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Melzener, L., Verzijden, K. E., Buijs, A. J., Post, M. J., & Flack, J. E. (2021). Cultured beef: From small biopsy to substantial quantity. Journal of the Scien

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Why do you need to do biopsy so many times to the same animal for stem cells? 😟💉

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Why do you need to do biopsy so many times to the same animal for stem cells? 😟💉

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Stem cells have a certain proliferative capacity (i.e. how much and how long the stem cells can grow) when placed in the bioreactor.

Therefore, stem cells have a limit on how much they can grow - hence they can only produce a certain quantity of meat.
(For those who know microbiology: If you cultivate Bacillus cereus in a culture medium, you cannot expect that Bacillus cereus will grow indefinitely in the culture medium, right?)

This can be problematic as biopsy injections are usually the only method where stem cell extraction can occur. Especially for a large scale production, if a particular animal e.g. cow X 🐮 is needed to produce a tonne of beef X (assuming that cow X can only produce X) - to produce 15 tonnes of the beef - cow X must suffer a total of 15 injections! 😱💉

References:

Chriki, S., & Hocquette, J.-F. (2020). The Myth of Cultured Meat: A Review. Frontiers in Nutrition, 7, 7. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2020.00007

Melzener, L., Verzijden, K. E., Buijs, A. J., Post, M. J., & Flack, J. E. (2021). Cultured beef: From small biopsy to substantial quantity. Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, 101(1), 7–14. https://doi.org/10.1002/jsfa.10663

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Is there a cell-cultured meat plant in Singapore? Or is it for plant-based meat production?

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Is there a cell-cultured meat plant in Singapore? Or is it for plant-based meat production?

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So far, Singapore does not have any plants for cell-cultured meat production. However, Eat Just (a well known company who produces cell-cultured chicken 🧫🍗) is planning to open a 30,000 square-foot facility in Singapore around the first quarter of 2023 (that's a few months away!) where they will supply and produce tonnes of meat from cells! 🐔

FYI: Eat Just makes cultured chicken bites, which are currently the only cultured meat product currently approved for sale in Singapore by the SFA.

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Singapore sites Asia's biggest cultivated meat facility

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The plant, owned by US start-up Eat Just and backed by Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing, shows how cultivated meat is making the jump from the lab to the factory. Singapore was the first government to allow the sale of cultured meat.

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Meat and the United Nation Sustainable Development Goals (Negative impacts covered by Electra)

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Meat and the United Nation Sustainable Development Goals (Negative impacts covered by Electra)

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The impacts of meat on the climate concerns four United Nation Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDG):

1. UN SDG 2 (Zero Hunger 🥣) – We need to eat food or else we will go hungry

2. UN SDG 13 (Climate Action 🌍) – We need to take action to reduce our impacts on the climate and to mitigate climate change

3. UN SDG 14 (Life Below Water 🐟) & SDG 15 (Life on Land 🐖) - Our food comes from the land which are limited resources.

If we consume irresponsibly, there will be nothing left for the future generation.

Take a look at this short The Simpsons clip, how can you relate the video to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals? 🤔

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Why is there a need for alternative proteins? 🍽️🌍. Stay tuned for etymology (insect eating) by Yi Zhang!

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Why is there a need for alternative proteins? 🍽️🌍. Stay tuned for etymology (insect eating) by Yi Zhang!

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This was mentioned in the introduction of my presentation.

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), global meat demand is projected to double by 2050 due to the increased meat consumption 🥩🍖 - but meat production is already reaching near its maximum capacity! 😱

According to Professor Mark Post (the guy who invented the first lab-grown burger), beef has a poor bioconversion rate 💢- as you need 100 g of vegetable protein 🫑 to make 15 g of beef 🍔. The solution is to increase the efficiency rate while making practices sustainable.

How? 🤔
We need to source for alternative protein sources such as insects 🕷️ (covered by Yi Zhang), plants 🌿 and cell-cultured meat 🧫. Do note that they will never satisfy or fully replace meat obtained by rearing livestock 🐮😒- but they are a step to meet the increasing demand for meat while making it sustainable 🌍❣️.

Reference:
Eco-Business. (n.d.). Cultured meat? This could create more problems than it solves. Eco-Business. Retrieve from https://www.eco-business.com/opinion/cultured-meat-this-could-create-more-problems-than-it-solves/ (accessed 22 October 2022).

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Reflection Question (Consumer Acceptance) 🤔💭

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Reflection Question (Consumer Acceptance) 🤔💭

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The cost of cell-cultured meat have been steadily reduced over the years. However, it is still more expensive than the standard meat you find in the restaurant or the supermarket. 💸💸😱😭

Will you still buy this everyday? Is this within your budget? Why or why not?

