We Destroyed the Oceans. Now Scientists Are Growing Seafood in Labs. – Mother Jones
▻https://www.motherjones.com/food/2019/12/we-destroyed-the-oceans-now-scientists-are-growing-seafood-in-labs
Do you love burgers—but not the animal cruelty and environmental degradation that go into making them? I come bearing good news: Someday, you might be able to get your meat fix, without all that bad stuff. Scientists can now grow animal flesh, without raising—or in most cases killing—an animal. This food, called “lab-grown meat,” “cell-based meat,” “cultured meat,” “cultivated meat,” “clean meat,” or as comedian Stephen Colbert jokingly called it in 2009, “shmeat,” has set off a flurry of media attention in recent years. Dozens of lab-grown meat companies have materialized, most aiming to solve the problems associated with large-scale beef, pork, poultry, and seafood production.
Finless Foods, a 12-person food-tech startup founded in 2017 and based in Emeryville, California, claims to be the first company to focus on lab-grown fish, although a handful of other startups have since joined them. In October, 28-year-old Finless Foods co-founder Mike Selden gave me a tour of their facility, and I dished about it on the latest episode of the Mother Jones food politics podcast Bite:
Selden and his co-founder Brian Wyrwas, both products of an agricultural biochemistry program at UMass Amherst, started the company, he says, to “make something good.”
“We started off with zebrafish and goldfish,” which already had a lot of cell biology research behind them, Selden explains. “From there, we did our first prototypes, which were carp.” The company grew tilapia, bass, rainbow trout, salmon, Mahi Mahi, lobster, and Fugu (poisonous pufferfish) meat before settling on Bluefin tuna, whose stocks have dropped sharply in the last few decades.
The idea behind lab-grown fish, Selden says, is multi-pronged. The technology, they hope, will prevent the killing of animals for food, cut down on overfishing, and eliminate mercury and microplastic contamination in seafood. “We see this as creating a clean food supply on land: no mercury, no plastic, no animals involved, and it can still meet people’s needs.”
Do you love burgers—but not the animal cruelty and environmental degradation that go into making them? I come bearing good news: Someday, you might be able to get your meat fix, without all that bad stuff. Scientists can now grow animal flesh, without raising—or in most cases killing—an animal. This food, called “lab-grown meat,” “cell-based meat,” “cultured meat,” “cultivated meat,” “clean meat,” or as comedian Stephen Colbert jokingly called it in 2009, “shmeat,” has set off a flurry of media attention in recent years. Dozens of lab-grown meat companies have materialized, most aiming to solve the problems associated with large-scale beef, pork, poultry, and seafood production.
Finless Foods, a 12-person food-tech startup founded in 2017 and based in Emeryville, California, claims to be the first company to focus on lab-grown fish, although a handful of other startups have since joined them. In October, 28-year-old Finless Foods co-founder Mike Selden gave me a tour of their facility, and I dished about it on the latest episode of the Mother Jones food politics podcast Bite:
Selden and his co-founder Brian Wyrwas, both products of an agricultural biochemistry program at UMass Amherst, started the company, he says, to “make something good.”
“We started off with zebrafish and goldfish,” which already had a lot of cell biology research behind them, Selden explains. “From there, we did our first prototypes, which were carp.” The company grew tilapia, bass, rainbow trout, salmon, Mahi Mahi, lobster, and Fugu (poisonous pufferfish) meat before settling on Bluefin tuna, whose stocks have dropped sharply in the last few decades.
The idea behind lab-grown fish, Selden says, is multi-pronged. The technology, they hope, will prevent the killing of animals for food, cut down on overfishing, and eliminate mercury and microplastic contamination in seafood. “We see this as creating a clean food supply on land: no mercury, no plastic, no animals involved, and it can still meet people’s needs.”
Selden doesn’t like the term “lab-grown.” Industry insiders argue it makes their products sound artificial and unappetizing. He instead prefers to call it “cell-based.” He argues that the process of growing fish in a lab is actually very similar to how fish grow and develop in the wild.
It begins with a sample—about the size of a grain of rice—of real meat from a real fish. (The tuna doesn’t have to die during this process, but often does. In the company’s two-and-a-half-year history, they’ve killed fewer than 20 tuna.) Those cells are put in a liquid “feed,” like a nutritious soup, which gives them the energy to grow and divide, just like they would in a real, growing fish.
When I ask Selden why people would choose his product over other alternatives, like sustainably caught or farm-raised fish, he says, “They won’t.” He elaborated: “We’re specifically shooting for people who really don’t care about sustainability.” To appeal to seafood connoisseurs, he says, his company plans to first sell to upscale restaurants rather than grocery stores. Fine dining, he believes, is an “easier way to get public perception on your side—especially when we’re specifically searching for foodies rather than for a sustainably-minded consumer.”
Funders seem to agree—they have already invested millions of dollars into Finless Foods. Early supporters include an aquaculture investment firm based out of Norway called Hatch, an Italian food science company, Hi-Food, a Japanese tuna company, Dainichi Corporation, and Draper Associates, a venture capital firm founded by Silicon Valley investor Tim Draper. Animal welfare organizations including PETA and Mercy for Animals have voiced support for lab-grown meat as a whole. And according to a 2018 survey conducted by Faunalytics, a non-profit animal advocacy research organization, 66 percent of consumers were willing to try clean meat.
It is yet to be seen whether Finless Foods’ sashimi will win over die-hard seafood fanatics. Then again, they might not have a choice: As climate change worsens, and the ocean becomes too hot, too acidic, too polluted, and over-fished, it’s possible that one day some types of seafood may come only in a lab-grown variety. As Specht told me, “I think cultivated meat may truly be our only option for preserving the diversity of aquatic species we eat.”
#pêche #poisson #viande_de_culture_cellulaire #viande_in_vitro #in_vitro #végan #start-up #soutenabilité #poubelle_industrielle #soleil_vert #make_the_world_a_better_place #animal
Lien avec
Jocelyne Porcher, Cause animale, cause du capital
►https://journals.openedition.org/lectures/39443
Aux yeux de l’auteure, le déploiement de l’agriculture cellulaire, qui crée des produits similaires à ceux issus de l’agriculture traditionnelle mais à partir de la culture de cellules, pourrait susciter la « disparition » de ces animaux. Ce marché encore embryonnaire serait propulsé par les acteurs de la cause animale, qui défendent précisément la libération des animaux de toute activité de travail, dans un souci de garantir leur bien-être. Cependant, pour la sociologue, ladite libération pourrait susciter l’effet inverse : « les chiens, les chevaux et d’autres animaux engagés dans le travail peuvent souffrir d’en être écartés » (p. 40) car une part importante de leurs comportements a été acquise dans le travail. Ainsi, elle propose comme alternative de « refaire de l’élevage », c’est-à-dire de redéfinir ses bases, en le rapprochant de l’élevage traditionnel ou paysan, en évitant son assujettissement au système industriel et en permettant aux éleveurs et à leurs bêtes de vivre dignement.
