You don't need to kill animals to eat meat. Do you eat artificial meat? Scientists: More nutritious and healthy!

Many of my friends are carnivores. It can be said that there is no love for meat, and the essential amino acids needed by our body are also provided by meat, which is one of the reasons why people love meat. However, although people like to eat meat, it is very unbearable to mention slaughtering animals, so that many animal protectionists can only eat meat with tears.

With the development of science and technology, nowadays, eating meat may no longer need to cut animals, because the technology of artificial meat is becoming more and more mature.

artificial meat

When it comes to artificial meat, many friends may think of vegetarian meat such as Tang Monk meat that they ate when they were young, but this only imitates the taste and taste of soy protein. It is very different from real meat.

The artificial meat we are talking about here is real animal meat. This kind of meat is made by using cell culture technology to cultivate animal cells and tissues in the laboratory. Whether it is taste, taste or composition, it grows from animals. The meat is exactly the same, even more nutritious because of the addition of various minerals and vitamins.

As early as 2000, Drew University in the United States used goldfish cells to cultivate artificial fish meat. In 2001, several researchers from a university in the Netherlands applied for an international patent for making artificial meat. This patent includes adding collagen to cells. Induce its division and proliferation in the culture medium. In 2008, the Dutch government allocated $4 million for artificial meat experiments.

In the same year, the Animal Ethics Association (PETA) also supported artificial meat and invested $1 million to reward companies that put artificial chicken on the market. The reason they support is that the replacement of natural meat with artificial meat will save many animals from being slaughtered.

Why are many organizations optimistic about the prospect of artificial meat? Let's summarize.

reduce pollution

Compared with livestock breeding, artificial meat does have great advantages from the perspective of environmental protection, because a large number of livestock are farmed, and their feces pollute the land and water sources, and digest a large amount of methane, that is, a large amount of farts are discharged into the air. Western scholars The reason why cows were once responsible for the current greenhouse effect is because cows fart a lot of methane into the atmosphere, and the greenhouse effect of methane is 25 times that of carbon dioxide.

In addition, a large number of hoofs, horns, bones, and internal organs are discarded when livestock is slaughtered, causing a lot of pollution. According to statistics, the slaughtering industry in the United States throws away 1.4 billion tons of garbage every year. Not so serious, the main problem is that the utilization rate in the United States is too low.

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, 30% of the world's land area is used for aquaculture, and the greenhouse gas emissions from aquaculture account for 18% of human activities. And, as the world's population grows and living standards rise, the demand for meat will continue to increase, so will these proportions.

However, artificial meat perfectly solves these problems, reduces pollution, reduces waste, reduces land occupation, and even alleviates global warming.

Dutch biology professor Mark Post also said that artificial meat can protect water, land and energy while solving the problem of hunger.

safe nutrition

Because artificial meat does not need to get sick like livestock, antibiotics will not be used in the production of artificial meat, nor will heavy metals accumulate in the body like livestock, and the spread of many livestock viruses can also be fundamentally prevented, such as Mad cow disease, swine fever, bird flu, etc. So artificial meat is safer than farmed meat.

In terms of nutrition, artificial meat can artificially control the nutrients in meat, such as adding healthy omega-3 fatty acids to replace omega-6 fatty acids. We all know that omega-6 fatty acids in food can lead to high cholesterol and cause diseases, and high intake of omega-3 can effectively prevent the occurrence of cardiovascular disease. Moreover, artificial meat does not grow fat like livestock, it is completely high protein. Like some friends who like to eat pork belly the most but are afraid of gaining weight or high blood lipids, then the pork belly produced by artificial meat can be perfectly matched, not only delicious, but also prevent high blood lipids, and arteriosclerosis, no need to be afraid of how much you eat.

In addition, it is also possible to add essential trace elements and vitamins according to people's different needs to meet the health needs of different groups of people. For special parts that many of us like to use as food supplements, corresponding animal tissues can also be used for batch cultivation and production.

cost issue

Since the advantages of artificial meat are so great, the cost is also a key factor in whether artificial meat can be marketed.

An artificial meat company in the United States has revealed that a tissue sample collected from a cow can produce the beef needed for 80,000 beef burgers. We calculate according to each 130g, which is equivalent to 10 tons of beef from a beef tissue sample. This ratio can only be said to be a good guy.

However, although the output ratio is very high, in 2013, the media showed that the cost of making such a piece of meat in the laboratory would cost 300,000 US dollars. At this price, the most expensive Kobe beef in Japan can come in a timely manner. However, in 2018, a meat product company in the United States expanded its scale to reduce the production cost to a few hundred dollars. According to this trend, as long as the technology is mature and the scale is expanded, the cost will gradually decrease, even lower than the cost of the breeding industry. Artificial meat will become a strong competitor to traditional meat.

Moreover, the price of artificial meat is stable and will not be affected by sharp changes in food prices, so there is no need to worry about the price of pork rising.

difficulties faced

Although artificial meat has huge advantages, there are still many difficulties that need to be overcome. Including cell culture technology and the public's emotions, as well as laws and other aspects need to break through.

The cell tissue culture of artificial meat can only obtain a single layer of tissue. If there are too many layers, the cells in the middle cannot breathe, so this meat slice is very thin, thinner than the meat slice made by the Lanzhou ramen master. This naturally cannot satisfy people's habit of eating meat.

In addition, this artificial meat is relatively simple. Although artificial meat can also cultivate adipose tissue and increase the content of myoglobin, the taste of meat has a lot to do with the age, exercise, and diet of animals, so artificial taste is similar to ordinary meat. Differences. However, the researchers also simulated the movement of animals, exercising artificial meat under caffeine and electrical stimulation, and moving to increase its taste.

The most serious thing is that when cells are cultured in vitro, their metabolism and self-repair ability will change, and they may face canceration after a large number of multi-generation proliferation. These are the problems scientists urgently need to solve.

In addition to technical problems, people's acceptance of artificial meat is also a problem. Many people may not be able to accept this kind of artificial meat for a while. However, there are also supporters who say that artificial meat may be more acceptable than the "poo meat" developed by the Japanese.

prospect

However, although there are many difficulties, this cannot stop the development of artificial meat. In 2019, the American artificial meat company Beyong Meat soared by 163% on the first day of listing, and has been on the rise, and related concept companies have also been showing an upward trend. Even multi-day daily limit.

This can also reflect that there are many people who support artificial meat, or are optimistic about its prospects. After all, artificial meat is indeed very obvious in solving food problems and its accompanying advantages.

In the near future, artificial meat may appear on the shelves of supermarkets and farmers' markets. Do you eat it? You are welcome to leave your own thoughts.