In Vitro Meat Commercialization By Crystal Oseagulu Abstract The production and commercialization of in vitro meat is currently an emerging topic

as more research becomes available each day. Some studies and research show that incorporating in vitro meat into our daily lives will provide beneficial environmental impacts and an improvement in public health. Other sources however, argue that commercializing in vitro meat will cause a decline in the environment and public health, and suggest that current industrialized farming practices should be continued. The following paper examines several academic journals and research studies and focuses on the moments in which in vitro meat positively and negatively affects public health and the environment. In conclusion, it is determined that continuing research is required before one can confidently claim whether or not in vitro meat commercialization should occur.

Keywords: Myocyte culturing, Greenhouse Gas Emission (GHG), Industrialized Farming, tissueengineering, homeostatic regulation, fetal bovine serum

Introduction The new discovery of in vitro meat faces many critiques when analyzed as a new way of manufacturing meat through tissue- engineering technology. In vitro meat development is a form of stem cell science that, as with the regenerative medicine setting, looks to harness the growth potential of stem cells to grow quantities of healthy tissue. [1] The whole purpose of in vitro meat is to produce animal meat without having to slaughter or harm the animal. The technique currently uses cells taken from an animal at either the embryonic stage (known as myoblasts) or the adult stage (known as skeletal muscle satellite cells) and attaches them to a scaffold made of protein meshwork. This is then spread over a culture medium and placed in a bioreactor resulting in myofiber tissue that can be cooked as meat. [1] Research now shows that starter cells are taken from live animals through in a process that causes no pain to the animal. Because meat is not taken from a slaughtered animal, but rather a live one, the environment is impacted in different ways than that of traditional farming. Also, since the meat is cultured in a growth medium the amount and quality within the meat can be monitored and controlled. With customizability as an option, public health is impacted in regards to human disease and fat content. The conventional method of obtaining meat is a 1.4 trillion dollar industry. The world population consumed 228 million tons of meat in 2000, and that number is expected to more than double by 2050 as the world population increases to nine billion. The livestock on farmland consume 40 percent of the planet's cereal grain; livestock also despoils about 30 percent of the Earth's surface, 70 percent of its

arable land, and 8 percent of its water supply.[9] Because meat is such an expansive industry, commercializing meat would make a grand impact worldwide. Positive Effects on the Environment Meat production is one of the major contributions to global environmental degradation. In vitro meat is becoming more justifiable with the rising demand of meat production today. The adverse effects on the environment are very large. Datar of the University of Alberta, highlights that with a growing population, many of which of which face starvation, it no longer makes sense to contribute staple crops toward inefficient meat production. Currently 1 kg poultry, pork and beef requires 2 kg, 4 kg and 7 kg of grain, respectively.[1] This is largely underutilizing our grain resources for the little amount of meat that is being produced comparatively. If as a whole the world is trying to make steps towards sustainability by maximizing resources and reducing global warming, more effective uses of agriculture is necessary. Beef ranching accounts for 80 percent of Amazon deforestation, and cattle, which defecate 130 times more by volume than humans, dump 64 million tons of sewage in the United States alone. [5] Two professors from the University of Oxford, Tuomisto and Teixeira de Mattos, performed the life cycle assessment research method (LCA) noting the environmental impact of conventional meat production in comparison with cultured meat production shown below. [2] Figure 1- Percent Impact on the Environment vs. Utilized Resource

The results show that production of 1000 kg cultured meat requires 2633 GJ energy, 367521 m3 water, 190230 m2 land, and emits 19002240 kg CO2-eq GHG emissions. [2]The results show that some of the largest changes will be seen through a reduction in energy and a reduction in greenhouse

gas emissions. As the biological structures in addition to muscle tissue are not required to produce meat in an in vitro system, it reduces the amount of nutrients and energy needed for their growth. [6]Carbon dioxide is the largest greenhouse gas contributor in the world. Greenhouse gas emissions caused as a result of traditional farming are the leading cause of global warming. Global warming negatively effects out environment especially at the poles which will ultimately destroy the homes of arctic creatures. In comparison to conventionally produced European meat, cultured meat involves approximately 745% lower energy use (only poultry has lower energy use), 7896% lower GHG emissions, 99% lower land use, and 8296% lower water use depending on the product compared. [2] As stated above, it is well known that the environmental impact of natural resources utilized with cultured meat is substantially lower than that of conventionally produced meat through industrialized farming. Our resources such as land and water are not in unlimited supply. With an exponentially growing population, all efforts should be utilized in order to combat wasting a finite number of resources. Positive Effects on Public Health Myocyte culturing, the way the meat cells are replicated from muscle cells into in vitro meat production, allows for the meat to be monitored and controlled in terms of specific content. Within the academic journal Innovative Food Science and Emerging Technologies, myocyte culturing prevents the unpredictable complications that arise in industrialized farming, including the spread of disease among infected livestock. Current diseases of concern in the industrial agriculture which have become more difficult to prevent are bird flu, swine flu, foot and mouth disease, and spongiform encephalopathy. [1] There have been multiple cases in where humans were infected with such diseases when in close contact with infected livestock. The workers who must handle the meat on these farms are at risk for catching these diseases. Alternatively, cultured meat would not be synthesized around wild livestock, thus having infected meat through contagious livestock would not be an issue. Workers who would perform tissue engineering wouldnt have to worry about getting the diseases listed above from producing meat. In industrialized farming, if one of these diseases were to strike, a large amount of meat would have the potential to pass on illness when consumed. In addition, food-borne illnesses have also become increasingly problematic, with a six fold increase in gastro-enteritis and food poisoning in industrialized countries in the last 20 years (Nicholson et al. 2000) and the most common causes of food borne diseases in EU, USA and Canada are contaminated meats and animal products.[5] Human safety is a very large concern as it affects our health and others around us. As a way to avoid disease and illness, any efforts to reducing risk when consuming meat should be encouraged. The greatest criticism against meat in general is the high saturated fat content it contains. High saturated fat content is a large contributing factor to cardiovascular disease. In vitro meat production with pure myocyte culturing would produce a product rich in nutritionally beneficial fatty acids from phospholipids. [1] This means that the fats produced by in vitro meat could be controlled as good fats as oppose to bad fats found in traditional meat products.