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In 2013, the world's first lab-grown burger was served at a London news conference, and it cost $330,000 to create. Funding came from the co-founder of Google, Sergey Brin, but the burger's creator, Professor Mark Post of Maastricht University, was quick to point out that this was only the start of making meat from animal cells.

Meat Grown in a Lab Instead of on a Farm

Lab-grown meat, also called cell-cultured or cultivated meat, is made by taking cells from a living animal without killing it. Usually, these starter cells receive a growth medium and grow inside a bioreactor, so they develop fat and muscle in a laboratory setting.

Growing meat in a lab eliminates the need to slaughter animals. It also reduces the amount of land, water and other resources that you need to produce meat. If done correctly, it can even lower carbon dioxide emissions. The other potential environmental benefits include reducing water pollution, biodiversity losses and deforestation.

Falling Prices

A price tag of $330,000 was enough to keep even the most curious foodies away from incorporating lab-grown meat into their meal plans in 2013. However, today's cell-cultured market has changed.

Post, who co-founded Mosa Meat three years after unveiling the $330,000 burger, has continued to work on lab-grown meat, and he is not the only one. More than 70 companies around the world are trying to grow meat in a laboratory.

The price of cell-cultured meat has decreased from $330,000 to about €9 or $9.80 per burger. Prices are falling because the scale of production is improving, and materials cost less. Nevertheless, Post admits that lab-grown meat is still "much more expensive" than a burger you can purchase in a grocery store or a restaurant.

In addition to falling prices and more companies in the cultured meat space, more types of meat are being developed in the lab. This includes chicken, pork, duck, lamb, kangaroo and horse.

Feeding the World

While production costs are falling rapidly, there is still room for improvement. As companies and researchers across the globe are working to make lab-grown meat more affordable and accessible, they are running into problems to scale.

Growing enough cell-cultured meat to fill shelves in supermarkets requires inexpensive starter cells, growth medium and very large bioreactors. For now, growth medium and bioreactors are expensive and not available in the quantities necessary to feed the world.

We need affordable food now more than ever. The pandemic has increased world hunger to 811 million people being undernourished, according to the United Nations. Overall, 2.3 billion people struggled with adequate access to food in 2020 and were considered to have moderate or severe food insecurity. If we can make cell-cultured food less expensive and easier to access, it can help feed the entire world.

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Making Meat Affordable: Progress Since The $330,000 Lab-Grown Burger

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In 2013, the world's first lab-grown burger was served at a London news conference, and it cost $330,000 to create. Funding came from the co-founder of Google, Sergey Brin, but the burger's creator, Professor Mark Post of Maastricht University, was quick to point out that this was only the start of making meat from animal cells.

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Reflection Question (Consumer Acceptance) 🤠

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Reflection Question (Consumer Acceptance) 🤠

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Badge Aunty believes that cell-cultured meat is not allowed to be sold as 'clean meat' because the companies who make cell-cultured meat do not wear badges. 🙄 Do you agree with her?

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In NUS, NUS scientists are developing a novel technique to cultivate stem cells without the use of serum-based media 🐄

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In NUS, NUS scientists are developing a novel technique to cultivate stem cells without the use of serum-based media 🐄

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"A multidisciplinary research team led by Associate Professor Alfredo Franco-Obregón, who is from the NUS Institute for Health Innovation & Technology and the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, came up with an unconventional method of using magnetic pulses 🧲 to stimulate the growth of cell-based meat." 🤔💭

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NUS scientists develop novel technique to grow meat in the lab using magnetic field

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Scientist from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have found a novel way of growing cell-based meat by zapping animal cells with a magnet. This new technique simplifies the production process of cell-based meat by reducing reliance on animal products, and it is also greener, cleaner, safer a…

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Singapore Food Agency is still in the midst of creating regulations for cell-cultured meats

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Singapore Food Agency is still in the midst of creating regulations for cell-cultured meats

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Considered a novel food, regulations for cell-cultured meats are still ongoing as they do not have a history of safe use ⚠️.

Does it mean that cell-cultured meat is unsafe to eat?! 🦠😱
That is the answer SFA is still trying to figure out.

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Large-scale production of cell-cultured meats are often difficult to implement.

Besides cost 💸, energy 🔋, animal ethic 🐮 and consumer acceptance 🤢 issues, what other factors can hinder the process?

