If you think lab-created beef comes with a palpable nasty factor, you’re not alone.
The $330,000 burger created from cow stem cells that was unveiled in London last week may be a cool experiment, but it was met with pushback from those repulsed by the thought of chowing down a hamburger grown in a petri dish.
After all, who wants to eat someone’s science project?
So let’s go ahead and call it a Frankenburger and turn up our First World noses at a concept that could be a game-changer as the world struggles to accommodate a growing taste for meat.
By 2050, worldwide meat demand is , with most of the appetite for animal protein coming from the developing world, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
Increasing incomes and changing food preferences are driving those trends. Yet, doubling meat production is a challenge in a world where livestock already takes up 70 percent of agricultural land — and 30 percent of the planet’s land surface, according to the a report by the U.N. food group.
Beyond the real estate needed to continue business as usual, ramping up livestock production would have serious environmental impacts.
“The bottom line is that getting much more food from natural systems may not be possible,” according to the .
So, what is to be done?
Well, efforts such as the synthetic burger — which wasn’t, by the way, genetically modified — have potential to transform the food supply. It’s far from commercial scale, but innovations such as a beef produced without feedlots could help accommodate the estimated people expected to inhabit the planet by 2050.
Beyond beef, there is significant potential in aquafarming and innovation in plant sciences. But with advances, come opponents.
Colorado State University soil and crop sciences professor Patrick Byrne told me objectors generally fall into three categories: Those who fear a few companies may gain too much control; those who think it’s ethically wrong to manipulate an organism, especially its DNA; and those who believe there aren’t enough data to safely pursue these advances.
The first two objections should be overcome by pragmatism, reasonable regulation and the need to responsibly feed the world.
As for the third, the lack of data is a solvable problem. But when you have protesters destroying test crops, as they did , progress will be slow.
In that instance, a trial patch of “Golden Rice,” genetically modified to fight vitamin A deficiency, was torn up and trampled.
The lack of vitamin A increases the chance of blindness and disease and is a serious problem in developing countries, especially among children and pregnant women.
Golden Rice is modified by adding extra genes that enable the plant’s ability to create beta-carotene, which humans can convert to vitamin A. It could help a lot of kids.
However, an open mind is necessary. As Josh Schonwald, writes in his book ” ,” there is a dangerous “foodie-fundamentalism” in this nation often accompanied by an anti-science bent.
Pairing a locally grown, seasonal mesclun mix with cobia, a saltwater fish raised in an indoor fish farm, should not be, as Schonwald says, “an incompatible, ethically confused-choice.”
The same goes for “cultured meat” and its potential place on a diverse menu. Beef grown in a lab isn’t something that will be accepted overnight, if ever. But it’s an idea with world-changing potential that deserves a chance.
E-mail Denver Post editorial writer Alicia Caldwell at acaldwell@ denverpost.com. Follow her on Twitter: @AliciaMCaldwell
