Steaking their claim on future
Documentary looks at race to grow meat in a lab.
Hope can be a scarce commodity these days.
If you’re looking for a source of optimism, though, you should definitely check out “Meat the Future,” Canadian filmmaker Liz Marshall’s new documentary, currently streaming on CBC Gem. It’s all about lab-grown meat.
No longer the stuff of science fiction, animal-free meat that’s grown from stem cells in labs is likely to become a viable option sooner than we think. And that’s a good thing, since cellular agriculture could put an end to animals suffering in caged feeding operations and slaughterhouses, halt deforestation, reduce pollution, drastically cut greenhouse emissions and, on top of it all, prevent future pandemics.
The news gets even better: According to environmental film director Marshall, lab-grown meat has grown so quickly since she started working on this project in 2016, that cellular agriculture shifted from being an outlier to becoming a nearly inevitable future source of food. The film mainly focuses on one American company, but it’s a global industry with at least 20 serious startups in places including the Netherlands, Singapore and Israel, the latter home to several companies.
Still, there are two little problems — price and, well, squeamishness. The first issue will likely be resolved sooner rather than later since, similar to the way clean energy prices are dropping as demand scales up and technology improves, lab meat’s price per pound is coming down all the time.
Problem number two is a little more complicated, though. And, in order to get people past their squeamishness, the nomenclature is going to be a key early decision, which is why it’s such an important storyline in the doc.
“I guess the umbrella term is ‘cellular agriculture’ but then, within that, there are so many terms to describe what this is,” says Marshall, who we spoke with last week by phone. “And it was also a way to chart the progression of the industry in the film, since, first it was called ‘pure,’ then it was called ‘cultured,’ then it was called ‘clean meat’ and then ‘cell-based.’ Now, actually, since the film was locked and delivered, it’s referred to as ‘cultivated meat.’ ”
And this may not even be the last word. In the U.S., both the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Agriculture are currently huddled together to develop policy on the labelling and marketing of cultivated meat. The two regulatory boards will have to consult with stakeholders from conventional agriculture, many of whom want the term “meat” to be reserved exclusively for the flesh of a formerly living mammal.
The USDA and FDA will have to balance this against the arguments from Silicon Valley cellular ag leaders like Uma Valeti, former cardiologist and cofounder and CEO of Memphis Meats, one of the most exciting cultivated meat companies in America, well within their rights to point out that their product is real meat — cell-forcell.
Although it’s easy to imagine the regulators siding with Big Meat, a trillion-plus dollar industry with plenty of political support, if anyone has a chance of prevailing and making the playing field fair for cellular ag, it’s Valeti, the film’s main protagonist.
Not only has he raised a record-breaking amount of financing for Memphis Meats, his motivation and his vision for the future are incredibly compelling. In the film, he tells the story of when he had his first epiphany about animal treatment — a birthday party in his childhood home in India, when he wandered to the back of the house and saw chickens being slaughtered. Although only a kid himself, the contradiction of celebrating life by eating animals killed just moments earlier, and only a few metres away, was a profound moment for him.
Still, for Valeti, animal rights took a back seat to saving human lives for decades. He became a doctor with a specialization in cardiology — a field that relies heavily on stem-cell therapy — and established a successful practice in Minnesota. In 2015, though, he gave that all up to head to Silicon Valley and co-founded Memphis Meats. Why? Because he felt he could save more lives with cellular agriculture than as a doctor.
“I love that he was a Mayo Clinic-trained cardiologist who took a very risky, passion-driven career turn to co-found this start-up,” Marshall says. “And I think it’s really interesting that he’s a man of colour, born and raised in India, who immigrated to the U.S. to pursue his dreams and his passion. All of these things, I felt, made him a compelling entry point into the story.”
Valeti’s goal isn’t only to save animal lives and reduce livestock suffering, though. It would also save human lives. Cell meat — fish, fowl or mammal — uses far less land and water than conventional farming. Greenhouse emissions would be negligible. It could be a perfect solution — practically a silver bullet — to several urgent crises, including diseases caused by zoonotic viruses. Many viruses that humans are susceptible to, including coronaviruses, are caused by a combination of intensive animal agriculture and our encroachment on wildlife habitat, which, of course, is often clear-cut to make room for cattle ranching.
It’s easy to get over squeamishness after watching “Meat the Future.” Although we tend to resist the idea of technology playing too big a role in food production and cling to a fantasy of happy, healthy animals raised on a pre-modern pasture, the truth is that most of the world’s meat is already machine-made.
And they’re machines doing irreparable damage to the planet already. What will the world look like if projections are right that the global demand for meat will double by 2020?
“I feel that the topic of industrial animal agriculture brings together everything from human rights to animal rights to environmental rights and that really matters to me as a filmmaker,” Marshall says. “And if we can look at all three and tell a solution-focused story, I think that can provide some inspiration for people.”
Marshall adds: “Having had the privilege to witness this grow over the past few years and see it rise to prominence and attract such funding, I would say this might be the biggest idea of the century.”
Here’s hoping.