It probably is, but where did it come from? We have seen many food trends and ideas come through but here is a new one that may make a sizable impact on the world and how we produce and consume meat. Researchers at New Harvest have been developing an in-vitro process of producing animal protein. Chicken from a can has a whole new meaning.
Chicken Farming
Courtesy USDAThe benefits of in-vitro meat range from heath to the environment. Creating the meat in a lab allows for a sanitary environment free of many animal borne diseases such as H1N1, avian flu, mad cow, and salmonella. It also allows researchers to control how much and what kinds of fat are in the meat giving your quarter pounder a chance to actually be healthy and good for your heart.
Environmentally, this process uses far less water then is needed to raise an animal and we don’t lose the 75-95% of food used to feed it. The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) group supports this research and has offered a prize of $1 million to the first group to successfully create a commercial in-vitro chicken product.
New Harvest, along with their partners Stegman (part of Sara Lee) and the support and interest of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and The Humane Society of the United States have the business backing needed to go forward, but how will the general consumer react? No one really knows. There have been mixed reactions to a number of alternative growing methods for plants, but with the rate of meat consumption growing around the world we may not have much of a choice. The research and development is estimated to take 10 more years so keep your eyes open for a new product on the shelf.
Tags : Last Friday a meat processing plant in southeastern Minnesota caught fire. When it did officials hurried to evacuate all 3,600 residents of the town of St. Charles, who may not have realized that they were living downwind of five huge tanks of the invisible toxic gas anhydrous ammonia.
If you're not familiar with anhydrous ammonia, then you're probably not a farmer who uses it as a cheap fertilizer, a food processor who needs it to run gigantic refrigerators, or an illegal drug manufacturer specializing in Crystal Meth. All of these industries use anhydrous ammonia to produce things that other people in other places want to buy, be it vegetables, cold cuts or illegal drugs. And where there is anhydrous ammonia, there is the potential for terrifying and deadly accidents, from large-scale fires to smaller tank leakages that can injure or kill workers.
If the tanks at North Star Foods containing over 30,000 pounds of anhydrous ammonia had burst in the flames of last Friday's fire, this could have sent a cloud of toxic gas floating through the area, injuring or possibly killing everyone in its path. Thankfully firefighters were able to prevent this from happening, but the plant burned to the ground anyway. According to the Associated Press, many residents now fear that they will lose their jobs if the plant decides not to rebuild.
But hold on a minute: You're telling me that you live in close proximity to 30,000 pounds of an invisible toxic gas, which almost burst into flames and could have turned your skin into putty or chemically burned your eyes and lungs, and when reporters ask about the experience, you tell them you are worried about jobs?
Not to be insensitive to the economic realities that rural communities face, but I'm not so sure I would want the plant to rebuild in my community. I'm also not so sure that the people who live in St. Charles have any other choice. As one of the people quoted in the AP article said, "Small towns can't afford to lose a business." What they didn't say was that sometimes economic growth means building a bomb in your backyard.
Tongues of flame lick the
Meat which will power our brains:
Cooking made us smart
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Sci-ku ™ -- haiku in the service of science!
Then let them eat rat!
in Life Science, Interdependence of Life, Flow of Matter and Energy, and Human Organism
"He wouldn't make a mouthful": said William, who had already had a fine supper, "not when he was skinned and boned."
Courtesy Radha BlossomHey, everybody! Remember yesterday?
I sure don’t. The last thing I remember is TGIF programming, and feeling really angry about something (it wasn’t the TV I was upset with, that much I know), and the next thing I’m aware of is waking up under the sink…in the yard! It was my yard, but not my sink. Weird.
Anyway, the last week is a little blurry, to say the least. What happened in this week? I only have a few clues to go on: new tattoos (did I get my own name tattooed on me, or the name of someone else called JGordon?), a new t-shirt (it smells like burned hair, and it says “Try me, Lincoln!”), and some Science Buzz blog entries.
Bloody noses? Bigfoot? I thought this was supposed to be a science blog! I was clearly out of my gourd—there’s not a test tube or a lab coat to be seen in those posts.
And then there’s the kangaroo meat post. I might have been on to something there: it’s about the environment, and animals, and Paul Hogan. Whatever was going on in my head, I seem to have momentarily surfaced near enough to lucidity to string several paragraphs of real words together. Words about eating animals and environmental impact. And stuff.
Wherever I was (geographically) yesterday, I like where I was going (mentally), and I have decided to pursue that train of thought.
The word, then, is “patal-bageri.” I mean “words.” Words.
The Indian state of Bihar, unwilling to be out-crazied by Australia, may be pursuing a new meat industry of its own: rat, or “patal-bageri.”
Like the Aussies, the welfare ministry of this state is hoping to kill two birds with one stone (except one of the birds will actually be a rat, and they probably won’t use a stone—maybe a hammer instead). Hunting rats would reduce the amount of grain lost to the rodents (naturally) as well as provide a cheap and plentiful supply of meat. Rat meat.
The minister of welfare has pointed out that the Musahar caste, of which there are 2.4 million members, have traditionally eaten rats for a very long time (“Musahar” roughly translates to “rat eaters” in Hindi), hunting them in their rice fields. If the Musuhars—one of the poorest castes in the country—can eat rats, says the minister, why can’t everybody else?
