U.S. Government Gives “Lab Grown” Meat with Chemicals Seal of Approval

(ConservativeInsider.org) – US government regulators have given the go-ahead for meat made from animal cells and produced in laboratories to be sold in restaurants. Although the cultivated meat is still too expensive to compete with standard “real meat” products such as beef, turkey, chicken, lamb, fish and pork, the regulatory approval extends to sales in supermarkets as well.

Two companies based in California, Good Meat and Upside Foods, have been given approval to sell chicken cultivated from animal cells, as opposed to chickens which have been reared and then slaughtered for food. The companies say that this form of meat production reduces animal waste, the process of having to grow food for reared animals and the environmental effects of grazing.

The approval follows an earlier ruling from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) which has declared that laboratory-produced meat is safe for human consumption, and the two California companies that have been approved for production have said that the process has led to a historic, ground-breaking, and world-changing moment.

Meat that has been cultivated in laboratories is grown using cells from a living animal or a fertilised egg. The end product comes in the form of large sheets which are then shaped into cutlets, nuggets, or sausages. One of the companies, Good Meat, already has a large market for the product in Singapore, which was the first country to approve the manufacture and sale of such products.

There are over 150 companies currently engaged in cultivated meat research, and market analysts say that it is only a matter of time before economies of scale allow the finished product to drop to a price point where it would be economical to sell it in supermarkets.

It is widely thought that a certain amount of education will be required before the public becomes convinced of its suitability for replacing real meat. Over half of adults in the US polled by a research organisation said they would not want to try it, citing safety concerns, and the fact that “it just sounds weird.”