#EndFactoryFarming: Lab-grown meat isn’t natural, and neither is factory farming
The general public continues to believe that animal agriculture is a natural and sustainable process, despite ample evidence to the contrary.
BRUNO DECC: Innovative food producers are developing highly artificial processes to make cultured meat and other products without relying on animal farming. In vitro cell culturing bypasses animal exploitation and slaughter to produce animal flesh, milk, eggs, and more. The field of cultured food and material production is still in its nascency, but many of its underlying technologies are rapidly approaching breakthroughs that may soon enable mass production… Analysts predict that traditional meat’s market share could drop to as low as 40 percent in relation to synthetics over the next 20 years…
A societal switch from conventional to artificial foods and materials would benefit animals, humans, and the environment. Innovative artificial systems negate the need to produce meat and animal products by harming animals—globally, humans kill over 70 billion animals for food and 50 million more for their fur each year. Compared to “natural” meat, artificially-grown meat eliminates the public health risks associated with bacterial meat-borne illnesses, such as salmonella and E. coli; artificial meat production also greatly reduces the risk of spawning zoonotic diseases, like H1N1 “swine flu” and COVID-19, which are largely caused by exploiting animals and their habitats.
Artificial meat is also free of both artificial growth hormones and super bug-spawning antibiotics that are commonly present in farmed meat. Replacing animal farming with artificial solutions would mitigate the ecological damage, including wildlife extinction and biodiversity collapse, caused by widespread animal ranching and factory farming. Animal agribusiness already occupies about 40 percent of Earth’s landmass and accounts for 75 percent of total global deforestation to date…
Despite cultured food’s significant potential benefits, the general public prefers to avoid “unnatural” interventions. A 2015 Meat Science report indicates that up to 84 percent of Europeans reject animal product alternatives because they perceive them as not natural. A 2018 Faunalytics study shows that less than 50 percent of people surveyed in Asia, Europe, and North America view cultured animal products as palatable, while other surveys reveal even bleaker figures ranging from 18 to 26 percent. The public tends to distrust foods perceived as “artificial”…
The general public continues to believe that animal farming is a natural and sustainable process, despite ample evidence to the contrary. The 2018 Faunalytics study finds that about 80 percent of Americans do not perceive conventional meat as unnatural, instead considering it both acceptable and desirable. A 2019 survey finds that 50 percent of Americans believe that foods and materials produced “naturally” — including animal products—are more sustainable… yet high consumption of “natural” farmed animal products is proven to increase the incidence of chronic diseases like Type 2 diabetes and heart disease…
The general public continues to believe that animal farming is a natural and sustainable process, despite ample evidence to the contrary… The dominating perception that animal agriculture is natural and therefore yields healthy foods is helping to propel animal products’ continued consumption globally… The 2018 Faunalytics study finds that about 80 percent of Americans do not perceive conventional meat as unnatural, instead considering it both acceptable and desirable. A 2019 survey finds that 50 percent of Americans believe that foods and materials produced “naturally”—including animal products—are more sustainable…
Despite their many harmful impacts, the commodities produced by animal farming continue to be in high global demand, due in part to popular misconceptions about naturalness and artificiality. The resulting consumer misapprehension toward artificial products—exacerbated by marketing messages that reinforce a false dichotomy between naturalness and artificialness—muddles the discourse surrounding cultured processes and slows technological innovation. An updated and more nuanced understanding of naturalness in the public sphere may allow animal farming to be displaced, resulting in significant global progress on ethical, health, and environmental problems. SOURCE…
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