Today, Explained - Let’s eat lab meat

Episode Date: January 3, 2023

Happy New Year! Maybe you’re interested in trying new things? Sean and his mom are. In today’s episode, they drive to Alameda, California to try “hybrid meat” — a mixture of lab-grown meat and veggie meat substitute that could deliver a more sustainable (but still meaty) future. This episode was produced by Miles Bryan, edited by Jolie Myers, fact-checked by Laura Bullard with help from Siona Peterous and Hady Mawajdeh, engineered by Efim Shapiro, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained   Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Happy New Year! What are your resolutions? You open to trying new things? How about lab-grown meat? They take some chicken cells, real chicken cells from real chickens, then they feed them hungry chicken cells, salts, sugars, amino acids. A few cells turn into tons of cells, then they feed them more and more and more. A lot of cells turns into a mushy chicken substance. This is all happening in bigger and bigger tanks as they go. It kinda looks like brewing beer. Then they separate this mushy chicken substance from all the nutrients they've

been feeding it, hand that mushy chicken product to gourmet chefs and food developers who mold it into something that you'd actually wanna eat. Something with texture that replicates muscles and flesh, then it's time to grub. If you're like, hell no, but someone else can go right ahead, well, I've got great news for you. I'm about to, in a minute, on Today Explained. This NFL season, get in on all the hard-hitting action with FanDuel,

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Back at it with Today Explained, Sean Ramos-Verm here with Vox's Kenny Torella, who's got the word on the street on the meat beat. A big story on the meat beat is that in November, the Food and Drug Administration gave the thumbs up to the lab-grown meat company Upside Foods, saying that their process for creating lab-grown meat looks good to the FDA. So far, the FDA has only given clearance for chicken made from cultured chicken cells by Upside. The process is described as similar to brewing beer, but instead of growing yeast or microbes, they grow animal cells. Tastes like chicken. It's not necessarily a watershed moment because Upside Foods can't start selling its product right away.

They first need USDA approval. And we don't know when or if that will come. And really, it's still an open question as to whether lab-grown meat can ever be widely available on fast food menus, on grocery store shelves, because it's still really expensive to produce. Why is this a big deal though, Kenny? Because you can already find Beyond Burgers, Impossible Burgers in almost any grocery store in any major American city. Yeah. I like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, but a lot of people don't. All right. Rough times for Beyond Meat, the company losing money and amassing debt with a recent- Sales of plant-based meats have been declining.

You know, there was a really big boom starting in the mid-2010s and throughout the first year of COVID where there was a lot of buzz around plant-based meat. Sales were going up and up and up. But over the last year, that growth has stalled. And in some categories, it's even begun to decline. People just aren't coming back for more. Why is that? Well, I think ultimately it comes down to that most people just don't think it tastes good enough. They want something better, something that tastes even more like meat. Now, I think a lot of these products are definitely an improvement on, you know, the early 2000s veggie burgers that tasted more like

cardboard. But I think to the average person, a Beyond Burger isn't a perfect replica or nowhere near a perfect replica of a hamburger. And remind us, Kenny, what these companies, Beyond and Impossible, what problem they're trying to solve? There's not just one problem. There are several problems related to industrialized meat production. The first one is climate change. Globally, the meat, dairy, and eggs we produce and eat account for about 15% of greenhouse gas emissions. So it's up there with other major polluters. And cows, well, they burp a lot.

And those burps are mostly methane, which is a greenhouse gas 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide. There is also the issue of antibiotic resistance. So most of the antibiotics used globally aren't being given to people in hospitals, but they're being fed to farmed animals to make them grow faster or as a way to prevent disease. As a result, bacteria on farms are growing resistant to these drugs and in turn, making them less effective for humans. It's something public health researchers are really worried about.

Each year in the U.S. alone, at least 2 million people become infected with bacteria resistant to antibiotics. And at least 23,000 people die as a direct result of those infections. And then, of course, there's also the question of animal suffering. You know, what does it mean that we raise and kill billions of animals in pretty terrible conditions every year when alternatives exist? And so this is how we get to beyond and impossible, these plant-based meat alternatives. But that's not the news here. You're here with news that something else is going on concurrently,

which is lab-grown meat. How long have people been trying to develop lab-grown meat? Well, the idea first came from an unlikely source, Winston Churchill. What? Yeah. In the 1930s, years before he was the prime minister of the United Kingdom, he wondered whether we'd ever be able to grow meat from animal cells rather than from live animals. We should fight on the beaches. We should fight on the landing grounds. We should fight for a more ethical and climate-friendly meat alternative.

