Study: Lab-Grown Meat Potentially Worse for Environment Than Retail Beef
May 26, 2023 | Source: The Food Institute | by Jordan Wiklund
No matter where you stand on cell-cultured food or how you decide what to put into your body, lab-grown and 3D-printed food is real, out there, and developing new and more scalable techniques to get to market with every passing day.
A new intradepartmental study from the University of California, Davis, however, may pump the brakes a bit on some of the pro-cell-cultured food community. Its conclusion: lab-grown meat may be up to 25 times worse for the environment than natural, pasture-raised cattle/retail beef.
The study has yet to be peer-reviewed. Nonetheless, it’s been making waves across the food industry due to its approach to the subject matter; by analyzing the known CO2 emissions from the in-lab purification process, the study concludes that the global warming potential of cultured meat is between four and possibly 25 times higher than that of traditional retail beef.