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Imagine that you are sitting down to eat dinner with your family. Today s meal is slow-cooked meat and vegetables. This stew is warm and smells very good. However, there is something different about it. No animals were killed to make this meal. The meat does not come from an animal. Instead, it is from a laboratory. Would you still eat this dinner?
This may sound like a strange idea but it is a real possibility. Scientists have been working to grow meat in vitro, or in a laboratory, for many years. You may have heard another Spotlight program about in vitro meat. That program looked at a $1,000,000 award. The organization, PETA, offered this award. The award is for the creation of good-tasting in vitro chicken meat. No one has received PETA s award yet. However, scientists in the Netherlands have recently made a small amount of in vitro meat. Today s Spotlight program is about in vitro meat - both its problems and advantages for the future.
Scientists in the Netherlands have been working for years to develop in vitro meat. In the laboratory, they mix cells from a horse and a pig. They feed the cells a solution full of necessary nutrients. And they provide the cells with light to help them grow. The cells increase in number and grow into a small piece of muscle or meat. However, food and light is not enough. In vitro meat also needs exercise.
Imagine a cow. It walks each day in the field. This exercise helps its muscles grow bigger and stronger. If the cow did not walk, its muscles would become smaller and weaker. And this cow would provide poor meat. In the same way, scientists must also exercise in vitro meat to keep it growing. This exercise will also make it feel and taste like real meat. So, scientists exercise the meat in two ways - by stretching it and shocking it with electricity.
Right now, the meat that scientists have made is very small. It is only a few centimeters long and one centimeter wide. It is also not the same color as animal meat. Instead, it is grey. This is because in vitro meat does not need blood to grow. And blood is what gives meat its color. But scientists hope to make in vitro meat look more like real meat in the future.
The way in vitro meat looks is not its only problem. Right now, it takes a long time for the meat to grow. And scientists do not know how to make a large amount. It also costs a lot of money to make in vitro meat. Making enough for one meal would cost $250,000. However, as scientists continue to produce more in vitro meat, they hope cost will go down. They also hope that someday people will be able to buy it in their local market.
Producing in vitro meat has many problems. However scientists continue to work because in vitro meat would have many advantages. Michael Specter is a writer for The New Yorker magazine. He told National Public Radio:
We have 7 billion people on the planet...Those people need food. They need the healthy substance protein - and they will eat better as they get wealthier. And better, sadly, means more like Americans - a lot of meat. And a lot of meat means a lot of water, a lot of grain, a lot of grass. And we do not have that much room for any of it.