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[Music] we homo sapiens have been eating meat since the beginning of our very existence archaeologists have found marks on bones from hacking tools that suggest we have
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been carnivorous as far back as 3.4 million years ago when some of our earliest hominid ancestors were beginning to roam the earth and all that protein and fat content of
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meat was crucial to the development of humans as we know them the theory roughly goes that by moving to a meaty diet we were freeing up energy used in digesting plants and diverting it to
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building bigger brains however these evolutionary changes came in an era of hunter-gathering where if you wanted some meat you had to get your spear out and go hunting fast forward half a million years and we
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can order a big mac delivery without leaving the sofa globally we consume over 365 million tons of it every year the top meat-eating countries like the
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us and australia annually eat around 120 kilograms per person and our meat consumption is only set to continue as developing countries grow richer more people can afford more and more meat
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and developed nations are also predicted to keep increasing their meat consumption and this quick and easy access to meat we have now is contributing to a climate catastrophe the meat industry is one of the biggest
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contributors to greenhouse gas emissions with one recent study finding food production as a whole contributed a third of all greenhouse gas emissions across the globe many think it's time to cut out meat
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altogether from our diets for good reason but unfortunately it's hard to reverse these meat-eating trends there's nearly nothing you can say to convince people to give up something that they've always had but what if
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there was a way to have our beef and eat it too what if there was a way to keep eating meat without slaughtering a single animal while it seems far-fetched this is the reality that many scientists are
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working to achieve it's a technology mired in controversy and a web of complex economics but many are holding on hope that it could be the way to save our planet lab-grown meats could replace
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the global need to raise and kill animals and it's a reality that many think is fast approaching how can it be possible to grow meat in a lab completely circumventing the slaughterhouse
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and will the process ever be economically viable enough to match our insatiable meat appetites the idea of growing meat without killing any animal has been around for a surprisingly long time
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in 1931 winston churchill even said we shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium 82
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years later his prediction would become a reality the first lab-grown burger was eaten in 2013 and since then it has been a race to market for dozens of food tech startups
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lab-grown or cultured mates use practices from regenerative science to grow meat without needing to grow an animal it all starts with stem cells stem cells are a special type of cell that have the potential to become almost
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any type of cell found in the body skin cell muscle cell liver cell etc to harvest stem cells technicians have to go to the primary source of the desired meat directly to the cow here they take
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a sample of tissue directly from the animal without killing it or even harming it from this tissue they then isolate multi-potent stem cells such as muscle stem cells
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these are put into a bioreactor with a mixture of nutrients amino acids growth hormones and a special serum called fbs these ingredients promote the cells to start replicating and keep the cells
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alive and happy then by adding different growth factors technicians can prompt the cells to differentiate or turn into the required type of cell like muscle or fat
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muscle cells will naturally move together in the suspension to form myotubes these tubes can then be essentially mushed together to make beef burgers if the origin is cow cells or chicken nuggets if the origin is chicken
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cells and so on a single muscle stem cell could be grown into one trillion muscle cell tubes that's a lot of burgers and nuggets from one tiny cell but this is as far as innovators have
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come creating essentially lab-grown ground beef it's not possible yet to simply grow a whole steak or a wing or a filet or a chicken breast but there's one glaring problem here
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with creating this animal-free meat it's not actually animal-free that special fbs serum i just mentioned that stands for fetal bovine serum which is collected from the dying fetuses of
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slaughtered cows it's pretty gruesome and so far scientists have not found a way to create lab-grown meat without it why is it so important and is there any
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way around it fetal bovine serum is a serum made from the blood of cow fetuses if a cow is going for slaughter and happens to be pregnant the fetus is removed and its blood drained all while
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it dies a slow death the fetus is kept alive for as long as possible during this process to ensure the quality of the blood remains good the blood is then refined resulting in
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fetal bovine serum or fbs and so far all lab-grown meat requires this serum when the stem cells are removed from the animal as i mentioned they are placed in
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a bioreactor tank to replicate and grow and here the fbs is added fbs prevents the replicating stem cells from committing suicide normally cells have a mechanism that tells them they're
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growing in the wrong place and shuts it down this is normally a good thing and keeps different parts of the body developing properly but when cells are growing in a metal tank and not a body this warning system
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needs to be turned off and for whatever reason fbs works almost completely universally when added to any type of cell that cell will start to replicate and grow whether it's chicken
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beef fish or muscle skin or liver cells other serums do exist but none are so versatile as of now fbs is the essential ingredient to lab-grown meat an
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ingredient that completely defeats the purpose of artificial meat in fact it's probably even worse than the traditional slaughterhouse to make a single lab-grown beef burger
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an estimated 50 liters of bovine serum is needed and depending on age a single cow fetus can yield between 150 and 550 milliliters of serum that means to
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create a single burger you need the blood of between 90 and 333 cow fetuses until a synthetic or plant-based alternative to fbs is found
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slaughter-free widely available lab-grown meat is completely unfeasible and fbs isn't easy to replace it contains approximately 1800 different
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proteins and more than 4 000 metabolites some scientists have succeeded in creating synthetic serums but all of them are hyperspecific to the type of cell being cultured none are capable of
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replacing fbs to culture all possible cell types however recently a glimmer of hope has emerged in one company producing a synthetic alternative something they call fast grow they say its components
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are not derived from human or animal and it promises to be able to replace fbs for a range of different cell cultures but so far no independent studies seem to have confirmed its effectiveness
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across the wide range of uses that would be needed for lab grown meat and in general creating serum free media is hugely expensive a recombinant protein like transferrin can go for 260 dollars
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a gram growth factors like tgf beta can cost several million dollars a gram more expensive by weight than diamonds the price tag for fast grow as a whole is around two thousand six hundred and
