top of page
Search
Writer's pictureMieke Goffin

EATING FROM THE LAB // How Cultured Meat Is Shaping the Future of Food

Updated: Oct 20, 2023

In 2007, Andy Forgacs and his father Gabor Forgacs founded Organovo, a San Diego company using 3-D bioprinting to engineer human tissues for pharmaceutical research and medical applications. Forgacs admits that, back then, people often thought they were “a little crazy.” But as their lab and others like it made progress printing simple human body parts, they started getting questions like, “If you can grow human body parts, can you also grow animal products like meat and leather?” This time they were the ones to find the idea a little crazy. But after some consideration, they began to think that what was craziest of all were our current methods of producing these goods.


More sustainable and ethical methods for producing meat are being developed at the moment under the name of cultured meat, cell-based meat, clean meat, or lab-grown meat. Rather than resorting to animal husbandry, modern technology seeks to create meat by cultivating animal cells in a controlled environment.

Producing lab-grown meat commences with taking a tiny bit of stem cells or tissue from an animal, often without causing harm to the creature. After putting these cells into a proper growth solution, they advance into muscle and fat tissue, which can be gathered and fashioned into cultured meat items, for instance, chicken breasts, sausages, or burgers.

Is this the meat of the future? Are we already open to it? Lots to think about....


Image from (no) cookbook 'the cultured meat cookbook' an initiative of collective nextnature!





7 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

Comments


bottom of page