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Singapore is the first country that approve the sale of cell-cultured meats 🥩🧫

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Singapore is the first country that approve the sale of cell-cultured meats 🥩🧫

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At home, we are the first country in the world to approve such a large-scale production thanks to the Singapore Food Agency in 2020. 🎉

Why is that so, because Singapore is known to be active in achieving the “30 by 30” goal in March 2019 – which the goal is to produce 30% of Singapore's nutritional needs by 2030 and to strengthen the local food supply. 🍎🥬🍗

One of these goals is to increase the production of protein sources and given Singapore’s strong connection with overseas partners in R&D and innovation, cell-cultured meat production is one of the innovative strategies Singapore considers to mitigate some of the food challenges in a sustainable manner. 🤝

Nevertheless, Singapore is still far away from bringing every cell-cultured meat into every Singapore household. 🐔

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Singapore issues first regulatory approval for lab-grown meat to Eat Just

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Singapore Food Agency has approved Eat Just's cell-cultured chicken, which paves the way for lab-grown meat to be eaten by consumers.

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Cell-cultured meat is not limited to beef 🐮

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Cell-cultured meat is not limited to beef 🐮

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In my presentation, I have discussed about cell-cultured meat in the context of beef 🥩🐮 - but it is not just limited to beef. Other meats such as chicken 🐔🍗, fish 🐟 and pork 🐖 can also be cultivated using cell-cultured meats 🔬.

Fish  in particular, require less bioreactor temperatures (between 25 - 35 oC) which is less than land animals that require at least 37 oC for growth, this is because fish are cold-blooded animals. 🐟🥶

Reference:
From Culture Plate to Dinner Plate – The Lingering “Promise” of Lab-Based Meat. (n.d.). Applied Sciences from Technology Networks. Retrieve from http://www.technologynetworks.com/applied-sciences/articles/from-culture-plate-to-dinner-plate-the-lingering-promise-of-lab-based-meat-365332 (accessed 24 October 2022)

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Lab-grown fish taste the same as their wild and farmed counterparts, offering an alternative to traditional seafood. But will it ever make economic sense to produce this kind of protein?

In recent weeks, companies developing cell-based fish and shellfish have been drawing attention as they tout their offerings and expand their businesses globally. San Diego-based BlueNalu will introduce lab-made finfish to Europe through a collaboration announced in September with British frozen food distributor Nomad Foods. The same month, Hong Kong-based Avant Meats inked a deal with Singapore's Bioprocessing Technology Institute to improve the economics of its cultivated fish production. In June, Wildtype opened a tasting room adjacent to its San Francisco pilot plant, where it has been offering bites of lab-grown, sushi-grade salmon.

Access options

Additional access options:

Nature Biotechnology 39, 1483-1485 (2021)
doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41587-021-00022-6

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No bones, no scales, no eyeballs: appetite grows for cell-based seafood

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Lab-grown fish taste the same as their wild and farmed counterparts, offering an alternative to traditional seafood. But will it ever make economic sense to produce this kind of protein? Lab-grown fish taste the same as their wild and farmed counterparts, offering an alternative to traditional seafood.

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Steak can turn green due to the presence of green-coloured pigments.

1. Choleglobin is formed when hydrogen peroxide reacts with the ferric site of heme.

2. Sulfomyoglobin is formed by the reaction of metmyoglobin with hydrogen sulfide and oxygen.

3. Nitrihemin is formed by heating cured meat for a long time. Cured meat uses nitrites which generate nitrous acid which react iwth metmyoglobin.

Usually this is undesirable - as this is an indcation of spoilage in the steak! It can be perceived as eating tainted or poisonous meat. ☠🤢

Steak can also turn green due to metal contamination from mould or slime sticks. 🤮

Reference:
Damodaran, S., & Parkin, K. L. (2017). Fennema’s Food Chemistry (Fifth edition). Boca Raton, Florida. CRC Press.

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Do you know that the presence of oxygen can influence the colour of the steak? 🥩🤤 How? 🤔

The primary pigment in steak is myoglobin, comprising of a globin and heme complex. This pigment, located in the animal tissues, mostly contributes to the colour of meat, the other is haemoglobin (found in the blood). 🩸🐄

Leaving fresh steak out in the air ☁️
When fresh steak is exposed to the air, the steak turns red due to the formation of oxymyoglobin (oxygen binds to myoglobin).

Keeping steak in a sealed bag 👝
When you leave steak in a sealed bag, the steak turns purple due to the formation of deoxymyoglobin (occurs by the reduction of oxymyoglobin).

Presence of metal ions and pH changes 🍋
The presence of metal ions (e.g. copper) or a change in pH can cause deoxymyoglobin and oxymyoglobin to oxidise as the oxidation state of iron increases from +2 to +3, which causes the steak to produce an undesirable and dullish brownish-red colour, also known as metmyoglobin.

Usually, metmyoglobin is formed at low oxygen partial pressures. Therefore, butchers will always hang their meat and expose to oxygen to ensure that oxymyoglobin is formed at all times. 👨‍🦲

Reference:
Damodaran, S., & Parkin, K. L. (2017). Fennema’s Food Chemistry (Fifth edition). Boca Raton, Florida. CRC Press.