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Veganism is all about reducing the harm we
cause to sentient beings to the best of our ability.

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This is why we don’t eat animal products. 
It’s impossible to take the body

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part or secretion of a living being without
exploitation and pain. Or is it?

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If meat and other animal products could 
be made without harming animals,

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would there finally be such a thing as vegan meat?

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Hi it's Emily from Bite Size Vegan 
and welcome to another vegan nugget.

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When it comes to lab grown meat, 
there are vegans on both sides of the debate.

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With the potential for massive reductions in the environmental impact of animal agriculture

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and an end to the suffering and death 
of trillions of animals every year,

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why wouldn’t every vegan be championing 
the cause for test tube meat?

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Well like most topics I set out to cover,
cultured meat production is far more complicated

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than it may first appear. We’re going to
cover some of the pros and cons of cellular

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agriculture and why it's a hot button within
the vegan community.

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As always, I’ll be barely scratching the
surface and will provide links to citations,

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further resources, and a full bibliography
on the blog post for this video

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linked in the description.

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The concept of growing and maintaining muscle
outside of the body is not new.

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Starting in 1912, biologist Alexis Carrel kept cells from
an embryonic chicken heart beating in a nutrient

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bath in his laboratory for more than 20 years.
In 1931, Winston Churchill wrote in a predictive

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essay optimistically entitled Fifty Years
Hence that, “We shall escape the absurdity

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of growing a whole chicken in order to eat
the breast or wing, by growing these parts

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separately under a suitable medium.”

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Over the decades from NASA-backed fish fillets
made of goldfish cells to the 2013 taste test

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of the first ever lab-grown burger, the cultured
meat, well, culture, continues to grow.

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[See a brief but thorough timeline in the 
‘In-Vitro Meat” section of this essay]

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The advantages of this method of meat creation
are obvious. Despite the efforts, hopes and

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dreams of vegans and activists alike, the
global demand for meat is on the rise

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with India and China leading the charge.

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With animal agriculture contributing as much
as 51% of global greenhouse gas emissions,

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using a third of the earth’s fresh water,
up to 45 percent of the Earth’s land, causing

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91 percent of Amazon rainforest destruction
and serving as a leading cause of species

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extinction, ocean dead zones, and habitat
destruction, the environmental implications

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alone could be staggering.

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A 2011 study concluded that, “cultured meat
involves approximately 7–45% lower energy use...

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78–96% lower GHG emissions, 99%
lower land use, and 82–96% lower water use

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depending on the product compared.” While
these numbers sound promising, the study was

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largely criticized for basing its numbers
on a not-yet-proven method of cultured meat growth.

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While still theoretical, a 2014 study accounting for

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other potential production methods found
that energy use for cultured meat actually

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exceeded current levels for beef production,
but had significantly lower greenhouse gas

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emissions and land usage and was only higher
than poultry in water usage.

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The reality is that the actual environmental
impact of cultured meat remains unknown because

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it’s still in such an experimental phase.
The ground meat grown for 2013’s seminal

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burger was a relatively simple creation of
pure protein. It lacked any of the fat and

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blood that give meat its flavor or the firmness
of once-active muscle tissue. In order to

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create meat products of more substance, the
muscle, which is what meat is after all, has

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to be exercised and provided with artificial
blood flow, oxygen, digestion and nutrition.

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Some scientists speculate that this increased
energy demand may negate any reduction in

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land usage and agricultural input.

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Basically, when it comes to the environmental
benefits, it’s still too early to know.

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So what about the other main benefit: 
an end to the suffering and death

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of trillions of beings every year?

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Here is where cultured meat has the potential
to shine. Maybe. Eventually. There are several

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significant hurdles to overcome before 
lab-grown meat can be called anything near

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"cruelty and animal-free.” The major issues on the
ethics end are establishing self-renewing

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stem cells and finding plant-based materials
for the growth medium and scaffolding.

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To understand what that means, I’ll give
a very simplified version of in-vitro meat

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production. Initially, cells are taken via
biopsy from a living animal and deposited

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into a growth medium where they proliferate
and grow. Eventually, in order to produce

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meat products with more structure 
than the ground patty,

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they will need a form of scaffolding 
to hold their shape.

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The first ethical issues arise when considering
the long-term viability of the initial harvested

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cells. Professor Mark Post, the man behind
the famous taste-tested burger, has said that,

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“the most efficient way of taking the process
forward would still involve slaughter,”

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with a “limited herd of donor animals”
kept for stock. Others in the movement envision

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the establishment of a self-renewing stem
cell line, meaning only an initial biopsy

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would be required at which point the cell
line would replicate indefinitely.

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Yet another concern is that, given humanity’s
love of the new, different and exotic, we

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may start breeding specialty animals for cell
harvesting, which would still require the

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confinement and reproductive 
control of sentient beings.

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As a side-note, Post’s famous burger was
made with egg powder to enhance the taste,

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introducing another level of animal suffering.
This is by no means, however, a necessary practice.

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The second major ethical issue and one that
isn’t widely addressed in most of the news

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reports on cultured meat, is the growth medium
into which the cells are deposited.

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At the moment, the most widely used medium is bovine
fetal serum. Fetal serum from an array of

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animals is commonly employed in a wide range
of experiments, including those for tampons,

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which I covered in my 
“Are Tampons Vegan?” video.

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The harvesting of bovine fetal serum is far
from transparent. One study reached out to

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388 harvesting entities with only 4% responding
with any kind of methodology data.

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Five sources explicitly declared 
their harvesting methods to be confidential.