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forty dollars per liter there is reason for hope but also reason for skepticism scaling lab-grown meat up for mass production is going to have quite the
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price tag perhaps a prohibitive one and it's not just the serum that gets costly everything about the lab-grown meat process from ingredients to facilities is eye-wateringly expensive
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the cost of lab-grown meat will be a nearly impossible hurdle to overcome a pound of lab-grown meat using current technology and at current scale is estimated to cost around ten thousand
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dollars according to the good food institute there are a few reasons why lab-based meat is so expensive first the regular animal-based fbs is
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between 300 and 700 for a liter and to scale up lab-grown meat companies need a large volume some estimate 50 liters are needed for a single burger but even if this number
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drops significantly the price tag will still be in the hundreds if not thousands and if moving away from fbs is the goal as we discussed synthetic versions are likely to be even more expensive
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scaling up production will also be necessary to reduce costs but in a catch 22 scaling up will cost the business big bucks to create the kinds of volumes of meat required for the carnivorous public
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huge bioreactor vats will be needed to grow the meat products to acquire one kilogram of protein from cultured muscle cells the meat company would need a bioreactor with a volume of about 5 000
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liters that's like the biggest beer fermenter that exists all for a single kilo of meat to expand and differentiate the cells have to be kept at a fairly low
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density so these massive tanks are needed until researchers learn how to raise a higher density culture and there are other problems too a vat of cultured meat has no immune system if a virus
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particle gets in that can infect the cells it absolutely will this would kill the cells and kill the entire batch of product food grade facilities wouldn't be good enough to prevent such an infection they'd need to
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be pharmaceutical grade to keep the meat cells free from any contamination and you can bet a pharmaceutical grade facility will be way more expensive than a food grade one plus when you're building a burger from
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scratch in the lab it's hard to get the right components in the right quantities and ratios to achieve that delicious meaty flavor in 2020 singapore became the first country to approve lab-grown
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meat for commercial consumption food journalists were on the fence about the flavor and texture of u.s companies eat just chicken nuggets it wasn't bad but it wasn't quite like chicken either
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scientists are still working on getting that juicy bloody melt-in-the-mouth element of meat into lab-grown versions as real meat contains thousands of flavor molecules from proteins fats
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ketones alcohols and other compounds despite these massive financial barriers many are still holding out hope the good food institute recently published an optimistic analysis
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they think that addressing certain technical costs will lower the production price from over ten thousand dollars per pound today to about two dollars and fifty cents per pound over the next nine years they believe that
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the costs of certain aspects of the process like growth factor costs may indeed go down as the industry matures they predict that one day soon growth factors can be produced through
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recombinant expression where bacteria or yeast are genetically modified to produce certain desirable proteins this is already done to produce enzymes relatively cheaply for various products today
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to modify this technology to produce growth factors on a large scale may not be that far-fetched however the price of all aspects of the lab-grown meat process going down anytime soon sort of
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is farfetched but there is still room for optimism we often see with new biotech innovations a version of moore's law exponential progress take genome sequencing the first genome
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took about a billion dollars to sequence now 20 years later it's around a thousand dollars judging by the 300 million euros of investment in lab-grown meat companies in 2020 alone
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there is hope if not an expectation for this kind of trajectory if food tech companies can continue to innovate and experiment perhaps using ai robotics and genetic
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engineering technologies we might not have to settle for a totally meat-free future just a new kind of burger personally i struggle to cut out meat from my diet when talking about the
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world's meat appetite i'm aware that i'm part of the problem and while i don't agree entirely with putting the onus on the consumer to make environmental change i think there's simply a decent moral argument to try to just eat less
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meat but sticking to habits is hard i have a few good ones like i shower i run i occasionally clean the inside of my microwave but sometimes all the best
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ambitious plans just fall to the wayside because it's simply overwhelming because of this i'm a huge fan of making lists but lately even lists aren't enough to keep me on track to actually build good
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habits i needed something more fun more engaging and more motivating so recently i've started using fabulous fabulous is an app that helps you build routines over time by breaking habits
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down into small attainable steps the app directs you to different journeys which are programs that help you reach a specific objective such as feel energized sleep better focus and concentrate or eat healthier journeys
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start by setting up a healthy morning routine with fabulous you can go at your own pace i cannot stand when famous and successful people tell you that in order to achieve your dreams you have to wake
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up at 5 30 am to exercise for an hour before prepping your kale breakfast and clearing your inbox all before 8am i have never done this i will literally never do this i would rather die than do
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this but the pressure of having the perfect morning routine makes me just avoid any routine altogether historically my morning routine is snoozing my alarm for 45 minutes but now
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with fabulous i set my morning routine to begin at 8am and give myself an hour to complete a handful of simple but important tasks that i sometimes would neglect to do otherwise this routine
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that fabulous has helped me build makes me start the day not feeling frazzled and mildly depressed instead i feel energized and grounded knowing that i've taken steps to take care of myself before taking on the day
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i'm also now working to set goals to reduce my meat consumption by planning a few vegetable-based dinners per week over time you're able to add more habits to your journey also known as habit stacking
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this is a common technique used to sustain long-term routines the app allows you to customize your routines and choose the habits you want to stack fabulous is a great app for anyone
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looking to improve their daily life and can especially help if you struggle with chronic fatigue want to increase your energy levels can't sleep at night can't concentrate or have anxiety so if you
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want to build healthy habits that stick go to the fab dot co real science the first 100 people who click on the link in the description will get 25 off their fabulous
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subscription as always thanks for watching and if you're looking for something else to watch right now you can watch my latest video about sea turtle conservation or you can watch real engineering's latest video about
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the loudest plane ever made [Music]
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