But it wasn't until the early 2000s that, of all government agencies, NASA put money into trying to actually make lab-grown meat. And they did it for astronauts in space. Are they all vegetarians? No. Their intention was that, you know, you can't bring live animals up into space, but their thinking was maybe we could make little lab-grown meat factories in our spaceships. And so they gave some researchers money to grow turkey cells, but also goldfish cells. Are we eating goldfish in space? We are not, as far as I know. Who knows what they're doing up there?

But I don't know why they tried to grow goldfish of all species. They were successful, but it was costly and nothing ever really came from it. It wasn't until about 10 years later that a Dutch scientist named Mark Post kicked off the whole lab-grown meat craze as we understand it today. He unveiled a $325,000 hamburger. Whoa. It was weighed in at just five ounces, so it was about a million dollars a pound. And it was really a way to show that this is possible. I was expecting the texture to be more soft. There's really a bite to it.

It's close to meat. It's not that juicy. And then beginning in 2016, a number of startups launched primarily in the San Francisco Bay area, trying to make affordable lab-grown meat. And now there are over 100 around the world. There's been a lot of money poured into the field. And there's also been a lot of hype with startups promising products just around the corner that haven't come to fruition, whether it's because of regulatory approval, which hasn't come yet, or because of these technical and economic challenges that they face. So it's a long way off, if ever, if this succeeds. But there is an in-between,

a sort of bridge option known in the lab-grown meat sector, which is called hybrid meat or blended meat. What's the hybrid, fake meat and real meat? Not quite. So actually, which is called hybrid meat or blended meat. What's the hybrid? Fake meat and real meat? Not quite. So actually, it's called hybrid because it's a mix of lab-grown meat and plant-based meat. So like lab-grown meat, this thing that's this moonshot plus the kind of Beyond Burger Impossible meat kind of meat? Right. So the idea is combining the benefits of plant-based meat that it's relatively cheap to produce, consumers are familiar with it, and then mix in some animal cells, some lab-grown meat to make it taste more like an animal and to do it in a way that is more affordable than doing, say, a 100%, $325,000 lab-grown hamburger. How's it taste, Kenny?

Have you tried it? I have, yeah. I tried a burger from a startup appropriately called Sci-Fi Foods, which is based right outside San Francisco. They got a rebrand, Sci-Fi Foods? No one's going to buy that. I first came across the idea of growing meat outside the animal actually reading a science fiction book.

Really? Almost 15 years ago. Wow. And I've been dreaming about making it possible ever since then. Sean, go to their website right now. Go to it right now. Okay. Sci-fi foods.

Yeah. You'll see that there are cows floating around in bubbles. Is this serious? It looks like an eight-year-old dreamed up this website. Oh man, we're doomed. Well, they are one of, you know, more than a hundred trying to do this. And I have to say though, it tasted good. Huh.

It tasted like a better Impossible Burger, which is I think what they're going for. They told me that what I tried was around 85% plant-based meat, you know, with soy protein as the main ingredient, and then 15% or so from lab-grown meat. You and I have been to dinner together before, Kenny, so I feel like I can trust your taste here, but can we get a frame of reference for at least your meat consumption here? You're saying this tasted pretty good, better than impossible meat. But when was the last time you ate real meat, if ever? So I'm busted here. So I am not the best taste tester for a lot of these startups because I have been vegan for about 15 years.

15 years? How old are you? I'm 35. So you hardly remember what meat tastes like. You know, I'm not the best taste tester. And so I'd love to hear what you think, Sean. Wait, you want me to go to the Sci-Fi Food Company and try their bubbly cow food? Well, I didn't give them a call, but there is a company nearby in the San Francisco Bay Area called Eat Just that makes a cell-cultured chicken product. Huh.

