponics. It’s a good solution for the interim (as we flail and people starve in some parts of the world) but where we are going is to regenerative, biodynamic agriculture where are parts feed into the whole.

The post Aleph Farms engineers lab-grown steaks from cattle cells, secures $12 million appeared first on Green Prophet.

About a third of the food produced for human consumption is estimated to be lost or wasted globally. But the biggest part of food waste, which is not included in that estimate, may be through dietary choices that result in the squandering of environmental resources.

Consider that cows, chickens, pigs – whether for eggs, dairy, or meat – all need to eat plants – and farmers need to grow food for them. Imagine there were no more meat eaters? If we all become vegans or ate meat grown in a lab? How would that shift edible crops for us?

This is a good study for proponents of Alt Protein, alternative meat, fake fish and milk from a lab companies.

In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science and their colleagues have now found a novel way to define and quantify this second type of wastage.

The scientists have called it “opportunity food loss,” a term inspired by the “opportunity cost” concept in economics, which refers to the cost of choosing a particular alternative over better options.

Opportunity food loss stems from using agricultural land to produce animal-based food instead of nutritionally comparable plant-based alternatives.

The researchers report that in the United States alone, avoiding opportunity food loss – that is, replacing all animal-based items with edible crops for human consumption – would add enough food to feed 350 million additional people, or more than the total US population, with the same land resources.

“Our analysis has shown that favoring a plant-based diet can potentially yield more food than eliminating all the conventionally defined causes of food loss,” says lead author Alon Shepon, who works in the lab of Prof. Ron Milo in the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences. 

I had the pleasure of gardening with Alon a few years ago when he showed the parents of the Tel Aviv Waldorf School, Beit Hinuch Aviv, how to grow a permaculture garden. We’ve ben harvesting it ever since. Earlier he’s researched papers on why beef is much worse for the planet than chicken or pork. Read the brief on the study here.

In the 2018 study, the scientists compared the resources needed to produce five major categories of animal-based food – beef, pork, dairy, poultry, and eggs – with the resources required to grow edible crops of similar nutritional value in terms of protein, calories, and micronutrients.

They found that plant-based replacements could produce 2 to 20 times more protein per acre than using that land for animal feed.

The most dramatic results were obtained for beef. The researchers compared it with a mix of crops – soya, potatoes, cane sugar, peanuts, and garlic – that deliver a similar nutritional profile when taken together in the right proportions.

The land area that could produce 100 grams of protein from these crops would yield only 4 grams of edible protein from beef. In other words, using agricultural land for producing beef instead of replacement crops results in an opportunity food loss of 96 grams – that is, a loss of 96% – per unit of land.

This means that the potential gain from diverting agricultural land from beef to plant-based foods for human consumption would be enormous.

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Is test tube meat, grown in a laboratory, slated to become the future of food?  If proven to be grown from natural substances, and not genetically modified, lab grown meat products may become commercially viable enough to replace live animals and reduce animal slaughter; according to experiments now being carried out.

Although laboratory grown meat cells are not yet found in local supermarkets or as hamburger patties or chicken nuggets at fast food restaurants, the idea of growing meat from self-producing animal cells may wind up causing a revolution in the meat production industry. Following on the heels of successful laboratory growing of ground beef from animal cells, efforts by a couple of food companies, US based Memphis Meats and a Dutch company Mosa Meats, successful growing of chicken strips for food purposes has now become a reality.

The new lab grown chicken strips were grown in stainless steel vats and were successfully tested on a group of people, who said afterwards that they would eat the lab grown chicken product again.

It’s still prohibitively expensive to produce such meat, however, since the lab produced beef patties and meatballs cost around $!8,000 a pound (450g) and the new chicken strips around $9,000 a pound. The eventual savings to the environment, as well as less animal slaughter, will definitely weigh in, once the costs of producing such foods are reduced.

Producing lab grown or cultured chicken meat is considered to be a major achievement in the future of meat processing, due to so much chicken meat being consumed in Western countries. The average American eats more than 90 lbs (41kg) of chicken per year; and Israelis alone consume more than 36 kg per year or 76 lbs. It will still be awhile before lab grown chicken meat will be found common chicken nuggets; but Memphis Meats hopes to have it available for the mass market by 2021. Work in developing cultured meat in Israel is being undertaken by the Modern Agriculture Foundation.

There may be issues concerning cultured meat in that it can be grown faster if genetically modified. This possibility remains to be dealt with, however, as cultured meat is still a work in progress.

Read more on cultured or test-tube meat and GM meat:
Could test-tube meat be the future of food?
Coming soon: chicken meat without the slaughter
Genetically Modified Foods in Israel, Lots of it

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“By the time meat gets to the consumer, it’s been processed far beyond its original form,” animal rights activist Koby Barak told The Times of Israel. “If we’re already processing it to that extent, why not go all the way and develop a cultured meat industry that will produce meat that will be healthier for people, and for the environment?”

To encourage development, Barak created the non-profit Modern Agricultural Foundation.  He’s teamed up with Tel Aviv University and Amit Gefen, an expert in tissue engineering, to study the feasibility of producing of lab-grown chicken breast.  Unlike privately held companies working in the field of muscle tissue growth, Gefen’s team will make their research findings available to the public. The results will assist manufacturers and investors in determining how best to commercially produce cultured meat and identify challenges to scalable production.

The science underpinning the culture of synthetic protein developed out of stem cell research, which sought to develop new methods of regenerative medicine to treat human injury and disease.  In 2002, as part of a program to find new sources of protein to feed astronauts, NASA-funded scientists successfully grew goldfish muscle cells in a laboratory setting. Soon after, at an art exhibition in Nantes, France, tissue engineers at Harvard University exhibited a specimen of new muscle grown from frog cells.

In 2011, Mark Post, a vascular physiologist at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, was working on an EU-funded project to create synthetic meat, when he received a (then-anonymous) donation exceeding $330,000 from Google cofounder Sergey Brin to accelerate the project. In 2013, Post unveiled the world’s most expensive hamburger, engineered from a small sample of cow muscle stem cells.

Post fed the cells a a growth mix of sugar, amino acid, and cow fetus blood, enabling them to multiply and create muscle tissue. He added beet juice and saffron to improve the coloring of the new fibers, and breadcrumbs and egg powder to create a mincemeat texture.

Meat without murder? 

“Twenty years from now if you enter a supermarket you will have a choice between two identical-looking products. One will have a label that says it has been produced with a lower environmental footprint, the other will have a smoking-type label that says animals have suffered or been killed to produce this meat,” Post told reporters at the time.

In February 2012, Hungarian-born US scientist Gabor Forgacs did his own public tasting of a small strip of lab-grown meat at a TED conference. He dismissed Post’s burger as a “ridiculously expensive experiment.”

Forgacs started his own synthetic meat company, Modern Meadow, financed by his own billionaire investor, PayPal founder Peter Thiel, and the US Department of Agriculture. He concedes that his own meat product is unlikely to be cost-effective at the start, but suggests it may prove in the long-term to be the only meat we can afford to eat. “The rules of the game of meat production are not the same as they were 100 years ago – it’s not sustainable,” he says. “We are destroying this planet with intensive meat production.”

As scientists work to perfect production techniques, environmentalists and animal rights groups debate whether lab-grown meat is a Utopian ideal or a distraction from ongoing campaigns to cut our meat consumption by moving towards a grain and vegetable-based diet.

Synthetic meat offers the tantalizing prospect of – one day in the future – reducing the environmental impacts of meat production and eliminating the animal suffering embedded in industrial agriculture.  The same can be said about vegetarianism, today.

Image of lab-cultivated meat from Shutterstock

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