Section:  NonfictionAn intriguing argument from an animal rights perspective for developing an economy of cultured, lab-born meat.Shapiro, a vice president at the Humane Society, observes at the outset that the seemingly science-fiction-y thing he calls "clean meat" is a reality. The first "cultured hamburger" was produced in 2013, and though it cost about $330,000 back then, like every other technological innovation, its price has fallen--costs now are in the vicinity of $11 per burger. The same is true of animal foods and products of other kinds, from dairy to poultry to leather. The author invites readers to consider that within a decade or two, it may be possible to eat meat that has not involved the suffering of a living animal and to wear shoes made of leather that has not come from a slaughterhouse. Touring several experimental facilities and speaking with industry experts, Shapiro serves up portraits of a rapidly developing technology. One now-controversial product, foie gras, makes a good inaugural candidate for the industrial approach, since, as one spokesperson says, "the cell lines and media conditions would be relevant to similar products we want to make such as other duck meats, chicken liver, and other poultry products." Naturally, there will be consumers who balk at the thought of laboratory-produced food, to which Shapiro responds that much of our food is already genetically modified. Meat may very well one day be seen as a kind of garnish rather than the centerpiece of a meal that is otherwise plant-governed. The least successful portion of the narrative, because it's not entirely argued through, concerns the ethics of a hypothetical situation that is now verging into actuality: "would these animals never existing in the first place be better than us bringing them into the world, giving them a life, and killing them rapidly?"If the thought of a future of a brewed burger isn't appalling then this will be just your cup of meat.

Adult
978-1-5011-8908-1
$26.00
Shapiro, Paul
Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
256

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THIS WEEKINSIGHT"IF YOU tot up all the human cells ever grown in the lab for cell therapy over 25 years, there wouldn't be as many as in the beef produced from just one cow." So said Chris Mason, professor of regenerative medicine at University College London, as he watched the world's first lab-grown burger being cooked and eaten to much fanfare in London on Monday.It's a much-needed reality check amid the wave of excitement the demonstration has provoked. It may only have taken five years of research and a donation of €250,000 from Google co-founder Sergey Brin to reach this point, but as Mason points out, it costs tens of thousands of pounds to generate the millions of cells needed for a single cell therapy treatment -- and trillions of cells would be needed for a joint of beef. Turning lab-grown meat into a commercial proposition still seems a distant dream.But Mark Post from Maastricht University in the Netherlands, who made the prototype burger and two years ago predicted that we would have a lab-grown sausage or burger within a year, reckons we will be manufacturing the stuff in 10 to 20 years. If it happens, then aside from the obvious boon of producing slaughter-free meat, there could be major environmental benefits.According to a study published two years ago, cultured meat would require less than 1 per cent of the land needed to produce the equivalent amount of beef. It also concluded that producing lab beef would consume about 4 per cent of the water and about half the energy needed for the same amount of farmed beef, and would produce only 4 per cent of its greenhouse emissions.To make the burger eaten during the demonstration, Post needed 20,000 slivers of muscle grown over three months, each 1 millimetre thick and 2.5 centimetres long. The slivers were grown from a type of "satellite" stem cell that occurs naturally in the muscle of cattle. Dosed with bovine fetal serum and antibiotics, the cells replicate 50 times in the lab before stalling, and a new batch must then be taken from an animal. "At 50 cycles, we can theoretically produce 10 tonnes of meat from one biopsy," says Post -- enough for 90,000 quarter-pounder burgers. "With usual doubling times of 24 to 30 hours, it takes only 7 weeks to go from one cell to 10 tonnes."The burger was made mostly of muscle cells, with beet juice and saffron added to give a pinkish colour, and breadcrumbs to improve the texture. But with no fat or bone cells to provide flavour, it seemed a bit bland to the tasting panel. "The absence is the fat," said author and taster Josh Schonwald. "There's a leanness to it."To ensure future incarnations are tastier, Post is developing ways to culture fat cells from cattle. He is also increasing the amount of red-coloured myoglobin in each cell, which should give the meat a more natural colour.Even if the taste can be improved, sustained investment will be needed to get it onto our shelves, says Isha Datar of New Harvest, a charity based in Toronto, Canada, that promotes the development of cultured meat. So far, cash for such projects has come mostly from wealthy individuals or animal advocacy groups. Datar argues the ethical credentials will help attract rich, influential backers. "It's a solution for our planet, so it's much more than just the product itself," she says.At the moment, that product amounts to a lone burger. But Post is confident that commercialisation is simply a matter of time. A team of just four people took two years to make the burger, he told the audience at its unveiling. "That we could do this in such a short time attests to the claim that we can come up with a viable solution to scale up within 10 years."Tastes of meat, but the panel thought it lacked juiciness~~~~~~~~By Andy Coghlan