I got to try it. I thought it was pretty good. You know, I'm in California right now, Kenny. Well, you're in luck because the company Eat Just said that they'd be happy to have you taste some of their cell-cultured chicken. I'm going because they have a better name than sci-fi foods. Coming up, Sean and his mom visit a lab-grown meat factory. You're listening to Today Explained. I'm Kenny Tore comes from Aura. Aura believes that sharing pictures is a great way to keep up with family,

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Explained. Hello, it's me, Kenny Torella, with the word on the street on the meat beat once more. And the word on the street one early morning in mid-December was that Sean and his mom, known affectionately as Mama Chits, set out on a road trip through California's Central Valley. Today explained, Sean Ramos from Look at All the Cows. Look at all the cows. Look at all the cows. Look at the cows. Sean Ramos from In the cows. Sean Ramosforum

in the car with Mom Ramosforum. Say hello, Mom. Hi. We are passing thousands and thousands of cows on the side of the 5 freeway. Can we smell the manure yet? Oh, don't put the window down. No, no, no. We don't want to smell it that bad. You can smell the cows. It's the privilege of driving between Los Angeles and San Francisco. You get to smell our meat addiction. Chits, do you know where we're driving? Yes.

Where? Alameda. Alameda, California. To eat Just headquarters. Do you know what we're going to do there? Meat taste. We're going to meat taste. Do you know what kind of meat?

Real meat and fake meat, is it? It's actually something in between. It's called hybrid meat. Are you excited? I am looking forward to it. Sean and Mama Chits arrived at Eat Just in the mid-afternoon. After walking their canine, Snowy, they asked her politely to wait in the car and headed into the Eat Just lobby to meet company CEO Joshua Tetrick.

The startup vibes were dank, to say the least. You are like a CEO in a beanie and a hoodie. Well, you know where I'm headed. I'm headed to Appleton, Minnesota. We have one of our manufacturing facilities there. You know, December, Appleton, Minnesota, Western Minnesota. Not appropriate for CEO clothes. So tell me, are you a vegetarian?

Are you vegan? Well, we need a new term for me now because I'm vegan except I eat our chicken. And our chicken is definitely not vegan. Joshua led Sean and Mama Chitz on a tour of the company's production facility. It was real live science on display. So this is our cell culture area. So when you make real meat without the need to slaughter an animal, you've got to start somewhere and you start with a cell. Yeah. So you get that cell from

a biopsy of an animal, get it from an egg and get it from a cell bank. So those cells come here. Okay. And we begin the process of what's called developing the cell line. And all that means is let's try to figure out a way to move it from a single cell to many, many hundreds of millions of cells that ultimately look and feel and taste like the meat that you're used to. So this is step one. They're characterizing the cell. They're understanding what enables the cell to grow. For example, what amino acids does it need? Sugar, salts, fats, et cetera. And what this looks like is like someone taking 50 COVID tests at once, almost with just like putting various liquid into small plastic tubes, none of the nostril stuff,

but this is the lab grown meat part of the equation. Is that fair? Yeah, definitely. Yeah. This is, this is where the research starts. It is, It is a lab. We're trying to figure out a way to take a cell and scale it up. And this is, millions of dollars of infrastructure and folks that we've recruited from pharmaceutical companies. Their PhD is, again, in molecular biology and cell biology. And they all come here because they want to use their energy to try to figure out a way to solve this meat thing. I wonder if you could share with us maybe just general numbers, how much money will it take to get this to the place where, let's say, a significant share of this country is eating cultivated meat? Well, I'll tell you, my life goal is before I die, I want the majority of meat

consumed on the planet to be free of slaughtering an animal and all the consequences that come with it. That's what I want. And I'm hoping I die somewhere after 90 because I need a little bit more. It's going to take a while. It's going to take a while. I need a little bit more time to make it happen. After a while, Joshua had to go catch a flight. But his departure brought Sean and Mama Chitz to the moment we've all been waiting for, the taste test. Perhaps you're expecting chicken breast? Well, on that fateful day,

Chef Chris had some other ideas. But the chefs get to have a little bit of fun on some of these courses. It's fall, so we wanted to kind of bring in a lot of the seasonal flavors. So golden beets, sweet potatoes, pe pepito seeds pomegranate a little bit of chiffonade parsley that's the salad underneath it's gonna have a little bit of paprika and some cayenne to give a little kick um we don't want to distract from what's on top though yes you haven't even mentioned

the chicken yet which looks to me like like almost like pork rindy or something this is actually chicken skin. It's one of our newest developments. Wow, Chits is smiling about the chicken skin. Are you excited? Yes, I can taste it. Why are you so excited? Well, I do like crispy chicken skin.

