USDA Approves the Sale of Lab-Grown Meat

Facts

• On Wednesday, two California-based companies, Upside Foods and Good Meat, said the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) had approved them as producers and retailers of laboratory-grown meat.¹
• The approval allows the USDA to inspect their lab-grown or cultured meat facilities — in the same way as traditional meat processing facilities and slaughterhouses — and label the meat as "cell-cultivated chicken."²
• Before moving to retail sales, the companies reportedly plan to launch their product at high-end restaurants in San Francisco and Washington, DC.³
• This is the first time lab-grown meat — derived from a sample of livestock cells fed and grown in steel vats — will be sold to US consumers.⁴
• In November, the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) gave a safety clearance to lab-grown meat for the first time, concluding the food "made from cultured chicken cells" was safe to eat.⁵
• The USFDA and USDA approval makes the United States the second country in the world, after Singapore, to authorize the production and sale of cell-based meat.⁶

Sources: ¹CNN, ²CNBC, ³Reuters, ⁴Al Jazeera, ⁵U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and ⁶New York Times.

Narratives

• Narrative A, as provided by NBC. Lab-grown meat reduces the harm and suffering associated with traditional animal agriculture as it does not involve raising, exploiting, or slaughtering animals. As livestock production generates 14.5% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, cultivated meat is an environment-friendly and relatively sustainable alternative for meat eaters looking for a more humane option.
• Narrative B, as provided by Daily Mail. This "safer and sustainable" alternative to traditional meat is grown in a setting more familiar to the pharmaceutical industry than the food sector. Stealing cells from a living animal still breaches animal rights, which means lab-grown meat has the potential for continued animal exploitation in the production process. Furthermore, cultivated meat's environmental impact is in reality higher than traditional farming, as it currently uses more energy to produce.

Predictions