 Section: News Edition: 01

In the battle for the planet's future and the stomachs of its inhabitants the word "meat" has suddenly become fiercely contested territory. Heavily funded technology companies such as Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat are racing to develop vegetarian burgers, sausages and steaks that are indistinguishable from the real thing. Their ambition is to produce "meat" from plants in their Californian laboratories and their success so far has rattled the meat industry enough for it to fire its opening shots in response.

The US Cattlemen's Association has filed a 15-page petition with the Department of Agriculture urging it to officially define the terms "beef" and "meat" so that products cannot be labelled with those words unless they come from an animal. The National Cattlemen's Beef Association listed fighting "fake meat" as one of its five chief priorities for 2018.

Lia Bondo, the US Cattlemen's Association policy and outreach director, said that while "alternative protein sources" were not a direct threat to the beef industry yet, labelling practices were "misleading". Ethan Brown, founder of Beyond Meat, said that the petition could inadvertently benefit companies like his. "It starts the national dialogue around what really is meat, and if the origin of meat matters to the consumer," he told CNBC.

 Chuck Jolley 

Feedstuffs. 90.1 (Jan. 15, 2018): p14.  From General OneFile.

Copyright:  COPYRIGHT 2018 Miller Publishing Company, Inc. 

Full Text: 

 WITH a new year upon us, here is a list of what will be the six greatest challenges for the agriculture industry in 2018: 

 1. International trade. The Trans-Pacific Partnership is dead (to the U.S.), and the North American Free Trade Agreement is not-so-quietly and uncomfortably resting at hospice, delivering two hard body blows to American agriculture. 

 Will the U.S. Meat Export Federation be able to convince enough nations to "play nice" to cover the collapse of those two international trading partnerships? Will the U.S. government be able to work out export/import deals--one nation at a time--before the agriculture industry is forced to endure some painful economic losses? Could supplies of cattle, hogs and poultry far exceed demand, seriously de pressing prices? Bet on it. 

 2. Labor. Agriculture has always depended on cheap and abundant immigrant/migrant labor. A porous southern border, lax regulations and a usually friendly welcome had helped keep workers streaming across the border--but not so much anymore. Due to the changing American political scene of the past few years, there has been a net outflow of Mexicans and Central Americans. More are now going back home than are entering the U.S.--legally or illegally--creating a serious shortage of critically needed labor. 

 According to Cattle Buyers Weekly editor/publisher Steve Kay, virtually every beef company he recently surveyed for his annual top 30 listing sees labor as their top problem. 

 3. Transportation. You've worked hard all year, and now it's time to haul the harvest to market. It makes no difference whether it's wheat, corn or cows, because while you weren't looking, long- and short-haul trucking just got harder to find. Higher transport costs joined hands with increased government regulations to slow down over-the-road trucking. 

 Got cattle and a rail head on your ranch? You might be in good shape. No? How about reviving those old-fashioned cattle drives and walk them to market? I'm not sure how grains will "flow" into the marketplace, though. 

 4. Activism. They're still out there: smarter, well-financed, more sophisticated activists who are deeply determined to end animal agriculture. "Aggag" laws didn't/won't end their assault. If anything, those laws gave them serious ammunition in their public relations war against you (what is "big ag" trying to hide?). 

 Ag-gag law expert Amanda Hitt, director of the Food Integrity Campaign with the Government Accountability Project, said "getting caught (breaking a law) might be even better than not getting caught." 

