The Truth About Lab-Grown Meat 

So... You and Brian are basically telling me this morning that I wont be eating a lab grown steak on a supersonic flight to Europe on my modest government salary any time soon.

I have over 30 yrs of experience in pharma mammalian cell culture. This is a pretty good summary of the situation. We recently performed a cost-benefit analysis for a client and reported a similar summation. However, the other major factor that is not covered here is the volumes of purified water needed to run the bioreactors. The water use will be even higher per Kg than animal husbandry which is already a strain on global ecological systems. Purified water is surprisingly expensive to produce and can only be done in geographic regions with the resources available; that is, it’s not happening in the desert southwest of the US or in Saharan Africa. Water resources are increasingly valuable around the globe for basic human needs, diverting those resources to manufacture synthetic meat just moves an already intractable problem from one place to another.

No one is really looking as FBS as a base anymore, there are a billion alternatives and that was merely 1 thing people looked at. Cost for a product currently not released is something that will be dealt with before the shit can even come out and is currently the biggest issue, but it isnt as dramatic as this channel made it out to be. New Harvest has a non FBS recipe. It's public it's designed for beef. If that doesn't refute it. I don't know what does.

The part about FBS is especially interesting and exactly what I hoped to learn more about in this video. Great video!

Great video. For anyone who would like to try a decent meat alternative, I found out a while back that king oyster mushrooms with their fibery texture can be used as a template for making custom meats if cut into strips. Other ingredients can be added to tune to flavour, like tomato purée for a savoury flavour, or maple syrup and paprika for a smokey maple flavour. Cook the flavoured mushrooms until they start drying out, (at this point, they will be reddish brown and look a heck of a lot like meat). The end taste isn't beef, chicken, or pork, but still identifiable as a meat. I've made bacon, taco meat, and stir fry this way and it always impresses guests.

My uncle works in the FBS industry and the Thanksgiving table stories he tells are ~wild~

14:16 “And while I don’t agree entirely with putting the onus on the consumer…” THANK YOU! This is an argument that is RARELY - if ever - acknowledged when talking about climate change and our role in slowing it down. I fully expected this video to end with something like, “So what can YOU do to reduce the impact of meat production on the planet?…” People often forget that we aren’t the biggest problem. It doesn’t matter how much any of us do, when confronted with the actions of giant mega-corporations we are meaningless as individuals (as far as reducing any kind of impact on the planet). I really appreciate that you added this little note in your video and hope it forces more people to consider just how much affect we can have when faced with the behemoths of Amazon and YumYum. I totally agree with the moral imperative, but as far as making people believe it’s OUR fault, and it’s OUR responsibility…that’s just gaslighting and manipulation on the part of the mega-corps that run the world.

Any cultivated meat company that's serious about scaling up is not using FBS. It's a useful shortcut in the research/lab phase but obviously not what will be used for any cultivated meat that ends up on store shelves in the future. It's a pity that your video could make people needlessly worried about this very promising technology.

I dont understand, why do we want a universal serum if we can only grow pure meat. Just use the specific serum for every type of meat, and when we can, we will grow whole wings or ribs. Every production line is different, i dont expect to use the same substances to produce paper and cardboard.

00:41 It wasn't meat that changed the digestive process but rather _cooked_ food in general, as opposed to raw food.

Huh. So I work in meat inspection in NZ, and this makes a lot of sense. Fetuses and fetal blood are worth a lot of money. I knew it went into lab based stuff, but I'd always wondered what exactly. Also, just to add, and I only speak for where I am, but fetuses are always dead on arrival. Always. I know this because inspecting them is part of my job. But again, I'm only speaking for NZ, where we have very strict animal welfare regulations. To be honest, though, I can't even imagine how they would survive the slaughtering process.

I'm currently doing a write-up on meat and paradigm shift for diet. This is really helpful... Thanks

Yall just said there are specific alternatives they just arent as general use. If we have a synthetic for pork chicken and beef but they all need their own artificial serum then we dont need bovine blood.

Good news from 2024. There's a publication out there where the researchers were able to create an animal-component-free culture medium for $0.63 per liter. It's called: "Empirical economic analysis shows cost-effective continuous manufacturing of cultivated chicken using animal-free medium". The lead author is Laura Pasitka. Hopefully this is significant progress on the FBS issue.

