Climate activists claim that lab-grown meat is less harmful to the environment than conventional meat processing and that the process of producing the lab-grown meat is free of animal cruelty.
Both of these assertions are false, according to a June 6 analysis by Dr. Joseph Mercola.
Mercola cited researchers at UC Davis who said, according to their “cradle-to-gate life cycle” analysis, that lab-grown meat produces up to 25 times more CO2 than traditional animal husbandry.
As for animal cruelty, some companies which produce the lab-grown meat admit to using fetal bovine serum, which is obtained from unborn calves that are cut out of the womb and drained of their blood while still alive.
The UC Davis researchers noted that investors have poured billions of dollars into the animal cell-based meat (ACBM) sector based on the theory that cultured meat is more environmentally friendly than beef. “But that hype is primarily based on flawed analyses of carbon emissions”, Mercola noted.
The primary sources of CO2 emissions are the purification processes, which require fossil fuels. The bacteria used to produce the “meat” releases endotoxins, and these must be eliminated from the growth medium or else the cells won’t reproduce properly, according to the researchers.
“Animal cell culture is traditionally done with growth medium components which have been refined to remove/reduce endotoxin. The use of these refinement methods contributes significantly to the economic and environmental costs associated with pharmaceutical products since they are both energy and resource intensive”, the UC Davis study said.
Based on the researchers’ assessment, each kilo of cultured meat produces anywhere from 542 pounds (246 kilos) to 3,325 pounds (1,508 kg) of carbon dioxide emissions, making the climate impact of cultured meat four to 25 times greater than that of conventional beef.
The UC Davis researchers also pointed out that several estimates of ACBM climate impacts are dependent on technologies that either do not currently exist or are unlikely to work.
Some have proposed growing cyanobacteria hydrolysate in open concrete ponds to then be “harvested, sterilized, hydrolyzed and used as an animal cell growth medium”. This technology is not currently used, “nor is it one that is currently near feasibility”, the researchers said.
In short, Mercola noted, “the claims propping up the cultured meat industry are a sham, as the idea that cultured meat is a greener option is based on nonexistent technologies rather than the technologies that are in use”.
Mission Barns, which makes imitation bacon and meatballs by mixing pea protein with cultured meat and pig fat produced by cell culture to give the “meat” the flavor and aroma of real pork, claims that no animals are ever harmed in its cultured meat process.
All that is required to grow the meat, they say, is a “small sample [of fat cells] from a pig”, which isn’t harmed by the biopsy and goes on to live a normal, healthy life.
The question is, what are the collected cells grown in?
“Cultured or cell-based meats must be grown in a nutrient-rich media, and most are still using fetal bovine serum (FBS)”, Mercola noted.
“Unless FBS is abandoned across the cultured meat industry, it’s easy to foresee a future in which cows are raised and impregnated simply to supply the fake meat industry with FBS, which takes both food waste and animal cruelty to entirely new levels”, Mercola wrote.
Mercola also questioned if the pigs from which Mission Barns takes its samples have been treated with mRNA “vaccines”.
In a May 11 substack.com article, Mercola wrote that pork producers in the US and Canada have been using customizable mRNA-based “vaccines” on their herds since 2018, and the only part of this gene-based “vaccine” technology that has been approved is the mRNA platform itself.
“All customized mRNA injections created using this platform are untested. The safety is assumed, based on a single stud involving 748 piglets, which were given two doses of an unspecified mRNA Sequivity injection. Of those, 29.8 percent suffered a serious adverse event, including 24 deaths”, Mercola wrote.
“When adding together death, anorexia (wasting) and unthrifty (failure to thrive), 11.5 percent of the animals were lost to vaccine injury. That’s a loss of more than 1 out of 10 animals, which hardly seems safe”, Mercola continued.
“Moreover, there are no safety studies at all related to human consumption of Sequivity-treated animals, let alone meat grown from mRNA-treated cells. Health authorities insist there are no problems associated with eating mRNA-treated meat, but they have absolutely no evidence to back that up. It’s pure conjecture based on unproven assumptions”.