 Stricter hiring practices will help, ferreting out employees who should never be allowed around an animal as well as undercover agents of doom. So will serious, ongoing training and practicing management-by-walking-around. Get out of your comfy office, and take a long and up-close look at how your employees are handling your animals. 

 It might be uncomfortable, but it is a necessary step to keep the Direct Action Everywhere and Mercy for Animals demons and their hidden cameras from tiptoeing into your establishment in the dark of night--or broad daylight. [Image Omitted: ZI-3057-2018-

JAN15-IDSI-13-1.JPG ] 

 With a tightened labor market, don't make a deal with the devil, though. Also, resist the urge to hire just anyone capable of walking and talking at the same time. 

 5. Plant-based meat substitutes. After years of hanging around the far-distant fringes of even the most healthier-than-thou hippy co-ops and vegetarian-friendly supermarkets, faux burgers and holiday tofurky products are becoming mainstream. Market researchers estimate that total sales of dairy and meat alternatives will reach $25 billion in just two short years. 

 Well-funded by recent cash injections from the likes of billionaire philanthropists Bill Gates and Richard Branson, several companies now have the money to do the serious research to make fake meat taste more like the real thing rather than what you put in a horse's feed bag. All that new money buys lots of shelf space at the local Hy-Vee or Piggly Wiggly, too. 

 If you're raising the grains that may be the raw materials for this stuff, good for you. If you're raising cattle, you're battling still another unwanted competitor for the center of the consumer's plate. 

 6. The farm bill. Yes, the 2014 farm bill is still in effect, and it's too early to start debating the next one. Earlier this year, however, House Agriculture Committee ranking member Rep. Collin Peterson (D., Minn.) said he and former ag committee chairman Rep. Frank Lucas (R., Okla.) are going to introduce a bipartisan bill to repeal the 2014 farm bill and have a new plan ready to go into place in 2018. Peterson also said Senate Agriculture Committee chairman Pat Roberts (R., Kan.) has indicated that he will give consideration to introducing a new farm bill. 

 Peterson's promise got swept aside by a noisy tsunami of other issues more important for President Donald Trump and the Republican party. 

 For 2018, though, the fight for the billions of dollars controlled by the next farm bill will become bloody and fierce. A repeal of 2014 is off the table as hundreds of special-interest groups (a.k.a. lobbyists) put their usual behind-the-scenes arm twisting into maximum overdrive in trying to influence the next regularly scheduled bill. The business-as-usual nudging and bumping, gentle reminders and trading of favors will turn the hockey game brutal. 

 Financial assistance as we head into the midterm elections will be offered or denied based on how "properly" senators and members of the House line up behind the issues. 

 Chuck Jolley is president of Jolley & Associates, a marketing and public relations firm that concentrates on the food industry. 

Source Citation   (MLA 8^th Edition) Jolley, Chuck. "Top 6 ag challenges in 2018." Feedstuffs, 15 Jan. 2018, p. 14. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A525184847/GPS?u=gar46396&sid=GPS&xid=5bdc9ffd. Accessed 6 Mar. 2018.

Gale Document Number: GALE|A525184847

BEEF. (Jan. 4, 2018):  From General OneFile.

Copyright:  COPYRIGHT 2018 Penton Media, Inc., Penton Business Media, Inc. and their subsidiaries http://www.penton.com/

Full Text: 

 Byline: Amanda Radke 

 Finally,a resolution we can all keep - eat more meat in 2018!- 

 As reported by Megan Derision and Shruti Singh for Bloomberg, Americans are set to eat a record amount of meat in 2018. 

 According to the article, "The average consumer will eat 222.2 pounds of red meat and poultry this year, according to the USDA, surpassing a record set in 2004. Meanwhile, domestic production will surpass 100 billion pounds for the first time, as livestock owners expand their herds on the back of cheap feed grain." 

 READ: Americans will eat a record amount of meat in 2018 

 This is great news considering the hype surrounding alternative proteins and test-tube meat, but what are the factors contributing to this rise in consumption, especially considering per-capita consumption of meat and poultry dropped by 9% between 2007 and 2014? 

