Medicosnext
The US FDA has stated that meat grown in a lab by UPSIDE Foods met all the major safety requirements required by the agency. Lab-grown meat is produced using a process in which animal cells taken from the tissue of an animal are placed in a tightly-controlled lab environment that encourages them to multiply and grow. Once the cells have differentiated into muscle, fat, or tissue, they are prepared with typical food packaging and processing methods. The meat, in this case, is produced by extracting cells from poultry.
However, the meat still has to be approved by the United States Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service before it can be sold in the market. Still in the early stages of development, there are many more issues that need to be addressed before lab-grown meat becomes a commercially-viable product. Nonetheless, meeting the FDA’s stringent safety requirements means that UPSIDE Foods is one step closer to beginning commercial production. While comparison studies are going on regarding the nutritional profile of lab-grown meat and regular meat, researchers are of the view that it is likely to have the same level of amino acids as conventional meat, but may contain lower levels of iron, zinc, and B12 vitamin.
UPSIDE Foods claims that their cultivated chicken meat contains fewer calories and less fat as compared to conventional chicken meat. It is also probable that there’s a lower risk of the meat carrying pathogens like E. coli, Salmonella or Campylobacter, since the production is closely monitored in a lab. Lab-grown meat will also be more environmentally-friendly, because it will reduce land use, water use, and emissions.
Ref: Healthline, Nov 16, 2022, https://bit.ly/3iAIgxm
