Author: Robby Berman / Source: Big Think
- Cellular agriculture, or cell-ag, is a new form of lab-grown agricultural products.
- Burger King is testing its first major foray into the field.
- A new report lists 90 reasons that cell-ag holds a lot of promise.
Burger King has just announced they’re testing a new version of their Whopper that’s completely free of actual beef, in 59 locations around St.
Louis. Not that even Whopper devotees can tell the difference, according to reports. It’s called the “Impossible Whopper.” (Impossible Burgers and Beyond Meat burgers are already available in grocery stores.) The food chain isn’t the first to offer a lab-grown meat option, but Burger King’s announcement is a very big deal. While the new Whopper’s currently in testing, if it becomes available at its 7,200 restaurants, it means millions of consumers will be introduced to an animal-free meat option that’s every bit as satisfying as traditional fare. For those concerned about their health, climate change, and animal rights, there might be no turning back. A new report serves up 90 reasons why.Welcome to cellular agriculture
The report is called 90 Reasons to Consider Cellular Agriculture. “Cellular agriculture,” or “cell-ag,” is a form of food and clothing manufacture that produces products indistinguishable from traditional offerings without the necessity of raising — and killing — live animals.
As author Kris Gasteratos notes in the report’s introduction, modern animal husbandry is no longer the industry we’ve known for thousands of years: “While animal products have been incredibly positive for society over multiple generations, today they are proving more destructive than beneficial with the rise of factory farming.” Gasteratos is a researcher at Harvard and founder of the Cellular Agriculture Society. The report’s cumulative effect is overwhelming: 90 good reasons is a lot of good reasons. They’re arranged in categories: Health, Environment, Human & Animal Rights, and Business and Economics. Here’s a brief summary of each.
( Cellular Agriculture Society)
Some current gobal cell-ag businesses
The health case
This section contains, among other things, a list of the things we won’t get from lab-grown cell-ag foods, including:
- pathogens like Salmonella and E. Coli
- fecal contamination
- meat and seafood growth hormones
- mad-cow disease prions
- botulism
- swine and avian flu, and other illnesses
- plastic particles in “seafood”
- mercury in “seafood”
- animal-production antibiotics that accelerate the development of resistant superbugs
Cell-ag also looks to promote greater food production stability and predictability, and can scale to help feed the planet’s growing population. Their contaminant-free growing environment gives cell-ag…
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