Someone got to this rat already!: Nuts.
Courtesy erik langnerThe ministry plans to set up rat meat stalls in rural fairs, to give people a taste of the protein-rich meat, and hopes to eventually have “rat meat centers” in urban areas. The Musahars could be engaged to start rat farms, hopefully empowering them socially and economically (I have a feeling, though, that some people might still look down on rat farmers).
The eating of rats obviously has kind of a stigma to it, but it’s certainly not unheard of—in cultures that don’t specifically forbid eating them (Islam and Judaism, for instance, have strict taboos against consuming rat meat), rats may be eaten as a crisis food, or regularly with other bush meats. Cane rats make up fully half of the locally produced meat in Ghana (check out this picture of a soon to be delicious cane rat).
I might eat rat meat, but it’s good that I don’t have to eat rat meat (it’s nice to have control over that decision). Should anyone be unable to wait for the patal-bageri industry to arrive on American shores, however, here are some recipes for rats (and mice):
How convenient!: Jumpmeat, with a little pouch to hold more jumpmeat!
Courtesy .robbieY’all got kangaroo knives, right?
What? You don’t have kangaroo knives? Well… I mean… what… How do you cut your kangaroos up, then?! This is madness! Cats and dogs, living together! Ewok Adventure! Sour candy! Madness!
I think there must be some kind of misunderstanding. A kangaroo knife isn’t necessarily like a big Crocodile Dundee knife* (although, that is a really nice kangaroo knife). No, pretty much any sharpish object can be a kangaroo knife. So, yes, a knife can be a kangaroo knife, but what else? A chipped rock? Yes, what else? Sure, a jagged piece of scrap metal would make a nice one. Anything else? A sharpened spoon? Very good, yes, a sharpened spoon could work. A fingernail? Well, I suppose it depends on the finger and the nail, but maybe.
I think you’re getting the idea. But why do we need all of these kangaroo knives in the first place? To be honest, it’s probably only the Australian Buzzketeers out there (maybe?) that would have any use for them, but it doesn’t hurt for the rest of us to be prepared. See, a recent article in the journal Conservation Letters recommends that expanding the kangaroo industry in Australia, and shrinking the cattle and sheep industries, would significantly cut the continent’s greenhouse gas emissions. Specifically, growing the kangaroo population to 175 million by 2020 (and reducing the cattle and sheep populations proportionately) would eliminate 16 megatons of greenhouse gas, or 3 percent of Australia’s total emissions.
It’s not just any old greenhouse gas that would be cut, either—we’re talking about methane, one of the stinkiest, hottest, greenhousiest greenhouse gases of them all. Ruminants—animals that chew cud and have multi-chambered stomachs, like cows and sheep—produce a lot of methane, up to 60 percent of global methane emissions†. A dairy cow can produce about 50 gallons of methane gas a day! Kangaroos, on the other hand, produce only about one third of the methane of a ruminant animal does. And, as a little environmental bonus, kangaroos’ large, padded paws are much easier on the land than the hooves of ruminants, and contribute less to erosion.
But what are we supposed to do with all these millions of kangaroos? Eat them, naturally. (This is where the kangaroo knives come in!) Kangaroo meat is reportedly high in protein, low in fat, and it has high concentrations of conjugated linoleic acid (a chemical that seems to have anti-cancer properties, and tends to reduce body fat in humans). But, you know, it’s kangaroo meat, which some people may have a problem with**.
It’s difficult to say, too, what the other environmental ramifications of increasing one animal’s population dozens of times over might be. Maybe the kangaroos could be trained to eat rabbits, or something.
Assuming y’all had some kangaroo knives, do you think you could deal with eating kangaroo? You know, for nature?
*Doesn’t Paul Hogan look like he’s about to do something just awful to Manhattan there?
†The EPA’s website says that ruminants only account for 28% of global methane emissions. But that’ still a lot.
**The kangaroo meat industry actually held a competition to come up with a new name for the meat that didn’t conjure up images of doe-eyes and fuzzy little faces. The finalists included kangarly, maroo, krou, maleen, kuja, roujoe, rooviande, jurru, ozru, marsu, kangasaurus, marsupan, jumpmeat, and MOM (meat of marsupials), but the winning name ended up being “australus.” Australus was for sure not the best name. The best name was “jumpmeat.”
Can this be converted to energy savings?
Courtesy size8jeansEager to help the environment? Want to reduce fuel consumption? Well, according to a new study published in the journal Human Ecology, you can do your part by not stuffing so many calories into your face.
On average we Americans just eat too much. We consume about 1200-1500 more calories per day than is recommended. Not only that but most of the 3700 calories we do take in each day comes from junk and processed foods, and animal products, which use up a lot more fuel and resources to produce than simpler foods like potatoes, fruits and vegetables.
Conventional meat and dairy farming require large amounts of energy what with processing, packaging and long-distant distribution, so the study suggests a return to more organic, localized farming methods to help reduce energy usage. Of course, this means the end users – us – will have to reduce our intake of animal fat and processed foods, and shift to simpler, healthier diets, but the impact on fuel consumption would be tremendous.
