The idea of lab-grown meat isn’t a new one – food scientists have been looking for a way to bring animal-free meat products to the market for decades. But it’s only recently that it’s become a viable possibility. And currently, the technology is less a barrier than legislation. For instance, in the United States, there are no FDA approvals for laboratory-grown meat. It can’t be sold as a food product.
Regardless of the current legal situation, Eat Just, Inc, in San Francisco has been researching laboratory-grown chicken. Their product, which is actually meat and actually chicken, is grown from a tissue sample put into a bioreactor. It is identical in protein and nutrient content to farmed chicken.
Eat Just can’t sell their chicken bites in the U.S., but they have been given approval in Singapore, where some of their product is manufactured. Under the GOOD Meat brand, Eat Just will be debuting their product in a Singapore restaurant, priced on par with high quality chicken. After that, their plan is to spread into other dining and retail restaurants through the country. In the meantime, they’re still seeking FDA approval here in the States.
“We’ve been eating meat for many hundreds, thousands of years, always needing to kill an animal to eat — until now,” said Josh Tetrick, co-founder and CEO Of Eat Just in an interview with CNN Business.
Previously, Eat Just has made a range of vegan products, including Just Egg, which is an egg equivalent made of mung beans, and a vegan mayonnaise. The jury is still out on whether or not lab-grown meat products, where the involvement of any actual animal ends with a small cell culture, will be considered vegan or not. Meat-substitutes and vegan alternatives have been increasingly popular worldwide, the trend still spreading in Asia.
Would you eat lab-grown meat?
Image: William Moreland via Unsplash
