A restaurant serving cultured meat by 2021?

The possibility of cultured meat, in which tissue is grown outside of a live animal in order to provide the flavor and nutrition of meat without animal suffering, has been heating up recently.

Cultured meat is certainly possible, and production costs have fallen since the first demonstration in 2013, from $330,000/pound to $18,000/pound in 2016. Memphis meats and Modern Meadow are among the companies developing cultured meat, supported by for-profit and non-profit (e.g. New Harvest) research.

Cultured meats, along with reduced animal suffering, also promise health benefits, as they should be far easier to keep free of pathogens (and hence require no indiscriminate antibiotic use to boot), can be free of extra hormones, and might be engineered to be more nutritious. The primary questions appear to be those of getting costs (way) down, maintaining excellent taste, and overcoming public apprehension. To get at the timeline, we ask

By start of 2021, will there be a restaurant serving cultured meat?

For positive resolution, by Jan 1 2021, a restaurant somewhere in the world must exist where a member of the general public, given the time and ability to acquire a reservation, can walk in and order cultured meat for consumption.

Categories: Biological Sciences – Bioengineering, Biological Sciences – Ecological and Environmental Biology, Technological Advances, Industry – Agriculture, Series — Playing God

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