"We shall scape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken to eat the breast or the wing" That really is absurd. From the chicken we eat it all. The breast, the drumsticks, the quarters, the thighs, the wings and we can even make a broth with the bones

I’m on board for lab growth meat that tastes the same but has removed the drawbacks of natural meat. The tech is still in its infancy but I’m hopeful the scientists can overcome the challenges for the future of our planet

companies have developed alternatives and announced this publicly. The fact that the video hides this and instead says it's completely unsolved makes it propaganda. If you hadn't asked here you would have walked away believing the misinformation the video just gave you, thinking there was no alternative to FBS.

The FBS issue is probably the biggest issue here, but it's not unsolvable. You don't need a growth medium that will work with any and all cells, to make artificial meat you could probably do with very few cell types, so it would be feasible to find an artificial alternative that works well for each one, or to use genetically engineered cells that will accept a cheap substitute [if you could only educate the masses to prevent nonsense hysteria about GMOs]. The manufacturing cost of components for the artificial serum will decrease as demand grows, I'm not sure that part will be a huge issue in the long run. I'm not sure those huge bioreactors are an accurate depiction for how the cells would be grown. I'm pretty sure these types of cells require a surface to which they could attach in order to grow, unless you went the GMO route. The need to grow cells in single layers will without a doubt make production more expensive

Man, the FBS thing always sounded like something more research could fix, but the whole zero immune system problem is a complete project killer. I cant think of a single way of fixing that without defeating the whole point.

This seems like a lot of trouble to go through to create something that already has several analogues in the fungus/mushroom world. In fact, we're trying to back-replicate mushrooms, looking at the process. I am an omnivore but I have also started to keep chickens and now I don't really feel like eating them or their eggs (I used to LOVE eggs, it was a primary protein for me and ate them every day at more than one meal usually). I have a feeling if I keep a pig or cow it will end up the same, so outside of sea bugs the only alternatives are finding other proteins.

There are many alternatives to FBS today. Future Meat Technologies does not use FBS.

fully plant-based alternatives to meat have become a lot better over the past 5-10 years. right now i could go buy a small-ish pack of plant-based salami for 1€ in the supermarket around the corner. i ate some pretty tasty chorizo today and the other day i had fishsticks. and I'm 100% vegan, so I don't quite understand where the problem lies?

Can they not clone cattle fetuses in order to acquire FBS?

Wow! I saw a TED Talk that made it sound like lab grown meat was right around the corner and to be cheaper than real meat. The more you know....

It isnt mentioned here but Ive heard disinformation that plant based meat that tastes like animal meat is grown and requires fetal bovine syndrome FBS. This isnt true, there is a huge difference between lab grown meat cells and plant based meat. Unlike Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat which use plants to try and recreate the taste of meat, lab-grown meat takes a slightly different approach. It takes the stem cells from an animal and places them in a bioreactor, encouraging the growth of more cells that can be used to create a new cut of meat.

These are the reasons Impossible Burgers just STONKED in popularity. When there's somewhat meat alternatives available *cheaper* than meat itself, why do the super-complicated science to get lab grown meat?

Imma enjoy my mushrooms . Not quite meat, not worse than it.

I won't eat "meat" grown in a lab! It's unnatural! Have you ever checked out your ingredient list in your cheetos, frozen dinner or package of oreos?

Interesting video! I had no idea about the FBS aspect of lab-grown meat. Here's hoping that a purely synthetic version can be created soon, for those that insist on eating actual meat. Meanwhile, I started trying plant-based products some years ago, to see what they're like and how good they're getting. (I'm in the UK btw). 30 years ago, a sausage-meat replacement was good enough that a chap at a party wouldnt believe there as nothing from an animal in teh sausage rolls I'd made and brought to the party - but that was about the only meat-substitute product I could honestly say I liked back then. More recently, I've come to prefer plant protein burgers to actual meat ones; ditto the sausages and meatballs that I buy. There are some good non-dairy cheeses (and have been for some years), although if you expect , say, an exact replica of Cheddar cheese, you may be out of luck, but if you simply regard them as new types of cheese to try and hopefully enjoy, chances are decent you'll find one you like. Milk was my main sticking point, particularly for use in tea. But about a year ago, I came across oat milk, and it is yummy, and doesnt negatively affect the taste of tea (IMO. YMMV). Bacon substitutes - they're nice enough in themselves, but only about 2/3-3/4 the way to being as close to real bacon as the burgers are to beefburgers. TLDR - There ARE good plant-based substitutes for processed meat products, and even some dairy products. The same can't be said for cuts of meat (although as I only ever liked processed meats, that wasnt a problem for me). The quality of the the substitutes (in terms of taste and texture compared to the real thing) can vary widely between manufacturers though, so it's worth trying more than just one brand. One way and another, good luck, all, with doing your best to adapt your diet in the way that is most suitable for you!

