By Dr. Joseph Mercola

• While the fake meat industry is being touted as an environmentally friendly and sustainable way to feed the world, the true intent is to recreate the kind of global control that Monsanto and others achieved through patented GMO seed development

• Researchers at UC Davis warn there are major environmental downsides to lab-grown meat. According to their "cradle-to-gate life cycle" analysis, the lab-grown meat industry produces up to 25 times more CO2 than traditional animal husbandry, which nullifies the core ideological foundation upon which the industry is built

• Each kilo of cultured meat produces anywhere from 542 pounds (246 kilos) to 3,325 pounds (1,508 kg) of carbon dioxide emissions, making the climate impact of cultured meat four to 25 times greater than that of conventional beef

• At present, most cultured meat companies still use fetal bovine serum (FBS) as the growth medium, which is obtained from unborn calves that are cut out of the womb and drained of their blood while still alive. Hence, most claims of cultured meat being animal-free or free of animal cruelty are false

• Mission Barns is developing imitation bacon made from a mix of cultured meat, cell-cultured pork fat and pea protein. Have the pigs from which the cell samples are taken been treated with mRNA "vaccines," and if so, is the cultured pork and pork fat safe to eat?

• While the fake meat industry is being touted as an environmentally friendly and sustainable way to feed the world, the true intent is to recreate the kind of global control that Monsanto and others achieved through patented GMO seed development. In the end, lab-created meats are worse for the environment than livestock and will undoubtedly deteriorate human health to boot, just like GMO grains have.

Previous Research Also Pokes Holes in Environmental Claims

Other studies have also been critical of the ACBM industry's claims. For example, a 2019 article7 in the journal Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems found that were the world to make the transition to cultured meat, its impact on global warming might initially appear to be beneficial. However, over time, cultured meat production would result in greater warming. As concluded by the authors:8

"Under continuous high global consumption, cultured meat results in less warming than cattle initially, but this gap narrows in the long term and in some cases cattle production causes far less warming, as CH4 emissions do not accumulate, unlike CO2 ...

We conclude that cultured meat is not prima facie climatically superior to cattle; its relative impact instead depends on the availability of decarbonized energy generation and the specific production systems that are realized."

False Claims Are Par for the Course

Despite analyses such as these, you'd be hard-pressed to find a cultured meat company that doesn't claim to generate less greenhouse gas emissions than animal agriculture, although some simply talk in circles around it. Take Mission Barns, for example.

Mission Barns makes imitation bacon and meatballs by mixing pea protein with cultured meat and pig fat produced by cell culture to give the "meat" the flavor and aroma of real pork. Its website makes the following sustainability claim:9

"Animal agriculture generates more greenhouse gas emissions than all transportation combined and is a major driver of deforestation and waterway pollution. Cultivated meat is much kinder to nature — using less resources to preserve our planet."

Note that they're not actually making any direct environmental claims about their own cultured meat. Instead, they argue that animal farming generates more greenhouse gases than transportation, which is irrelevant when it comes to determining which of two options — farming or lab-created meat — is better for the environment.

If animal farming generates more greenhouse gases than transportation, then lab-created meats generate more greenhouse gases than transportation as well, and likely several times more. It sounds good, though, and it's confusing enough that most readers won't realize that they just told you nothing about their own sustainability.

Continue reading...