With the ever increasing population worldwide the demand for foodstuffs has never been greater. Meat and meat products are no exception and while there has be a slight trend in western nations towards poultry and fish the global demand for beef is on the increase. The clearing of native vegetation and forests to provide grazing for cattle is in itself a serious problem, but it doesn't end there. Unfortunately when beef cattle digest plant material they produce methane which they then belch into the atmosphere.
There is considerable debate over the actual volume of methane produced by cattle but what is clear is methane is one of the more detrimental pollutants we are releasing into the atmosphere. Atmospheric methane is unstable and will break down over time but while it is in its unaltered form it can have over 70 times the effect on the atmosphere and global warming as carbon dioxide.
Like any problem you wish to address, the best place to start is with whatever is having the greatest effect and methane is no exception. Since methane has such a dramatic short term effect, by avoiding its release the short term benefits are equally as dramatic. Not only does reducing the rate of release produce some 70 times the response as a similar volume of CO2 but its instability means the current levels of atmospheric methane will drop as it breaks down increasing the response even further.
Another negative due to the increased demand for beef is intensive and factory farming, where cattle are corralled in small enclosures and fed on a high nutrient diet that often includes supplements like antibiotics and even growth hormones. The past practice of feeding beef cattle on feed that contained material from the carcasses of sheep is believed to have been the vector that allowed prions to enter the human food chain and cause the outbreak of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in the UK. The whole process is geared around maximum production and little attention is paid to quality, animal welfare, environmental damage, long term sustainability and in some cases human health.
The most desirable portion of cattle is the skeletal-muscle tissue and while the remainder of the beast is used in various forms and is responsible for much of the taste and flavor in many cooking processes, there is considerable waste.
There is an emerging technology that has the potential to at least in part replace the need for cattle. In vitro or direct culture of muscle tissue is the growing of tissue in a bio-reactor or similar device that provides the environment and nutrients the cells need to grow. The technology is still in its infancy and has difficulty growing the long fibrous skeletal-muscle tissue that is preferred, but regardless of its current limitations there is great potential, particularly in applications like space travel where sustainability is essential and taking along live cattle would be impossible.
The process also has the potential for genetically modified meat products that are healthier and more nutritious. One possibility would be to alter the genetic structure so the resultant meat contained Omega-3 fatty acids rather than the Omega-6 fatty acids found in natural meat.
Scientists have successfully cultured fish meat and the technology already exists to create something that is close to ground or minced beef. Considering that around 50% of the world's meat consumption is in ground or minced, the potential is almost there to reduce the demand for cattle by half. Beef Magazine contradict this and believe that the process will never produce a product that is sufficiently like the real thing or at a price consumers find acceptable.
This can, of course, be called cloning and genetic engineering which is bound to raise an argument or two. There are socio-political groups that vehemently disagree with the development of such technology and insist that we should never develop or even contemplate developing such technology. However, in reality we have been cloning and genetically engineering things for a very long time. Every time a gardener takes a plant cutting and uses it to propagate a new plant they have in effect cloned the original plant. All we are doing is extending the process to include animals. We have also been selectively breeding everything from asparagus to zebras in an attempt to enhance the desirable features and suppress the undesirable features which is in effect genetic engineering.
Cloning and genetic engineering are indeed carried out at a far more fundamental level than the hit and miss approach of the past and it does allow for greater control over what is or is not passed on plus the inter species transfer of traits. However, we have been cloning plants and have selectively bred everything from asparagus to zebras and even humans for millennia now. Is what we are doing now really that different to what we have done in the past?
Another technology that has been around for some time now is a meat substitute based on either vegetable matter or fungi. With the addition of flavoring factors, nutrients and manufacturing techniques a product that resembles meat can be manufactured. It is unfortunately easily differentiated from the real thing and most find it somewhat lacking, but if the effort were put into research the end product could most likely be dramatically improved.
Further information can be obtained from the following links:
There is a term bandied about by economists called sustainable growth. To me this is a totally idiotic statement as there are finite limits to everything and sooner or later anything that grows must hit a limit that prevents further growth. The population of the planet is growing at an ever increasing rate and if we are to feed, clothe and house this ever increasing population we are going to need to develop and use technologies like in vitro and artificial meat to reduce the impact we are having on the environment. It would be a great pity if something that shows potential were to be ignored and not developed due to the misgivings of a small minority of that appear to not fully understand the technology, benefits it could produce or gravity of the situation.
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