Week 5: Cultured Meat

Question 1

What is the problem with meat consumption?

Answer 1

by 2050 as our population approaches 10 billion people, global meat consumption will increase dramatically

• current meat production systems will not be able to sustainably support the growing demand for meat
• the livestock industry contributes to detrimental environmental effects, threatens hjuman health, and kills billions of animals which would only get worse

Question 2

What is being done with cellular agriculture?

Answer 2

scientists can engineer animal cells to create products such as meat that are almost indistinguishable from traditional agriculture products

Question 3

What cellular meat is sold in singapore?

Answer 3

cultured chicken nuggets

• in 2020, became first country to approve cultured chicken nuggest for sale nationwide
• people can eat chicken without the death of a single chicken

Question 4

Who is Matt Anderson Baron?

Answer 4

CEO of Future Fields which develop GF proteins for cellular agriculture

Question 5

Why is cellular meat so expensive?

Answer 5

feed/ nutrition for the cells is expensive

Question 6

What is the future hope for cellular meat?

Answer 6

That cellular meat will become the conventional choice and animal agriculture will become the premium such that only local and sustainable farms produce animal agricultural meat.

Question 7

Price comparison of cultured meat versus agriculture meat

Answer 7

cultured meat: ~ $40-50/lb

agriculture meat (poultry): ~ 2.50/lb

Question 8

Schematic of cultured meat production

Answer 8

• cells can divide quite quickly once in a nutritious medium.
• once there is enough biomass can get them to differentiate into myotubles
• when they differentiate can fuse together to form muscle fibre
• muscle fibre can be processed
• mimicks ground beef pretty good but needs scaffolding for other things like steak

Question 9

What is the challenge with cultured meat production?

Answer 9

nutrient broth: GF proteins needed which signal cells what to do. the cells can be taken out but wont divide without GF but it is hard to get GFs.

Question 10

What is needed for cellular meat to become a commercially viable industry?

Answer 10

tissue needs to be grown efficiently at scale

Question 11

What is the cell culture media composed of?

Answer 11

contain growth factors, which are substances containing signalling molecules that cause cells to multiply and differeniate

Question 12

What doe