Lab grown meat is no longer something out of an old Simpsons’ episode. It’s now a reality, and its planet-saving potential is taking climate researchers by storm. But what exactly is the science behind it?

Lab grown meat, or “cultivated meat,” is developed from animal cell culture, unlike the typical method of meat production involving the birthing, raising, slaughtering, and processing of live animals. It is real meat, rather than a plant-based imitation like Beyond Burger. The way it is produced roots from stem cells. A stem cell is “an undifferentiated cell of a multicellular organism which is capable of giving rise to indefinitely more cells of the same type, and from which certain other kinds of cell arise by differentiation.” Essentially, it is a blank cell ready to transform into a network of a specific type of cell. 

The stem cells are taken from the animal whose meat is to be reproduced, and given the necessary nutrients and proteins needed to develop the cells into meat. The stem cells are also surrounded by the typical conditions that they would find in an animal's body to make them replicate into the specific type of meat to be produced. The cells are then “scaffolded” to create the structure and texture of the meat desired. This process typically takes somewhere between two and eight weeks, significantly cutting down on the time it takes to produce meat made from livestock cultivation. 

Lab grown meat is an incredible advancement in fighting climate change in two ways. First, lab grown meat dramatically cuts down the amount of space needed to produce meat. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that 70 percent of agricultural land use is used to cultivate livestock, leading to heavy deforestation and soil degradation that contributes to global warming. 

Second, lab grown meat would reduce demand for livestock cultivation, which produces a significant portion of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. FAO reports that livestock cultivation contributes to nearly 15 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Companies worldwide are investing in the development of cultivated meat as countries take different stands on regulating its sale. Italy has banned lab grown meat. In June, the U.S. Department of Agriculture granted approval to two California companies, GOOD Meat and UPSIDE Foods, to sell their cultured chicken product.

Lab grown meat proposes a solution to environmental degradation by reducing deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions, and is a game-changer when it comes to the unethical treatment of animals throughout the process of raising them for slaughter. 

Still, many people are wary of lab grown meat because they don’t understand how it is really produced.

What do you think? Would you try lab grown meat if it can help save the planet?