Brigitte Alarcon

Last August, the world of food crossed the Rubicon when the world’s first lab-grown meat patty was cooked and tested in London.

Hailed by some – including Bill Gates – as the future of food, lab-grown meat technology was publicly dismissed by many others. In the UK, the Vegetarian Society and the British National Farmers’ Union (NFU) found unexpected commonalities on the issue: members of the former voted against the motion “In vitro meat – is it the future of food?” in September 2010, while the livestock chairman of the latter recently stated that lab-grown meat would never replace livestock.

While its benefits for human health, animal welfare and the environment remain to be demonstrated, lab-grown meat’s main deterrent is that it suffers from an intense ‘yuck factor’. This reaction could well be an ethical response to the idea of eating highly processed food produced in an ‘unnatural’ environment. However, after close consideration, we may safely assume this bias is based on cultural grounds – after all, consumers have expressed the same reaction at the idea of eating bugs, and what more natural than these?

If it were proven that lab grown meat could reduce the environmental impacts of meat production, WWF UK would support this technology. It seems though that lab grown meat is a long-term solution to an urgent problem: feeding the world while remaining within our planetary boundaries and addressing climate change. Although interesting, I firmly believe the debate around lab-grown meat should not overshadow the need to address our meat consumption. This is the reason why WWF UK works with actors of the food chain to promote effective solutions such as choosing meat produced according to credible certification schemes and moderating one’s meat consumption. Two measures which, unlike grown-lab meat, are affordable and already within our reach.

Brigitte Alarcon

LiveWell Policy Officer – WWF UK