You’ve likely heard of lab-grown meats, but there are quite a few differences between different types. What are they, how are they made, what are their advantages, and what on earth are people doing, growing ‘meat’ if they want to be vegan? Let’s find out:
Redefine Meat is making waves in the food industry. This is not the same lab-grown meat (making meat from a few animal cells). Instead this is made with plant-based ingredients, and uses modern technology to create meat that looks, tastes and even carves like the real thing.
Before cooking, read up on food safety for people and pets (these ‘meats’ may contain pet-toxic ingredients like onion, garlic and salt).
It may sound a bit Frankenstein, but this kind of meat is far kinder and safer, and could also be used to make pet food (more on that below). And ‘real meat’ can contain pathogens, blood, poop, feathers, bones and other things you likely don’t want to eat.
Lab-grown meats are different, in that they take a few cells from a living animal, and then add cultures and ‘grow the meat’ in a test tube, a bit like how yoghurt is made. Without any animals suffering. Just one cell can provide meat for millions.
Newer meats (called 3D-printed meats) like Redefine Steak above, do the same but with plants. Replacing conventional meat with lab-grown meat can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 98%, land use by 99%, water use by 96% and energy use by 45%.
England does not have enough land for everyone to eat free-range. So most meat sold in the UK is from factory-farms, not your local farmers. And many farmers (due to welfare issues and lack of income) are transfarming over anyway to grow oats, for the thriving oat milk industry.
Remaining animals are then free to live out their lives in peace. Cows and sheep won’t ‘go extinct’, if not bred for meat, they are over-bred at present, so numbers would just revert to normal.
The Importance of Texture and Taste
Let’s face it. The main reason why people at meat, is due to taste. That is why vegan fast food chains that sell burgers are so popular. But ‘meat’ by itself usually is not responsible for taste and texture.
It’s the added ingredients and smoking/curing that creates the final product. So if companies can produce ethical alternatives that also have lower carbon footprints, zero cholesterol and are kind to animals, what’s not to love?
Pig Meat (without harming pigs)
Mission Barns was founded to help reduce climate emissions from livestock farming, which also creates foods to feed millions, without more animal suffering, deforestation and water pollution.
This company (harmlessly) took one sample culture from Dawn the pig, then cultivated it in a lab, to mimic her body. Then it added sugar, proteins and vitamins. The sample is then ‘fattened’ in the cultivator. After two weeks, it’s combined with plant-proteins to make ‘pig meat’.
Meanwhile, Dawn continues to roam free with her friends, at her home at an animal sanctuary. The company says she is happily unaware that her cells could feed millions of people, and save millions of her fellow pigs!
The same process is then applied to other creatures: chickens, cows and ducks. This San Francisco company is already producing sausages, bacon and meatballs.
Throughout history, the only way to eat meat has been to take the life of an animal. Now for the first time, we can cultivate meat without harm. Mission Barns
Meatable is presently undergoing taste tests in the Netherlands, before launching onto the market with ‘meat’ without foetal bovine serum. This company specialises in lab-grown pork.
New Age Eats says it’s a new day for pigs, with their pork! They make ‘the sausage that pigs root for’!
Steak (made without harming cows)
Mosa Meat ‘grows beef’ from a sesame-seed sized sample of cells, which can make up to 80,000 burgers, with no animal harmed.
This company was founded by animal welfare scientists in The Netherlands, concerned that most people will continue to eat meat. The tiny sample is taken from a cow by a vet, then the cow is free to roam the fields. Orbillion also makes beef.
Aleph Farms creates lab-grown steak, by creating collagen (rather than from cow carcasses). Meat accounts for less than 40% of profit from cows, the rest is made into collagen products (like in some supplements and beauty products), pet food and waste.
‘Beef collagen’ is made by boiling cow hides and carcasses. The cow cells require no animal slaughter.
This company is based in Israel and interestingly is undergoing Kosher certification, already being approved by Rabbis.
This could therefore lead the way for lab-grown meats to be accepted also for Halal certification, to avoid religious slaughter (no-stunning), though it’s perfectly possible for Jews and Muslims to be vegan, and still follow religious beliefs. The company also has plans to make lab-grown lamb and fish.
Chicken (made without harming chickens!)
Good Meat is already being sold at butcher shops. Made without tearing down a forest, or taking a life. This company focuses on chicken in every form from fillets to sausages. It was founded by a company already making a ‘vegan egg’.
Tuna (made from fish cells)
BlueNalu is doing the same, but this time for seafood to prevent over-fishing and by-catch of dolphins, seals, whales, sea turtles and sharks (often caught in nets). Tuna is presently one of the most endangered fish, and this company has created a lab-made alternative, by taking cells from one fish.
Aussie lab-grown meat (kangaroo-friendly)
Vow (Australia) calls itself the ‘spaceship of the cultured meat industry’. Already fine-dining restaurants are serving its meat, with its first brand Forged by Vow sold directly to consumers. Its products include cultures to make kangaroo, water buffalo and alpaca meats
Plus Forged Gras (a quail-version of foie gras, made usually by force-feeding ducks and geese, until their pates turn to liver).
Gourmey has done the impossible: a French company making cultured pate de foie gras, approved by top French chefs! It even now has a Michelin starred chef on board.
