Lab-grown meat is up to 25 times more harmful to the environment than beef

Growing hamburgers and steaks from cultured cells may be seen as the future of the MEAT industry, but a new analysis shows that mass-producing lab-grown meat using modern technology could be significantly worse for the environment than real beef . At present, animal cell-based meat is only produced on a very small scale and at an economic cost, although a yet-to-be-peer-reviewed study suggests that scaling up the process could lead to 4 to 25 times higher emissions than the global meat industry . The study is currently available as a preprint on the bioRxiv website.

According to the authors of the study, "billions of investment dollars have been specifically earmarked for the laboratory meat sector with the thesis that this product will be more environmentally friendly than beef." However, while lab-grown meat does eliminate the need for land, water, and antibiotics in raising cattle , the researchers explain that much of the interest in cultured meat has been driven by inaccurate analysis of carbon emissions.

The problem, they say, is that many of these reports modeled the impact of such meat on the climate .using technologies that either do not exist or are unlikely to work. For example, one oft-cited study assessed carbon emissions from laboratory meat production using cyanobacterial hydrolyzate as cell feedstock. However, the researchers of this latest analysis explain that "this is not the technology or raw material currently used for animal cell proliferation, nor is it something that is currently close to feasibility."

Other highly publicized reports have attempted to analyze the environmental impact of cultured meat produced using components of the food growing medium. However, this process is currently only possible using pharmaceutical grade nutritional formulas purified to a much higher level.