Thank you Real Science. Excellent video. Such a cruel process. This information needs to reach the masses!!

Your body dosen't break down this type of meat properly causing us not to absorb the little nutrients it has. It also lacks the essential B Vitamins and Iron we get from animals. Our body doesn't regognize it as meat pretty much. I've noticed the same people who hate meat and want people to give it up and have all this love for animal's also love killing babies, flying in private jets that produce more greenhouse gasses than animals, and love telling people to constantly do without while they can't even give up thier 3 or 4 $30 Coffee habbit a day. Also anything with the word "Stem Cell" in it means aborted baby. It wouldnt suprise me if this meat was just strait aborted baby meat. Think about it, they hate animal suffering so they would NOT want to get stem cells from animals but they love abortion and those clinics are always selling "Spare Parts" to these medical and food research companies.

This year is the 50 year anniversary of the release of the SciFi movie “Soylent Green”.

Tbh I'd gladly eat lab grown meat over animal meat any day. Cleaner, lab controlled growth (so no room disease or parachutes during growth), and hopefully eventually won't require butchering stuff like pigs or cows which are apparently pretty smart (pigs at least.) And, at the end of it all (when we reach 1 to 1 identical), the meat itself would be exactly the same as the meat directly from an animal, just minus all the cruft. Plus could probably do some magic to precisely control fat & grizzle. Guilt free, clean, meat, is the ideal future. Hope we reach it one day.

Question, you said FBS is the only known compound useble in all lab grown meats, is there others more specialised compounds that exist out there?

Upside claims they don’t use FBS so if it is true that somehow they have financially viable chicken that may eventually allow other meats however defined to be produced-time will tell🤯

I'll stick to being Vegetarian, thanks :L

There will always be huge hurdles to overcome in new tech, let's just hope that we get around them asap.

Lab: we have a burger made from 300 fetuses Hillary Clinton: I’m intrigued

You know, a number of years ago, a TV show called Eureka featured this. No one was talking about it. In the show people were getting sick and dumber from it. Anyone see any corellation?

I can be flexible and would try the lab-burger because I do eat beef often. I remember what we said about the microwave, nobody's gonna use it because we don't want radiation poisoning 🙄. If it works we go with it. Make it work and we'll use it !

Square peg, round hole. It's not like we have to eat synthesized animals to get our protein. Start looking at microorganisms to fulfill our nutritional needs.

The topic is fascinating and it can help but like all great ideas there are always downsides Subsequently; This idea is better then slaughtering for meat so I am pushing for this idea too

Would it be possible to add time tags to the references please? If not for this video, in the future.

At 1:49 isn't it terribly misleading to use a statistic about "all food production" as an argument against meat and its effect on the environment? I'm not necessarily saying meat is not a problem, but it's like saying cars produce carbon emissions and then showing the effect from all machines in the world.

That was a big WTF moment for me when you talked about how many fetal cows were required to create a single burger. Seems to me like plant-based stuff like Impossible Burger is the way to go.

Three observations: a) your narration refers to our “hominid” ancestors, but as we’ve revisited how we classify members of the order Primates, we’ve moved to _hominin_ as the preferred blanket term for our ancestors; b) it could depend on how you define “the beginning of our very existence,” but the fossil record shows our earliest identifiably hominin ancestors were herbivores living largely on mosses and nuts … although our later ancestors did eventually, around 3-1/2M years ago, become omnivorous; c) claiming that increased protein consumption led to increased brain size has become commonplace, but is an example of assuming correlation equals causation … and we aren’t even sure meat-eating, and not the development of social clans sharing food with equanimity, led to an increase in protein consumption, AND we _are_ quite sure brain size doesn’t correspond to reasoning ability. Of course, industry pressure has led most textbook publishers to repeat the claim-actually several claims bundled into one-as fact, even though actual research is nowhere near confirming them. All that having been said, your video was very well-made! I enjoyed it immensely.

"They think they can lower prices from over 10 000 dollars per pound to 2.50$... In the next 9 years" Yeah, i don't think that's happening. Like seriously. NO industry in history saw such a price reduction in such a short time span, not even electronics, they also didn't explain how, given the core components all cost a fortune and they are NOT working on reducing their costs, but on the meat growth process itself...

Maybe partially vegetarian meats could work? For example, take a soy burger and infuse it with some cow's blood or something similar to impart meaty flavor compounds, or just make a 50/50 mix of ground beef and soy burger. You still retain a lot of the meat flavor while making stretch a lot further

Damn that music in the beginning. Thought my speakers were broken x)

Beans have plenty of protein. It's different from animal protein, but the needed quantities of amino acids are there.