In addition to disease exposure associated with current industrialized farming and slaughterhouse practices, the employees who work at these locations also face the emotion and psychological worries. Michael Pollan recounts being asked to don a biohazard suit before visiting a brooder house. [8]Despite the emotional and psychological issues that accompany working at a slaughterhouse, surrounding communities of these locations face the effects of pollution and increased disease susceptibility.[8] In vitro meat production would eliminate a majority of these facilities, improving quality for surrounding communities as well as employees working on farmlands. Negative Effects on Public Health A major setback on in vitro meat production is that the cell tissue will be cultured in the absence of homeostatic regulation. Homeostatic regulation is the regulation of the body which ensures proper nutrients and minerals are processed along throughout the body. Without homeostasis produced collectively with other organs within an animals body, nutritional value of the meat will be affected, as organ systems within the animal are involved in nutrient absorption and distribution. [1] Some of the nutrients and minerals will be missing as a result. It is important to note that in vitro commercialization will be very expensive. If all this money and research is going into this idea, the meat produced should have at the very least the equivalent nutritional properties. There is little comment on any other nutritional side effects from in vitro meat. Other highlighted problems would be the publics moral thoughts on in vitro meat, such as it may provoke thoughts of cannibalism, greed, and selfishness. Although it is important to take these moral issues take into account when deciding whether to commercialize in vitro meat, this review will not touch upon the moral and ethics of the human mind. Negative Effects on the Environment Keeping the starter cells warm, healthy, well-fed, and free of contamination takes incredible labor and energy, even when scaled to the 10,000-liter vats that biotech companies use. [10] A main positive of in vitro meat was creating sustainability in our world. Although there may be less GHG emissions, a significant amount of energy would be used to produce enough meat to satisfy the current demand in the world. In these laboratories, it is possible that similar energy depletion will be wasted when trying to supply enough meat for the world. Another challenge for scaling up the process for potential commercial production is to produce less expensive nutrient plasma. Currently this plasma is an animal product (calf serum), which would need to be of vegetable origin (from algae, for example) in order to cater to vegetarians who might be willing to eat this type of meat, and to make good on the promise of completely doing away with animal suffering and environmental problems associated with livestock farming .[3] Similarly, in the case of in vitro cultured hamburgers, the growth medium that provides growth hormones, vitamins, and nutrients is currently made with sugars and amino acids supplemented with fetal bovine serum. Fetal bovine serum is the blood of unborn cows, although tissue engineers are currently coming up with cheaper and cruelty free alternatives to fetal calf serum. [10] Using fetal bovine serum is a big negative because it comes at the expense of a calfs life. This causes a debate that in vitro meat is not currently 100% cruelty

free and a major plus of creating in vitro meat was to avoid harming the cow population. The harvest of fetal bovine serum also raises ethical concern and for the generation of an animal- free protein product, the addition of fetal calf serum to the cells would not be an option and it is therefore essential to develop a serum-free medium.[6]These sources all highlight the current problem with the growth medium. With additional research it is possible that a new substance that does not harm animals could be utilized in the growth medium. Some sources believe that despite the use of in vitro meat, consumers will still demand conventionally produced meat as it is more familiar. [7] If this occurs, that means some people will still require meat through industrial farming. Although the damage to land and water may be less than that of solely using industrialized farming, the amount of energy to run both in vitro meat and industrialized farming will not be ideal. This will result in a waste of energy in our environment and excessive land and water will still need to be sectioned off for those who do not wish to consume in vitro meat. Conclusion After careful analysis of research studies and academic journals, in vitro meat commercialization would reap a large amount of benefits in both public health and our environment. Sources commenting on less land use and greenhouse gas emissions show that incorporating in vitro meat as a food course will result in a more sustainable environment. However, there still remains a gap in knowledge with the risks and uncertainties of how to produce meat with the same features as conventional meat methods that undergo homeostasis before consumption. It is important to keep in mind that meat should remain just as nutritious as it currently. It would be unsafe to diminish quality for the sake of cruelty free meat. With that said, the growth medium is still not developed enough and it is not completely 100% animal cruelty free. More research needs to be administered in finding a new growth hormone that is not obtained from fetal bovine cow serum. When both the homeostatic regulation and a growth hormone can be incorporated into in vitro meat without the expense of other animals, in vitro meat will be a great way of producing environmentally friendly, healthy meat. However, until then, further research and development towards efficient growth mediums and nutrient incorporation is necessary and essential before in vitro meat should be publically released.

Acknowledgements Special thanks to Professor Thomas Akbari, Lia Calise, and Nick Bradshaw for their revisions and guidance on this document. Special thanks to Northeastern Writing Center for assisting in the formulation and development of this document.

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