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Of those that did respond, the typical procedure
for fetal serum harvesting was “by cardiac puncture"

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meaning a needle directly into
the beating heart of the fetal cow. They specify

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that, “Fetuses should be at least 3 months
old; otherwise the heart is too small for

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puncture.” The general process is as follows:

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“At the time of slaughter, the cow is found
to be pregnant during evisceration (removal

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of the internal organs in the thorax and abdomen
during processing of the slaughtered cow)

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… The calf is removed quickly from the uterus
[and] a cardiac puncture is performed by inserting

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a needle between the ribs directly into the
heart of the unanaesthesised fetus and blood

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is extracted.” This bleeding process can
take up to 35 minutes to complete while the

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calf remains alive. Afterwards, “the fetus
is processed for animal feed and extraction

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of specific substances like fats and proteins,
among other things.”

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The study continued with a detailed debate
as to whether the fetal cows can feel this

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procedure and their possible slow death from
anoxia, meaning lack of oxygen, from placental

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separation, and estimated that between 1 and
2 million fetuses are harvested annually for serum.

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All in all, fetal serum from any animal is
not, by any stretch of the imagination, cruelty-free.

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The good news is that the champions of the
cultured meat movement seem to be invested

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in finding plant-based medium alternatives with both algae and mushrooms providing promising options.

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Fetal serum’s drawbacks don’t
stop at the ethical line. There are scientific

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concerns as batches vary considerably in their
composition. It also poses the threat of pathogen

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introduction, is not environmentally friendly
and is cost-prohibitive. Dr. Neil Stephens

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of Cardiff University states that: “Everyone
in the field acknowledges this as a problem

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… It currently undermines a lot of the arguments
that people put forward in support of in vitro meat."

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This leads into two of the additional pros
of cultured meat, both revolving around human

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health. Though I personally believe that health
is the last worry when it comes to producing

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a possible alternative to mass animal slaughter,
it’s worth noting that the composition of

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cultured meat can be altered to provide superior
nutritional benefits. The level of fat and

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type of fat can be selectively controlled.
The threat of food contamination and spread

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of pathogens would also be greatly reduced,
as cultured meat would not involve all the

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biohazards of traditional slaughter.
So if scientists are able to create a self-replicating

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cell line, thus eliminating the enslavement
and potential slaughter of animals, and find

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a suitable plant-based growth-medium and scaffolding,
thus eliminating the cruelty of fetal serum

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and other animal byproducts, what objections
remain against going after this concept in full force?

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Two of the largest are cost and what’s best
described as “the ick factor.” Surveys

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involving every range of dietary practice
seem to indicate that the majority of people

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are put off by the concept of lab-grown meat.
Interestingly enough, those people with the

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highest rates of meat consumption appear to
be the most sensitive to disgust.

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Of course cultured meat proponents emphasize
that “lab-grown” is a bit of a misnomer.

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While in the testing stages, the meat is grown
in laboratories. However, were it to go to

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commercial production, it would be made in
factories just like all of our packaged food

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items, and some could argue, would be more
natural than other chemical concoctions the

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public readily consumes. [see blog for an illustration
of potential production methods].

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Also, given what all we inject into our food
animals from hormones to antibiotics, to our

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outright manipulation of their genes, one
could ask just how natural “standard”

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animal products really are.

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While cultured meat doesn’t require the
use of GMO’s, it’s possible that genetically

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modifying cells may allow them to reproduce
faster and thus prove more economical.

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Speaking of cost, Mark Post’s initial burger
in 2013 cost approximately ￡250,000

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(over $350,000) to produce. However, by 2015, Post
stated that the cost is now down to ￡8.00.

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As with any new technology, the initial cost
investments will be steep, but Post and others

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in the movement see cultured meat eventually
attaining a competitive price to traditional

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products, though most likely not for at least
another decade.

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The vegan community is most dramatically torn
on either side of this issue. Some feel that

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any product derived from an animal remains
a form of exploitation. Others believe that

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with the insurmountable fight against the
ongoing animal holocaust and more non-vegans

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being born every day, we need to search for
practical and viable solutions to replace

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humanity’s rising demand for meat.

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The vegans on the pro-cultured meat side I’ve
come across through my research say their

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motivation is putting the animals’ interests
above all else. They believe it’s unrealistic

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to expect humanity on a global scale to cease
or even reduce their consumption of animals.

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Thus, providing an alternative that not only
looks and tastes like but actually is meat

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could be, with the proper harvesting method
and growth medium, the most immediate path

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to animal liberation currently available.
With the concurrent rise of research into

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milk and egg-producing yeast and cell-culture-grown
leather and other animal byproducts, could

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it be that the laboratory and not the picket
line will be the ultimate genesis of a vegan world?

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I’d love to hear your thoughts on this hot
debate in the comments below. If you’d like

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to help support Bite Size Vegan so I can keep
putting in these long hours to bring you this

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educational resource, please check out the
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where you can give a one-time donation or
receive perks and rewards by joining the

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thanks my $50 and above patrons and my whole

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Patreon family for making this and all of
my videos possible.

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If you enjoyed this video, please give it
a thumbs-up and share it around to spark debate.

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If you’re new, I’d love to have you as
a subscriber. I put out fresh vegan content

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every Monday, Wednesday, and some Fridays.

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Now go live vegan, put the animals first, 
and I’ll see you soon.

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I know I didn't have much time, I like tacked it on 
at the end there, but there are people

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who have made yeast that produces the milk of a cow.

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And yeast that produces egg whites without a chicken.

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That's molecularly identical.

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From yeast.

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You've got the milk yeast...and the egg yeast.

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Maybe we can make a meat yeast?

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Probably not.