Soylent Green

As a vegetarian, I hope stem cell meat is made safe and reliable substitute for killing animals. Once it is i hope it completely eliminates slaughtering animals. It would be the most progressive invention in the history of life on Earth.

Those people that insist on the elimination of eating meat, are obscenely delusional! 🤣 - no chance I’d ever stop eating meat. Meat is essential for us. Our bodies need meat as it’s relatively jam-packed full of nutrients when compared to plants. Natural meat/protein is still far superior to synthetic blends.

What is the point if your killing a momma cow and her baby aren’t they supposed to be fixing that problem? Now they letting the cows bleed a slow death and killing their baby? Rather them just get shot once in the head humanely after they lived a good life on the farm

I probably wouldn’t eat lab grown meat, and I feel like many other people feel the same. I think the solution is to keep meat in our diet, but just eat less of it. There’s no reason for us to eat meat every single day

We will see it in our lifetime. Mass-produced lab-grown meat will be a thing. The fact that you can assure your costumer that the best steak they ever had will be the same every time is reason enough for this to be economic regardless of the environmental effect which is good for the planet.

Woah... I've never really thought of eating meat could go that deep, usually it's just, plants->animal->meat->food->energy, But damn... That's a lot of information about meat. [Shout out from Real Engineering] Awesome video!🔥🔥👏👏👏

7:56 FBS serum is like OMG god

After seeing this, I feel plant based meat might reach consumers faster, even Considering the time it takes to make it indistinguishable to the real deal

Don’t you think it’s a bit disingenuous for you to show the graphic at 1:52 with cows when that number represents ALL food production? Or are you assuming/implying that non-meat agriculture is an insignificant proportion of that total? In which case I’d strongly disagree.

I bought some bioengineered beef powder. Not bad 👍

I have the strong believe that economy of scale can enable everything. But biology is difficult go beat - yet we find ways to control it. What I am interested in is the discussion of pseudoautocannibalism - eating a externally grown part of yourself.

Couldn't We just eat Amino Acids?

Good video, covers all bases. I must admit, at the beginning, I began to roll my eyes at what was beginning to look like a very pro-meat video, but I'm glad I stuck with it. Lab-grown meat will become a thing one day. I think compassion for animals and a desire to reduce, if not end completely, their suffering is gradually growing in even the most staunch of meat defenders, that along with our collective desire to save the planet. Our moral standards are gradually but collectively rising due to the mountainous information on the horrific reality of the animal food industries that's now freely available. I am looking forward to one day having the option of one day eating guilt free meat, but until then, I guess I'm staying vegan. It's been 8 years now and healthwise I feel awesome, so I am happy to continue for as long as is necessary!! 🙏

Oh, wow, but now we have the ' Impossible Berger.' It doesn't taste that much like meat to me when I tried one. Thanks for the video, I learned a lot from your deep research.

What about altering the DNA of those cells so that they no longer "know" that they're growing in the right place (no need for that FBS substance)? One successful modification and you can develop a culture that goes on forever, or at the very least have a procedure that works.

Probably easier to find better and less wasteful ways of grow domestic animals than artificial meats.

As long as I'm not eating some weird hormones and by products then I'm all for it. The meat I eat is free range organic, with no hormones or any gene modifications. I don't eat veal or lamb. Also I work in pharma and became sick of the waste there, I once saw a cart with about €25-30k worth of FBS just being thrown out because it wasn't used.

This is an amazing video that deserves way more views commenting for the algo

Just go Vegan, easy and delicious!

I've been a vegetarian since I was 14, despite having meat-eating parents that disliked my decision to go vegetarian. For me, it's fairly easy as I didn't like the taste of most meats anyway and those that I did like, I always worried about being undercooked and potentially giving me a parasite.

Bring it on! I'm vegan but this is the first step to the Star Trek food replicators I have dreamed about for the majority of my life! No more grocery shopping! LOL!

If plant based meat substitutes can be cheaper than real meat like mince, lots more people will turn to it

Lab grown meat will never be possible without the meat being able to simulate exercise and actual real life function of the meat it is trying to simulate.

Please do more insane biology you could do parisitic wasp or coral

bro I just want anything that will help push animal agriculture into the history books, where it will be remembered as the atrocity that it is

Has anyone know how massive the meat section is in the supermarket? Compared to the vegebles and fruit. How about the cereal isles and the oils? Who's making the money? What is the land being used for? What the hell are our animals being blamed for?

