What’s the legal name? “Lab-Grown Meat” or “Lab-Grown Meat Alternative”?

Lab-grown meat is coming but will it be allowed to be called “meat”?

Lab-grown meat, or cultured meat, is grown from a sample of animal muscle cells and provides a source of meat that doesn’t require killing an animal. This brings up a big question for food regulators. What do we consider meat? Is it just anything that consists of animal muscle cells, or does it have to directly come from an animal that has been raised in the traditional method?

Cultured meat looks and tastes similar to conventional meat. (Carnivore Locavore / flickr)

Cultured meat tastes similar to conventional meat. Dr. Mark Post at Maastricht University, one of the scientists who worked on cultured meat, has tried cooking some of the meat that he grew and said that it “tastes reasonably good” even though it had no fat. It’s not surprising that Dr. Post found his cultured meat to taste good, after all, the product he ate consisted of pure muscle cells, which would be similar to eating any other type of very lean meat purchased at a grocery store. Dr. Post says that cultured meat could be safer and healthier than conventional meat.

The State of Missouri says anything labelled as “meat” must come from livestock like these cows. (Oli / flickr)

The State of Missouri disagrees that cultured meat is “meat” and has passed a law that forbids “misrepresenting a product as meat that is not derived from harvested production livestock or poultry.” The law targets both plant-based meat and cultured meat and aims to prevent shopper confusion. The divide is highlighted by the federal regulators behind the two types of meat. Cultured meat is regulated by the US Food and Drug Administration, while conventional meat is regulated by the US Department of Agriculture.

I think that since cultured meat would provide the same nutritional value as conventional meat, it should be allowed to be labelled as meat.