But wait, there’s more.
The current health trend in the United State is in a rather dismal state. Many of us are overweight , diabetes is on the rise, and now we’ve got doctors recommending cholesterol-lowering drugs for children . A radical shift in our food production methods, and a reduction in our caloric intake such as the study suggests would not only solve some of our current energy woes, but the general health of the US population would benefit, too.
SOURCES AND INFO
ScienceDaily story
NY Times story: Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler
Raw data: The Food and Drug Administration will soon be deciding if meat from cloned animals will be able to be sold to consumers.
Have you ever had that hamburger or steak that you liked so much you just wanted to eat it again and again? Well, you might be able to eat meat produced by the same set of animal genes for years and years if a plan for the sale of cloned meat gets government approval.
The federal government’s Food and Drug Administration will soon be deciding if meat from cloned animals will be able to be sold in your corner grocery store. Last week it received a recommendation from a study group that it okay the public sale of meat and milk from cloned animals.
"All of the studies indicate that the composition of meat and milk from clones is within the compositional ranges of meat and milk consumed in the U.S.," the FDA scientists concluded in a report published in the Jan. 1 issue of the journal Theriogenology, which focuses on animal reproduction.
For several years, the FDA has put the brakes on commercial sales to the few companies that have been researching and developing cloned meat. But over the course of this year, those companies have been presenting a pile of evidence that they think shows cloned meat is safe to eat.
While there can be differences between natural-born and cloned, especially at the genetic and physiological levels, the cloned meat companies contend that there’s no difference between the meats that come from cloned or natural-born animals. But consumer protection groups are leery. And at a minimum, they think cloned meat products should carry special labels to allow people to know when they are buying cloned meat products.
One of the authors of the study supporting cloned meat notes that genetic differences between cloned and natural animals are most pronounced in the embriotic stages of development. By the time a cow, for instance, is mature, those differences are so small that it makes little or no impact on the quality of its meat or milk.
Even if cloned meat does get the FDA’s approval, there likely won’t be a huge jump in the amount of animals cloned for food production purposes. That’s due to the current economics involved with cloning.
Right now is costs about $19,000 to clone a cow. The more you clone, the cheaper the process gets. Six cloned cows would cost about $72,000, or $12,000 a piece. Naturally bred cows are a lot cheaper to reproduce.
But proponents for cloning meat-producing animals could have limited benefits. With certain breeds, cloning could help to promote strong, disease-free genes. Or a farmer might want to clone an unusually productive cow or steer. The cloned-meat industry estimates that only one-percent of herd would be made up of cloned animals. And some ranchers and farmers how have been experimenting with cloned animals admit that some of their cloned animals have already gone into our food chain. There is no process of checking if animals going to a slaughterhouse have been cloned or were naturally born.
Even if cloned meats to get the government’s okay, they might not prove popular with the meat-buying public. A recent national survey of consumers found that 64 percent of Americans are uncomfortable with animal cloning and that 43 percent believe that food from clones is unsafe.
Would you be willing to eat the meat of a cloned animal or drink the milk from a cloned cow? What do you think the FDA should do on this issue?
The Food and Drug Administration will soon be deciding if meat from cloned animals will be able to be sold to consumers.
Please contact us if you have questions about the rights on this image.
"Mad cow disease"-also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE)-is a fatal brain disorder in cows. It's spread by contact with brain or other nervous-system tissue from an animal with the disease. An animal can be infected but not have any symptoms for years. But once the disease is active, it kills brain cells, leaving large, spongy holes. It also causes large clumps of abnormal proteins in the brain and quickly kills the victim.
Scientists still don't know for sure what causes mad cow disease. But the most likely theory is that abnormal proteins called prions (PREE-ons) damage nerve cells, causing loss of brain function and eventual death.
You can read more about prions and how scientists think they might cause mad cow disease:
click here
Scientists think mad cow disease came from a similar disease in sheep called scrapie. We used to feed cows meat and bone meal-from other cows, but also animals such as sheep-leftover after processing for human consumption. Cows ate food contaminated with scrapie and developed BSE. At the time, people thought that neither scrapie nor BSE affected us, so meat from BSE-infected cows got into the human food supply. People who ate the infected meat-probably hamburger or other processed meats-developed a disease similar to the cows'.
You can find out a lot more about mad cow disease and its human manifestation:
click here
The US government has made some rules to try and protect people here from the disease. It has banned the import of cud-chewing animals (cows, sheep, goats) and products made from them from Europe. It prohibits the use of any mammal products in food for cows. Cows with unidentified neurological disorders cannot be eaten. Drug companies can't use animal tissues from countries with mad cow disease when they make vaccines or other products. And people who spent more than six months in the UK (where the mad cow disease epidemic was first identified) between 1980 and 1986 are not allowed to donate blood.
Do the new rules make you feel safer about eating meat? Have you changed any of your eating habits since mad cow reports came out in the media?
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Science Buzz is supported by the National Science Foundation.Copyright © Science Museum of Minnesota, 2004-2010, except where noted.
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