By Rico Palmerin
Features Editor
Last month Dutch scientists revealed the first ever lab-grown hamburger, leading to speculation of possibilities within the mass market.
Led by scientist and professor Mark Post, the team of scientists used beef stem cells to grow thousands of tiny pieces of meat which were combined to form a burger patty. The first volunteer to taste responded with “close to meat, not that juicy.” Apparently the juiciest thing about the lab-burger was the price: about $350,000 for a single five ounce patty.
With 33 million cattle being slaughtered each year and global meat consumption on the rise, lab-grown meat poses a breakthrough for animal rights activists. Non-profit organizations such as New Harvest and PETA have been investing in artificial meat research for years. PETA even has a million dollar contest awarding the first person able to successfully create lab-grown chicken for retail. Surprisingly, despite animal rights interest direct funding for the lab-burger came from Google founder Sergey Brin.
Being an evidently forward thinker, Brin was motivated to invest in this burger after speculating about the inefficiency of current methods of harvesting meat. Considering the increasing costs of meat production, Brin shares a few possibilities for our meat-loving nation: “One is that we’ll all become vegetarian…I don’t think that’s really likely. The second is, we ignore the issues—and that leads to continued environmental harm. And the third option is, we do something new.”
Whether that something new is going to be mass consumption of lab beef is up to the public. CSUSM Economics professor and Chair of the Economics Department Robert Rider offers some valuable insight into the possibility of this test tube burger making it to our lunch menus.
“The innovation is highly preliminary. In order for it to have any meaningful impact on the economy it would have to scaled to mass production level. The currents costs are probably prohibitive…we can produce beef fairly cheaply with…current techniques,” states Rider.
Unless advancements in the creation process are made, this $350,000 beef patty is extremely unlikely to make any headway in the mass market.
Professor Rider raises another key point in regards potential purchasers. “The market for this genetically modified beef might be very small. Already Europe and other countries restrict US export of GM foods…some nations restrict our beef exports because we use antibiotics in the raising of cattle,” said Rider.
If entire nations are already turning away beef for simply being exposed to antibiotics, then that leaves little room for doubt as to whether or not they will be embracing entirely lab-grown meat.
Even within the US, where the average person consumes around 270 lbs. of meat a year, there are thousands of people who are inclined to eat natural; not lab-grown.
“Yes I think it’s pretty disgusting. Sounds like we’re going to turn into a soylent green society! There’s nothing better for the body than whole foods,” said CSUSM junior Elizabeth Cruz when informed of the beefy breakthrough.
Soylent is a food substitute that supposedly contains all the nutrition necessary for average daily function.
When asked if she would eat a lab-burger, Cruz stated, “Not if I can help it. There may come a time in the future when I will have no choice, but as long as there is the alternative, I will have real food.”
Although animal rights activists and other supporters are elated at the possibilities for the future of lab-grown beef, their efforts in persuading the public away from consuming traditional meat may mean having to wait until the cows come home.