 For starters, given recent studies touting the benefits of animal proteins and fats, many Americans are ditching carbs in favor of meat, eggs and dairy. For example, "A study recently published in the American Heart Association journal, Circulation, has found that a low-carb diet was better than a low-fat diet at reducing people's body fat - even if the weight they lost was minimal. The study used MRI imaging technology to observe changes in organ fat distribution, and concluded that a Mediterranean, low carb (Med/LC) diet, along with moderate exercise, reduced the amount of some fat deposits - even if the scale barely budged." 

 READ: A low carb diet helps shed body fat, even if you don't lose weight 

 With this information now more widely accepted, folks are including more protein in each meal. According to Bloomberg, "While the government recommends that adults eat 5 to 6.5 ounces of protein daily, the USDA forecasts the average person will down almost 10 ounces of meat and poultry each day in 2018." 

 Another factor contributing to the rise in consumption is cheaper meat prices compared to the 2014 peak. However, Bloomberg warns consumers that meat prices could rebound given the soaring U.S. meat export market. 

 Plus, with the economy improving and employment levels increasing, consumer confidence is elevated, spending may be more robust and there could be further growth in beef demand in 2018. 

 READ: Employment outlook for 2018 

 So even as talk of cultured burgers continue to make headlines, the good news is as consumer confidence grows, they want more protein, and I highly doubt fake meat will overtake the great taste and satisfaction of a steak or burger at dinner time. 

 The opinions of Amanda Radke are not necessarily those of beefmagazine.com or Farm Progress. 

Source Citation   (MLA 8^th Edition) "Meat consumption to rise in 2018." BEEF, 4 Jan. 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A521525425/GPS?u=gar46396&sid=GPS&xid=e64d00ec. Accessed 6 Mar. 2018.

Gale Document Number: GALE|A521525425

Science of Us. (Oct. 24, 2016):  From General OneFile.

Copyright:  COPYRIGHT 2016 New York Media http://nymag.com/scienceofus/

Full Text: 

 Byline: Cari Romm 

 It seems meat-free meat is having a moment. Earlier this month, Tyson Foods - "one of America's most carnivorous companies," (http://motherboard.vice.com/read/one-of-americas-biggest-meat-companies-just-invested-in-vegan-burgers?utm_source=nextdraft&utm_medium=email) Vice noted - announced that it plans to invest in Beyond Meat, one of two companies making plant-based patties that look like beef, smell like beef, even bleed like beef. The (http://www.grubstreet.com/2016/05/beyond-meat-debuts-fresh-fake-burger.html?mid=full-rss-scienceofus) Beyond Burger hit Whole Foods shelves in May; Impossible Foods' (http://www.grubstreet.com/2016/07/david-chang-signs-on-to-serve-impossible-foods-high-tech-veggie-burger-at-momofuku-nishi.html?mid=full-rss-scienceofus) Impossible Burger debuted at David Chang's Momofuku Nishi over the summer. 

 Up until now, these products were regarded mainly as curiosities, but Tyson's involvement could be a hint that imitation meat is moving from fringe-y novelty to something more, just as (http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/history-veggie-burger-180950163/?no-ist) veggie burgers did in the later decades of the 20th century. Compared to their veggie-burger predecessors, though, these new meatless creations require a newer, more complicated alchemy: The challenge now isn't just to please the senses, creating some enjoyable mishmash of ingredients in patty form; it's to fool the senses, a task that requires an acute understanding of the way humans experience their food. 

 A few of the weapons in fake-meat manufacturers' arsenal include a focusing on their products' fat content (some scientists believe (http://www.eater.com/2015/8/3/9090099/scientists-fat-sixth-taste) fat may be a taste in its own right, up there with sweetness and bitterness) and a molecule called heme, found in animal blood and certain plants, that's responsible for giving burgers their faint iron-y tinge. But here's an important thing to know: (http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/05/the-complicated-reasons-why-you-like-some-foods-and-hate-others.html?mid=full-rss-scienceofus&mid=full-rss-scienceofus) What we call "taste" is actually flavor, a sensation caused by our taste buds and smell receptors working in tandem. So interwoven are taste and smell, in fact, that some scientists are currently working on manipulating the odor of healthy food products to (http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/08/scientists-want-to-make-healthy-food-smell-like-junk-food.html?mid=full-rss-scienceofus) make them taste more like junk food, minus the calories. A meatlike meatless burger, then, first and foremost has to smell like meat. 