Complete Protein (made from air!)
Air Protein grows in hours (compared to 2 years for beef or 1 year for soy). This company whisks together the ‘elements of air’ with cultures in the same way that cheese and wine is made.
Water is then removed to make a flour, that can be used to make the base of many protein foods, without animals.
This company was created by two doctors (who specialise in physics and biology), who rediscovered the way that astronauts were fed in space, during a 1970s space program. This protein needs no arable land, and contains all amino acid proteins.
Meat (made from Fungi!)
The Better Meat Co is different in that it’s a complete protein meat alternative, but made from rhiza mycoprotein (the root system of fungi).
It’s the only mycroprotein ingredient deemed by USDA as suitable for inclusion in animal meat, with more protein than eggs, more iron and zinc than beef, more fibre than oats and more potassium than bananas.
This company turns it into burgers, steak, chicken, crab, fish, deli slices, hot dogs, foie gras, bacon, meatballs, taco meat and jerky.
It’s made by fermenting potatoes, rice and corn, to create a high protein food within hours, that has the natural texture of animal meat. It’s not mushrooms, as most fungi are not mushrooms. It’s basically feeding starchy foods to microscopic fungi. Founder Paul Shapiro has written a guide to Clean Meat (and his wife writes vegan cookbooks!)
Using Lab-Grown Meats for Pet Food
Of course these meats are not just helping to provide ‘real meat’ for people that like the taste and texture (while being kind to animals). But it’s an exciting area, as it enables ‘real meat’ to be made for animals that need it.
For instance, domestic cats are ‘obligate carnivores’ that do best on meat. And if you run a sanctuary for lions rescued from zoos, they are not going to be happy (or healthy) if you feed them tofu burgers.
The company Meatly has become the first to make ‘chicken’ for the commercial pet food industry from lab-grown protein. It began by taking cells from one single chicken egg, to make pet food forever.
It then grows these cells in a lab controlling temperature and acidity (just like you would make yoghurt or beer). Everything is GM-free and free of the usual nasties associated with factory-farmed chicken.
Many of the team that work here are vegan, and associate the product with the same ethics. But it offers ‘real meat’ for animals that need it. It’s estimated around 50 billion real chickens are slaughtered each year, for the meat industry.
BioCraft is another company doing the same, founded by a biochemist who studied at Stanford University. They have created ‘real meat, but it’s not made the mean old way’. Instead, it’s grown from animal cells, to grow cruelty-free ‘chicken, rabbit and mouse meat!’
Books to Make Your Own Vegan Meats
If lab-grown meats sound a bit too Frankenstein, here are some books to make your own vegan meats, from real ingredients.
We don’t have enough land in England for everyone to eat free-range. So if you don’t want factory farming, everyone needs to eat less meat and more plants!
Anything You Can Cook, I Can Vegan is a unique book by a food wizard, recreating favourites with plant-based ingredients. With recipes for every skill level, this vibrant refreshing book shows how to whip up comfort-food classics to surprise your tastebuds. Over 100 recipes plus tips on stocking your pantry and a recipe-finder quiz.
If you have a husband/father/son/nephew/grandpa who say he would never eat vegan, try this recipe book to convert! Whether you are planning to go plant-based all the time or just eat less meat, the answer is not to browbeat people with your beliefs.
But convert them through taste! An old proverb states the ‘a hungry belly has no ears!;
Recipes include:
- Fried ‘eggs’
- Mushroom brisket sandwiches
- Mac n Cheese
- Lobster rolls
- Tempeh nuggets
- Burrito bowls with sofritas
- Blueberry cornflake muffins
- Tres leche cake
Learning to make fish & chips out of aubergine? Yes please! Whipping up a brisket sandwich out of mushrooms? Sign me up! This book even has a snappy title, which is somehow uplifting and passive aggressive at the same time. Hi, I’m Richard. I strongly suspect we already have one big thing in common: an interest in vegan food. Oh boy, we’re going to get along!
I also wrote this book because I am an unapologetic nerd. This book is also a collection of my lab-notes. What kind of a vegan-mad scientist would I be if I kept all these rad ideas to myself? Sharing is caring, bestie!
Richard Makin is a vegan cook and popular blogger, who switched from lifelong vegetarian to vegan, and began experimenting as a self-proclaimed food scientist. He has over 196k followers on Instagram and 19k on TikTok.
Fake Meat is a book by one of the world’s best-selling vegan cookbook authors. Isa Chandra learned to cook with Food Not Bombs volunteers in her native New York, and her books sell like hot cakes in the US, enough for her to even open up restaurants.
This fun book unashamedly shows people how to cook ‘fake meat’ along with her signature funny commentary (she’s Jewish, so think along the lines of Joan Rivers writing a vegan cookbook).
Recipes include:
- Vegan charcuterie (above)
- Quiche Lorrain’t!
- Vegan broths
- Smoked beet Cuban sandwiches
- Buttermylk Fried Chick’n
- Tempeh Meatballs
- Seitan Stroganoff
- Hot Pastramia Sandwiches
- Vegan Hot Dogs
- Buffalo Wings
- Vegan chicken drumsticks