I personally do not eat meat, I am fine with vegetarian food (no eggs, fish, or meat). I assume what will happen with cost is that lab grown meat will be cheaper while regular meat will turn even more expensive and as a result, people will convert from consuming traditional meat to lab grown meat.

Ah yes, the classic cost problem. When we should switch to something ASAP, but it is too expensive to do so right now.

Seen this time and time again. Sounds like digital photography can never be as good as film, electric cars will never be as good as combustion. I will bet on the newcomer.

Too be honest the animal suffering is not a deal breaker for me as it is widely happening already, considering the impact of the meat industry in our planet and how It is and will keep affecting us in the future, as some other people have pointed out, this is new technology, give it enough time and the cost will decrease and it'll become more efficient.

Love your honesty about your morning routine!! Right on spot. 🤗😘

Lots of animals are killed during the production of plant based foods (worms, rodents, rabbits, insects, arthropods, spiders, micro-animals, and an innumerable number of other "pests"). Not to mention the fact that the plants & fungi we harvest are themselves living organisms. But, apparently, their lives don't matter to the morally superior seated atop their high horses. We need to respect all life while recognizing the fact that life feeds on life. The circle of life.

Thanks for information😥 that lab grown meat is also based on slaughter 😭

What a complex creation we have !

fbs is no longer necessary. Several companies have technologies, and they aren't expensive. Cultured chicken is around the same cost as natural chicken. You give real problems, but you vastly exaggerate the difficulty of solving them. :-)

Hope this will be the future for animals sake more than for climate sake. If you ever see a video of inside a slaughterhouse you will be shocked.

Is that because their souls, cells are such regenerative

Go vegan.

Synthetic FBS is doable. We need a major international research effort. Genetically engineered yeast will probably be the answer.

I eat meat no problem, but my stomach turned when I heard about FBS.

Im never going to eat lab grown meat

To clean your microwave microwave a bowl of water or big cup remove Bowl cup Wipeout with dish towel or paper towels

"As Developing countries grow richer more and more people can afford meat"-I totally disagree with that statement..If anything Africans been eating meat more than developed countries(Real meat),we keep livestock for living..Rural and urban areas..which is why counters like America import beef from Namibia for example..

That part about the dead cow fetus blood harvesting gave me horror movie vibes. It is a great plot for a supervillain literally everybody wants to kill though

The FBS thing was morbid as all hell.. Just fucked beyond salvation

dying fetuses? I love that band!

Everything will be outengineered eventually, it's just a matter of what is feasible to help is bridge the gap first. co2 capture will become good enough, water filtration will become good enough. And AI will be the one breaking point where the real solutions start flooding in.

Memphis meat now called upside foods just built their fabric here in Berkeley. There would be no sense about building it if it's not viable

The connection of Meat to Intelligence is undeniable, with it likely not surprising the more...... particular sorts that are all about Vegganism ideals also being of a kind of sort to ... push particular ideals in common, so to say perhaps. But rather the real question being how that we can Keep both pushing our mutual inclusion of Human Progress, Meat based/included foods, and required nutritions. That we might yet move to perhaps move to create meat-fruits growing "Plants," would be an interesting question, similar in nature to tumors or growths in relation to the unfortunate matter of cancer in animals but instead as a harvestable product................., that is engineerable and perhaps customizable per what the 'meat plants' are feed upon and genes. There is a question being similar in nature to something from SCP stories I forget the name of but that are advanced competent Biomancers, with groups of this kult that are beneficent in some stories or versions of the universes of the SCP story which has no one canon more so being a collection of things. If we can develop such "Plants" that grow Meat-Fruits that can be safely easily grown and harvested per developments of Fungi perhaps such to have what would be an advancement of Mushrooms..... in a sense who can say? Such we end up with literal "Mushroom Burgers" that very much are indeed burgers, or steaks., akin to that cartoon "Ripping Friends" skit for all the dumbness of it of "Cows Giving Meat."......, as an, interesting perhaps ideal. That we might can harvest meats as the fruits of livestocks that isn't by needs of killing nor slaughtering as we do so, but such livestocks having meats to be gained as we do or would from plants that bear fruits of a kind such as with Corn where we don't eat them though at ends time feed em to livestocks they produce foods we gain from them. That we might seek this method and path to be in part along with algae or yeasts if we are to in time build Colony Ships of scale and size needed for the kinds of goals long term Science seeks per our Species ongoing evolution as Terrans as some maybe rightly feel may have been a source of our far pasts. Who can say? The living universe is vast and in time that we return to it in the voids of space, we will need more reliable methods of sustenance than we have now.