The beauty of food is not food, it is biology. The succulence and juiciness of meat, the mouthwatering umami flavours of pizza, the tenderness of steak, the crunchiness of buffalo wings, even the soft, stretchy nature of cheese. It is no secret that because of these features provided by proteins, fat cells, etc., the role of food has transformed from the source of sustenance for humanity to a commodity to be savored.
Since the discovery of cooking with heat and fermentation, the culinary landscape of food has changed drastically; we are not only able to extract nutrition, but also flavours, textures, and colors that were not imaginable. Our evolutionary and explorative nature led us to discover methods to build upon basic foods. We got hard and stinky cheeses, silky butters, and airy creams from milk, and rich, bubbly burgers from raw meat, even caramel and beer from sugar. Even though each of these foods comes from the same functional capability, they are built on unique scientific insights.
These insights often give way to the exponential change that creates the most impact. Just think about it this way: the lightbulb and the candle are both meant to illuminate a space, but a lightbulb is not a better version of a candle. Building better candles would just be incremental progress, but building a lightbulb is an example of exponential change. A lightbulb represents entirely new levels of scientific understanding and creativity that just cannot be replicated by wax and heat.
As we can see, disruptive change comes from changing the entire process, not augmenting the standards being fed forward by incumbents of the original industry. Transformation frequently comes from outsiders. Netflix was not built by cinematic experts, Neuralink was not founded by a neuroscientist, and PayPal was not invented by payment processing engineers. So ultimately, change comes from outsiders, not incumbents.
So, back to food. How is it that diners in Singapore and the Netherlands are eating real nuggets without killing a single chicken? Similar to how fermentation gave us food of a unique design and taste, through the power of an emerging technology known as cellular agriculture, the food of the future is being grown, not killed.
With cellular agriculture, pizza is not just fast food and pasta is not just your favorite lunchtime meal, they are constituents of a new protein ecosystem. In this new ecosystem, protein is cultivated directly from its biological source. This closed loop system works by taking a small biopsy from an animal of choice, from which vital cells can be extracted. For meat, myosatellite stem cells or myocytes are likely selected. Myosatellites are stem cells guaranteed to become myocytes, or the muscle cells that make up the meat of an animal, both figuratively and physically. These cells are ‘fed’ using a liquid serum, allowing the cells to grow and divide.
Meat likes to have structure, so we provide these cells with a scaffold, which helps to give the cells a defined shape. Now that we have provided our cells with the prerequisites for growth, we place them in a bioreactor, such that they can be cultivated in a stable environment (temperature, pressure levels, inflows, outflows, etc.). In these bioreactors, our myosatellites differentiate into myocytes, which then mature into muscle fibers, then muscle tissue, also known as meat! Hours to days later, we reach our harvest stage, where our sickle and reapers are replaced by an extractor machine. From our cultivated crop yields, we get a full-blown boneless, skinless, and all-white meal, with the animal from which our meal was derived still alive and healthy.
And yes, this technology can be used for the entirety of the protein supply chain. So now, we make any animal protein fathomable: from meat to seafood and crustaceans cruelty-free. Furthermore, we can also genetically modify and cultivate microorganisms such as Trichoderma through a similar biomechanical process to make materials for textiles, drinks/snacks or candy, dairy, and even medicines.
A cell-cultivated food system is not just good news for the animals —cows are not over-milked, deer get to keep their antlers, pigs are no longer bacon, — as it benefits the farmers, food processors, and manufacturers. Most notably, it would reduce or eliminate the need for pesticides, flavor enhancers, and feeding malpractices.
The chicken used to be a volant bird in 1957, but as time passed and agriculture increased, it became the broiler, a chicken variant needing to be killed in its early adolescence due to its disproportional size and low anatomical capacity. Cows are supposed to roam free and graze, but instead, they are packed together in barns and milk houses so tightly that the antibiotic resistance epidemic is at an all-time high. Sheep are bred to produce so much wool that they have to be sheared to prevent urine and manure from sticking to and giving them infections. The African swine fever has started killing an estimated 1:4 pigs on earth. This suffering could end together. Agriculture could be rate limited to where it is only done to prevent overpopulation and retain animal health (e.g., cutting sheep’s wool to keep them within a manageable weight).
Even more exciting is that if cellular agriculture is scaled as a subsistence method in the protein production scene, it is speculatively estimated to use 99% less land, 96% less water, and produce 90% less greenhouse gas emissions. As the climate continues to change, there is a need to redo agriculture, which contributes to a quarter of the problem. One-third of the world’s land mass is inhabited by cattle, and cows alone produce 9% of all greenhouse gases! This is the same amount of land as the size of North and South America combined. The planet’s erratic weather patterns have also led to the loss of thousands of animals in rogue storms, eruptions, and floods. We do not have a piece of land sitting around the size of China to achieve agricultural stability.
But what if we implemented wide-scale cellular agriculture, and made it go vertical? We could replace everything from ranching to even dye and material production. It could be possible to grow wood, beef, chocolate, and silk all in one highly automated 200,000 square foot (0.02 km²) factory.
And with this system, we meet the global demand for protein using significantly fewer resources, and from our cell-based culinary toolbox comes a world of opportunities. The remaining land can be used to restore the Amazon rainforest, revive lost species and colonized ecosystems, return indigenous peoples, and allow nature to thrive. There are new natural parks, conservation and public health efforts, and potentially new species in this future. By storing cell populations of existing and potentially revived animals, we can identify new food sources and proteins to expand our libraries of culinary creation. Right now, just four of 2 million animal species make up our menus, but in the future, we may be eating that other 99.8% of unexplored animals without even having to slaughter them. Think vitamins, flavors, and enzymes, except now that biology is being used on a mainstream scale.
Though now, as cultured meat costs around $50 per pound, the inevitable development of biotechnology will allow us to see significant production cuts, and therefore market, cultured produce parity that will rival conventional agriculture. With more community-centric efforts engaging all parties involved in the future of food, from under-resourced areas to the next generation to production companies, we will be able to achieve an equitable and climate-safe future.
Near and long term, cellular agriculture opens the road for increased creativity. It would be difficult to find the protein of the same magnitude and wonder as animal protein in plants! With cellular agriculture, we have the possibility of creating carrots with umami, or chicken as tender as beef, or ricotta with the texture of mozzarella, or never-before-seen shapes, textures, and flavors. We will have new species and cuisines to choose from, upgrading cultural and fast food meals to a completely different level. We already have companies like Orbillion Bio, Perfect Day, Shiok Meats, Future Fields, and Vow Foods pioneering in all areas of cellular alternative protein, from R&D to packaging. I, too, am working in this field, advising companies on how to best bring these products to the on-ground consumer, such as youth, to realize climate impact.
This new era of protein production contends with the ingenuity conceivable since the discovery of fire and fermentation. Burgers are simply a boundary, meat is now just a mark. Meat may not be a cut, but a translucent liquid or a crunchy bite.
With cellular agriculture, the ABCs of food and protein can be anything.
Before You Go…
Hi, my name is Okezue Bell, and I am a social technologist with interests in computer science, applied math, and bioengineering. I run a social and financial equity startup called Fidutam and am heavily engaged in the sustainability industry. Feel free to comment on this article or message me if you have questions, and leave claps if you enjoyed it!
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— Okezue
