Pseudo Meat Coming Soon: Agribusiness As Usual or Boon to Humanity?

Lab grown ersatz meat is coming soon. With the usual public relations fanfare and claims that make it sound like it’ll solve half the world’s problems, we’re told that it could eventually replace meat from animals, ease global warming, and maybe-possibly-ultimately taste a little bit like meat.

Professor Mark Post of The Netherland’s Maastricht University* has been busy promoting his artificial meat, saying that it will take only 7% to 45% the energy to produce, 1% of the land area, and 4% of the water to produce. Researchers from Oxford and Amsterdam Universities say that greenhouse gas emissions could be cut by 96% as compared with livestock farming.

It sounds much like the claims that biofuels would be a panacea. The reality has proven far different. When artificial meat finally comes out, we’ll see if there’s any validity to the environmental claims.

They don’t yet have a viable product. So far, only a gray substance with a yucky texture in strips just 2×1 centimeter have been produced. Post, though, says that he expects they’ll have the equivalent of hamburger by this fall. In typical PR manner, he says he intends to ask Heston Blumenthal, a celebrity chef, to cook it.

In this commodities-defined world, where meat purchased from supermarkets is already far removed from the real thing, it may be possible to fool people. Mother Nature, though, is a different matter.

Nutrition

People are already suffering mass chronic disease that has a significant basis in our devastated food system. Petrochemicals in the form of pseudo fertilizers and pesticides are poisoning foods. These products and overfarming are stripping the soil of its ability to sustain.

Slicing, dicing, mashing, adding chemicals, heating, radiating, storing in gas-filled environments, packaging and coating in toxic materials—all of these have degraded supermarket fare to the point where it’s questionable whether it should even be called food. And that was before GMOs were added to the mix.

So now, it’s entirely possible that lab-produced meat will approach both the quality, nutrition, and taste of what’s spewed by Agribusiness. But that’s a false comparison. Only with the real thing, organically and free range produced meat, can a reasonable comparison be made. Of course, that won’t happen.

By arbitrarily defining what nutrients are important, the purveyors of ersatz meat can simply add them. As we’ve seen with the added artificial nutrients in supermarket foods, like fortified milk and cereals, the reality of diminished food quality is hidden. Virtually by definition, the nutritional quality of pseudo meat will be deficient.

Safety

Of course, safety will be ignored, just as is happening with GMOs. The means of sliding around safety testing will be by ersatz logic, as befits ersatz meat. It will be defined as “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS). The ease of doing this has already been assured, as the FDA has already defined many GMOs as GRAS. It’s not based on legitimate science, of course. It’s based on illegitimate logic.

Artificial meat stems from stem cells, natural substances from animals. Because the meat will be “grown”, rather than produced by chemical processing, it will be deemed as essentially the same as the real thing. And that will result in it being defined as GRAS.

Ultimately, the general public will become guinea pigs for the stuff.

Labeling

The current trend is to prevent labeling of the origins of foods. As documented in The Source of Food Is None of Your Business, Says WTO, country of origin labeling on foods will be disappearing within the next few years. It’s because of trade agreements, which are coming to rule all aspects of food production and distribution. In the US, it’s already illegal to label foods as non-GMO.

In light of this, it’s unlikely that artificial meat will be labeled. Most people would choose the real thing, if given an option. So, how likely is it that multinational corporations, which will of course be the marketers of artificial meat, will allow it to be labeled?

Sustainablility

It’s claimed that artificial meat is being developed with the loftiest intentions. The logic comes down to: The world cannot continue to support us, so we must find artificial ways to feed ourselves. There are two major flaws in this presentation. One involves the actual reason for ersatz meat development and the other has to do with the nature of our existence on this planet.

Real Reason for Artificial Meat Development

It is, of course, naive to suggest that the agencies working on artificial meat are doing it for idealistic reasons. In this commodities focused world, the real goal is profits. The fact is that it costs enormous amounts of money to develop this stuff. There is, therefore, little chance that artificial meat would be developed unless there’s a profit motive.

Ultimate Source of Nutrition

What isn’t considered in all this is that, ultimately, the things required for food must still come from the earth. We cannot change that. We cannot continue to pretend that there are no limits. According to the BBC, Professor Sean Smukler of the University of British Columbia, who is a promoter of artificial meat, stated:

It [artificial meat] will help reduce land pressures. Anything that stops more wild land being converted to agricultural land is a good thing. We’re already reaching a critical point in availability of arable land.

That argument sounds very much like the ones used to promote the travesty of biofuels. The claim was that it would reduce the carbon released to the atmosphere. Of course, not only did it actually increase the carbon released, it also severely harmed our ability to feed ourselves and further eroded the parts of the world that hadn’t been cultivated. We are now far poorer, with massive loss of habitat for creatures pushing ever more into extinction, worsening of ocean acidification, and changing climate.

Just where do the promoters of fake meat propose to get the raw materials? They won’t come from nowhere. They’ll be mined, further destroying the earth and removing vast tracts from livability and they’ll be manufactured, further contributing to pollution.

The truth is that nutrition isn’t free. The real costs must be paid. The hype behind artificial meat is deeply flawed. Do we really need to go down this path to find out the real costs? They won’t be borne by the manufacturers. Ultimately, they’ll be borne by each and every one of us, whether we eat the stuff or not. We’ll pay for it in ill health, increased health costs, and further destruction of our planet.

*With thanks to Catia Ferre Ara for pointing out my error in mislocating Maastricht University in Germany!

Tagged agribusiness, artificial meat, fake meat, pseudo-meat, science