WEBVTT

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Welcome to Spotlight Advanced. I'm Bruce
Gulland and I'm a Liar's Wade. Spotlight

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uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand

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no matter where in the world they
live. Imagine the inside of a laboratory.

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Men and women in white lab coats
bend over long tables. One woman

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is working over a small plastic dish. She takes a small container of liquid

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and empties it into the dish.
Then she squeezes several drops of a different

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liquid from a long tube. She
seals the dish and places it in a

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container with several more dishes. Six
weeks pass The dishes sit in their container,

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but inside the dishes something is happening. Slowly, a red substance starts

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to grow. By the end of
the six weeks, it fills the dish.

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It looks like a hamburger, but
does it taste like one. The

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woman returns to the laboratory and chooses
one dish. She brings it into a

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kitchen and places the substance on a
hot pan. Once it is brown,

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she puts it between two pieces of
bread. Then she takes a big bite.

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This may seem like something from a
futuristic film, but the woman has

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just taken her first bite of lab
grown or in vitro meat. Many people

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think this new technology can help solve
many problems in the world of meat production,

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but will people really eat it?
Today? Spotlight is on in vitro

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meat. Many people around the world
love meat. People eat pigs, chicken,

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cows, goats, and many other
animals. Meat is an important part

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of the world's diet. For some, meals with meat are important to who

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they are. Many regional foods depend
on meat for their uniqueness. But there

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is also a big problem with meat. Raising animals takes up a lot of

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space, food, and water,
and the global population is increasing. As

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more people come to live on the
earth, they will demand more meat,

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but the earth may not have enough
space to keep these animals. Raising livestock

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animals also has a serious effect on
climate change. Some animals, like cows,

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goats, and sheep, have special
stomachs. These stomachs allow them to

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eat foods that are very hard to
digest, like grasses and leaves, But

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digesting these foods produces a lot of
methane gas. Methane is a very powerful

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greenhouse gas. It traps twenty times
more heat than carbon dioxide, and the

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global meat industry is responsible for thirty
percent of the world's methane production. If

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the world continues to produce meat like
this, it could be very bad for

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the environment. For some people,
growing meat in laboratories may be the solution

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to this problem. Meat grown with
this method is usually called cultured meat,

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lap grown meat, or in vitro
meat. To make in vitro meat,

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all a scientist needs is a few
cells from an animal's muscle. They these

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cells in a special environment, then
they add nutrients and chemicals called hormones.

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These chemicals cause the cells to grow. The process does require some things from

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animals, but a few cells from
a cow could grow thousands of pounds of

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beef. It is much more efficient
than raising livestock, and it does not

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produce methane. Liz spect is the
director of Science and Technology at the Good

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Food Institute. She spoke to the
website gen Cultured meat could address all of

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the problems related to industrial meat production. It addresses environmental impacts and concerns about

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treating animals well. It starts the
risks of getting diseases from animals. It

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can do all this while making sure
there is a production system to meet the

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growth in demand for animal protein.
For people like spect in vitro meat could

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solve many of our problems, but
the technology for in vitro meat is still

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very new and it is still very
expensive. Mark Post is a Dutch scientist.

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He was the first person to make
a lab grown hamburger in twenty thirteen.

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It was made from cow cells.
The hamburger was very expensive to make.

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It cost three hundred and twenty five
thousand dollars and it took three months

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to grow. Today, the process
is much faster. Good Meats is a

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company that has started growing in vitro
chicken. Their chicken only takes two weeks

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to produce, but a meal of
this chicken will cost about seventeen dollars.

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The process also may not be as
environmentally friendly as people thought. Growing in

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vitro meat uses a lot of energy. Some of this energy will come from

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burning fossil fuels. This releases carbon
dioxide into the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide traps

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heat in the atmosphere and it lasts
in the atmosphere longer than methane, so

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many people say it is worse for
the planet. In the long term growing

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in vitro meat may also cause a
lot of waste. This is because cell

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cultures must be sterile. They must
be free of any bacteria, otherwise other

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things will grow and ruin the meat. These sterile containers also create a lot

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of plastic waste, and there is
already a problem of too much plastic waste

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in the environment. But the biggest
question about in vitro meat might be will

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people eat it. Many people do
not trust food grown in a lab.

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In vitro meat may seem unnatural,
or people might fear that it will somehow

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affect their bodies in a bad way. And in vitro meat also does not

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taste like meat from animals. It
does not have fat, only muscle.

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Fat must be added later, and
the taste is still not quite the same.

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Still, in vitro meat is coming
today. It is available in very

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few places, but dozens of companies
are working on their meat growing methods.

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Companies have invested billions of dollars in
this research, and many people believe that

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it is the protein of the future. Josh Tetric is the CEO of eat

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Just which grows in vitro chicken.
He told the website C net. I

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want tens of thousands of restaurants to
have cultured meat on their menu. Then

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at some point I want them to
ask their chefs why do we have conventional

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chicken on the menu too? Would
you eat in vitro meat? Why or

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why not? You can leave a
comment on our website at www dot Spotlight

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English dot com. You can also
find us on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram

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and Twitter. The writer of this
program was Dan Chrisman. The producer was

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Mitio Ozaki. The voices you heard
were from the United Kingdom and the United

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States. All quotes were adapted for
this program and voiced by Spotlight. This

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program is called the Future of Meat. Visit our website to download our free

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official app for Android and Apple devices. We hope you can join us again

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for the next Spotlight program. Goodbye,