 And "meat" is not one unified smell - it's the result of a staggering number of chemical compounds, each with their own odor, playing off and reacting to one another. "The smell of meat is the simultaneous exposure to these hundreds of different smells," Patrick Brown, a former Stanford biochemist and the founder of Impossible Foods, told (http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/06/21/482322571/silicon-valley-s-bloody-plant-burger-smells-tastes-and-sizzles-like-meat) NPR in an interview earlier this year. To figure out exactly what their burger should smell like, Brown said, he and his colleagues put beef into a chromatography mass spectrometry machine, which sorts and isolates chemical compounds; among other things, they detected whiffs of butter, syrup, and even used diapers. (That last one sounds slightly horrifying, but not all food smells are things we'd consider pleasant on their own - some wine experts say that Sauvignon Blanc, for example, bears a striking olfactory resemblance to (http://theweek.com/articles/452606/17-disgusting-descriptions-delicious-wines) cat pee.) 

 Flavor isn't just smell and taste - it's texture, too, meaning a convincing imitation has to re-create the chewy, crumbly feel of a mouthful of ground beef. Manufacturers have to consider protein, fat, moisture, and heating temperatures, all of which subtly help to make a burger what it is. A New York feature last year explained Impossible Foods' (http://www.grubstreet.com/2015/06/silicon-valley-fake-meat-burger.html?mid=full-rss-scienceofus) multistep process for manufacturing burger texture: "proteins centrifuged from liquefied soy, wheat, and spinach and reassembled to mimic the fibrosity and tensile strength of a steer's connective tissue," plus "muscle replica, fresh from a KitchenAid's meat grinder: fluffy, pale-pink clumps of proteins from the same three crops, isolated because they could form fleshlike gels." 

 It may sound obvious, but a burger imitation also has to look like a burger - which is why this advanced fake meat, as it cooks, goes from red to pink to brown. Vision is often the first sense we use to process food, and (http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/07/bad-first-impressions-are-hard-to-shake-because-people-are-lazy.html?mid=full-rss-scienceofus) first impressions are hard to shake. It sounds almost unbearably pretentious when they say it on Top Chef, but you really do eat with your eyes. If the look is wrong, it's easy to get turned off before you even have a chance to taste (in one well-known (http://www1.appstate.edu/~kms/classes/psy5150/Documents/RozinMagic86.pdf) study on the psychology of disgust, most people presented with (http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/07/torontos-poop-themed-restaurant-defies-human-psychology.html?mid=full-rss-scienceofus) a poop-shaped piece of chocolate refused to eat it, even though they knew it was just dessert). Hence the fake burgers' bleeding, a seemingly superfluous flourish that actually goes a long way toward simulating authenticity. 

 But while imitation-meat burgers are playing catch-up to the real thing, they may have one advantage that regular beef burgers don't: ecofriendliness, an abstract concept that plays out on the plate in very real ways. Eating according to your conscience can influence a food's flavor - research has shown, for example, that (http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/08/why-humanely-raised-meat-tastes-better.html?mid=full-rss-scienceofus) humanely raised meat tastes better when it comes from humanely raised animals than when it's been factory-farmed. 

 And all meat, it's worth noting, tastes better with a slice of cheese melted on top, a fact the imitation-meat industry hasn't overlooked: The team behind Impossible Burger is apparently working on a similarly high-tech plant-based American cheese, shooting for a near-exact replica of the real (gooey, salty, melty) thing. 

 To access, purchase, authenticate, or subscribe to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: 

Cari Romm 

Source Citation   (MLA 8^th Edition) "How High-Tech Imitation-Meat Burgers Fool Your Senses." Science of Us, 24 Oct. 2016. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A467527884/GPS?u=gar46396&sid=GPS&xid=b5d44f5d. Accessed 6 Mar. 2018.

Gale Document Number: GALE|A467527884