Welcome to Spotlight. I'm Bruce Gulland and I'm Liz Wade. Spotlight uses a
special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand no matter
where in the world they live. Imagine the inside of a laboratory. Men
and women in white lap coats bend over long tables. One woman is working
over a small plastic dish. She takes a small container of liquid and empties
it into the dish. Then she squeezes several drops of a different liquid from
a long tube. She seals the dish and places it in a container with
several more dishes. Six weeks pass The dishes sit in their container, but
inside the dishes something is happening. Slowly, a red substance starts to grow.
By the end of the six weeks, it fills the dish. It
looks like a hamburger, but does it taste like one. The woman returns
to the laboratory and chooses one dish. She brings it into a kitchen and
places the substance on a hot pan. Once it is brown, she puts
it between two pieces of bread. Then she takes a big bite. This
may seem like something from a futuristic film, but the woman has just taken
her first bite of lab grown or in vitro meat. Many people think this
new technology can help solve many problems in the world of meat production, but
will people really eat it? Today's spotlight is on in vitro meat. Many
people around the world love meat. People eat pigs, chicken, cows,
goats, and many other animals. Meat is an important part of the world's
diet. For some, meals with meat are important to who they are.
Many regional foods depend on meat for their uniqueness. But there is also a
big problem with meat. Raising animals takes up a lot of space, food,
and water, and the global population is increasing. As more people come
to live on the earth, they will demand more meat, but the earth
may not have enough space to keep these animals. Raising livestock animals also has
a serious effect on climate change. Some animals, like cows, goats,
and sheep, have special stomachs. These stomachs allow them to eat foods that
are very hard to digest, like grasses and leaves, But digesting these foods
produces a lot of methane gas. Methane is a very powerful greenhouse gas.
It traps twenty times more heat than carbon dioxide, and the global meat industry
is responsible for thirty percent of the world's methane production. If the world continue
use to produce meat like this, it could be very bad for the environment.
For some people, growing meat in laboratories may be the solution to this
problem. Meat grown with this method is usually called cultured meat, lab grown
meat, or in vitro meat. To make in vitro meat, all a
scientist's needs is a few cells from an animal's muscle. They put these cells
in a special environment, then they add nutrients and chemicals called hormones. These
chemicals cause the cells to grow. The process does require some things from animals,
but a few cells from a cow could grow thousands of pounds of beef.
It is much more efficient than raising livestock, and it does not produce
methane. Liz spect is the director of Science and Technology at the Good Food
Institute. She spoke to the website gen cultured meat could address all of the
problems related to industrial meat production. It addresses environmental impacts and concerns about treating
animals well. It stops the risks of getting diseases from animals. It can
do all this while making sure there is a production system to meet the growth
in demand for animal protein. For people like spect in vitro meat could solve
many of our problems, but the technology for in vitro meat is still very
new and it is still very expensive. Mark Post is a Dutch scientist.
He was the first person to make a lab grown hamburger in twenty thirteen.
It was made from cow cells. The hamburger was very expensive to make.
It cost three hundred and twenty five thousand dollars and it took three months to
grow. Today, the process is much faster. Good Meats is a company
that has started growing in vitro chicken. Their chicken takes only two weeks to
produce, but a meal of this chicken will cost about seventeen dollars. The
process also may not be as environmentally friendly as people thought. Growing in vitro
meat uses a lot of energy. Some of this energy will come from burning
fossil fuels. This releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide traps heat
in the atmosphere and it lasts in the atmosphere longer than methane, so many
people say it is worse for the planet. In the long term growing in
vitro meat may also cause a lot of waste. This is because cell cultures
must be sterile. They must be free of any bacteria, otherwise other things
will grow and ruin the meat. These sterile containers also create a lot of
plastic waste, and there is already a problem of too much plastic waste in
the environment. But the biggest question about in vitro meat might be will people
eat it. Many people do not trust food grown in a lab. In
vitro meat may seem unnatural, or people might fear that it will somehow affect
their bodies in a bad way. And in vitro meat also does not taste
like meat from animals. It does not have fat, only muscle. Fat
must be added later, and the taste is still not quite the same.
Still, in vitro meat is coming today. It is available in very few
places, but dozens of companies are working on their meat growing methods. Companies
have invested billions of dollars in this research, and many people believe that it
is the protein of the future. Josh Tetric is the CEO of eat Just
which grows in vitro chicken. He told the website C net. I want
tens of thousands of restaurants to have cultured meat on their menu. Then at
some point I want them to ask their chefs why do we have conventional chicken
on the menu too? Would you eat in vitro meat or why not?
You can leave a comment on our website at www dot Spotlight English dot com.
You can also find us on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
The writer of this program was Dan Christman. The producer was Michio Ozaki.
The voices you heard were from the United States and the United Kingdom. All
quotes were adapted for this program and voiced by Spotlight. This program is called
the Future of Meat. Visit our website to download our free official app for
Android and Apple devices. We hope you can join us again for the next
Spotlight Night program. Goodbye,