She's a human. Who doesn't love crispy chicken skin? I know I do. After they got done with the chicken skin, it was time for the piece de resistance, a clay pot rice dish with pan seared chicken on top. Big moment, Chits, here we go. I'm gonna do like a little mix.

Mm. Tastes real. Delicious. It tastes like chicken. Alright. Mmm. Is it good? Yeah. It's like chicken nuggets. But tastier.

Way tastier the chicken nuggets. I got to apologize right now to Kenny Torello at Vox because the whole reason I'm here is that we said, Kenny, have you tried this lab cultivated meat? And he said, yeah, it's pretty good. And we said, but when was the last time you ate real meat? And he was like, you know, 20 years ago when I was in high school. And now I'm sitting here and I've bitten into the fatty, meaty chicken. And Kenny was right. It tastes exactly the same. Oh, it did. Well, I accept your apology. And Kenny was right. It tastes exactly the same.

Oh, it did. Well, I accept your apology. I'd love to hear what you thought of it. I mean, what I thought was they've done something rather extraordinary here. They've served me up some chicken that tastes just like chicken, except no animal had to die for this chicken. But the process is gargantuan. Is that true for the rest of the lab meat startups out there, Kenny? What are the big challenges that the industry is facing as a whole? There are a lot. The first one is just figuring out how to make cells grow fast without what is called fetal bovine serum. Delicious sounding. It's the blood of a cow fetus.

And cell culture, you know, whether it's done for medical research or for this, you know, tiny industry of lab-grown meat, depends on the blood of a cow fetus. It makes cells grow really, really fast. And startups are obviously, you know, trying to get away from relying on it because it means killing an animal. And it's very, very expensive. Another major challenge is preventing bacterial contamination. Around 20% of all animal production is lost to disease. Animals get sick, they die. And the same thing can happen to these cells.

If bacteria makes its way into these facilities that are creating lab-grown meat, it could spoil a batch and, you know, make a company lose out hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. And another one is just the massive scale. There was one estimate that said that producing 10% of the global meat supply chain from lab-grown meat would cost $2 trillion in factory costs. $2 trillion? $2 trillion. But it's also worth pointing out that the factory farm system we have today has been 100 years in the making and has benefited from a lot of governmental support in the way of subsidies and research and development. One thing I often say is that the price of meat is artificial. It's animals who pay the cost. It's people who live near these factory farms who pay the cost.

The workers who toil in dangerous conditions. Meat may be cheap on the supermarket shelf or at a fast food menu, but there's someone paying the cost there. Okay, so lab-grown meat has a host of intimidating hurdles ahead from tech to financing to logistics. But Kenny, to quote Marvin and Tammy, or maybe Ashford and Simpson, ain't nothing like the real thing. And the real thing is real easy to do compared to all this work they're doing to make the alternative. What's it going to take to get over that? It's going to take a lot. They're going to have to persuade consumers not to just to try this novel food product, but to actually come back and purchase it and start purchasing it instead of the factory farmed chicken. In surveys so far, consumers are mixed.

Usually a good amount will say that they are open to trying and eating lab-grown chicken or other meats. But a survey is really different from consumer behavior. People say one thing in a survey, they do another thing when they're inside a grocery store and they see price differences or they fall into what you just alluded to, the naturalistic fallacy. If something is natural, even if it's bad for the planet, it's bad for the animals, that might be seen as preferable. A lot of the startup founders that I've talked to, maybe five years ago, they were hyping this up as something that's around the corner, that's going to totally disrupt the meat market. But I'm starting to hear more measured comments from founders saying that if this succeeds,

it's going to take not just years, but decades. Well, Kenny, I remember the last time we went out to dinner, we went out for hot pot, and there was a mix of vegetarians and carnivores at the table. But I look forward to the day where we can go to that hot pot spot in Northern Virginia and maybe have some lab-grown meat on the table so that no animals can be harmed in the making of our dinner. That'd be hot. I love it.

I think it works. I think it works. That was Sean Ramosforum. He went to eat just with Mom Ramosforum and Snowy, who lamentably didn't get to try any chicken. The program today was produced by Miles Bryan and edited by Jolie Myers with help from Matthew Collette. It was fact-checked by Laura Bullard

with help from Siona Petros and Hadi Mouagdi. And we were mixed and mastered by Efim Shapiro and Paul Robert Mounsey. I'm Kenny Torella. This is Today Explained.