Biotech firm aims to bring lab-grown pork to market in five years

Monday, February 15, 2016 by: Daniel Barker
Tags: frankenmeat, GMO foods, health risks

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(NaturalNews) Would you eat meat that was 'grown' in a lab?

Several biotech firms seems to think so, and are investing in technology that should make lab-grown meat available for consumers in the very near future. One of these firms has just announced that they will be offering lab-grown beef and pork within a few years.

As reported by Gizmodo:

"San Francisco-based startup Memphis Meats made its public debut today, with a Wall Street Journal exclusive that details the team's ambitious plan to grow beef and pork in laboratory bioreactors—and to be the first company to bring lab-grown meat to market. Memphis Meats says it'll be selling its animal-free products to high-end customers in three to four years. Oh, and to dissuade any lingering doubts, they've also just unveiled the world's first lab-grown meatball."

The technology exists, as entrepreneur Mark Post demonstrated in 2013 with his unveiling of the 'stem cell burger' – a successful experiment that proved that the concept worked, although the first one cost $330,000 to produce.

Since then the cost of producing in vitro meat has dropped considerably – it has been reported that the same stem cell burger now costs only around $12 to make – and Post says that his company, Mosa Meat, will be marketing its own lab-grown beef within five years.

Unsurprisingly, the concept has its detractors, but the Gizmodo article focuses only on those who criticize the idea because they believe it can't be done cheaply enough to replace the real thing:

"Lab-grown meat is one of those futuristic technologies that polarizes people, with some saying it's going to replace animal agriculture and others insisting it'll never be more than a novelty. Most arguments for or against lab-grown meat hinge on whether you buy the claim that we can produce animal tissue in laboratories at a far lower per capita cost than we can growing it the old fashioned way."

The tone of the article seems to hint that the average person would have no qualms in consuming lab-grown meat if it were inexpensive, but I'm guessing that there are millions of people who, like myself, are not only disgusted by the idea, but also concerned that eating artificially-grown beef or pork might carry serious health risks.

Danica Collins of Underground Health Reporter shares the same views regarding 'Frankenmeat':

"Modifying plants is bad enough. Now scientists are taking the future of genetically modified food to a completely different, and startling, level: creating fake lab grown meat. ...

"The side effects of GMO's on crops are slowly coming to light. How will our bodies respond to eating lab grown meat that has been created from animal tissue and grown in a lab?

"Food manufacturers may swear to you that Bt-toxin is safe despite the mounting evidence to the contrary. According to the American Academy of Environmental Medicine, 'Several animal studies indicate serious health risks associated with genetically modified foods.'"

As Collins noted, GMO foods can cause numerous health problems, including weakened immunity, cancer and organ failure.

Supporters of the Frankenmeat concept argue that the scheme would be beneficial due to their belief that artificially-grown meat would have less impact on the environment.

But it can be assumed that those who are gearing up to produce and sell Frankenmeat to the public are far more concerned with making money than with saving the environment. And like the rest of the GMO food industry, the potential health risks are covered up or – at the very least – conveniently ignored.

If these companies succeed in developing and marketing Frankenmeat – as it now seems they almost certainly will – we can only hope that their bogus and dangerous lab-grown products will be required to clearly be labeled as such, so that those who don't want Frankenmeat to be a part of their diet can avoid it like the plague.

Sources:

Gizmodo.com

UndergroundHealthReporter.com