Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: SF Chinese (ID:kexuejiaodian), author: SF

Due to the influence of climate change, environmental pollution and other factors, the global food security situation is not optimistic. Coupled with the growing carbon emissions in planting and animal husbandry production, advocating to reduce carbon emissions, traditional agricultural production seems to have become an obstacle to low-carbon environmental protection. Because of this, a new product called "artificial meat" came into being.

(by Mei Lin / tr. by Robert Taylor)

Artificial meat, as its name implies, is the "meat" cultivated by scientists in the laboratory without raising livestock. Some people turn pale when they see "laboratory" and "culture", simply thinking that the food produced in this way is harmful to the human body.

In fact, the food cultivated in the laboratory is essentially the same as the meat obtained by raising livestock and the food, fruits, vegetables and other foods obtained by growing crops. The only difference lies in the way these foods are produced. This kind of food production method can even remove some diseases and insect pests, disease-causing microorganisms and the threat to human health.

How is artificial meat produced? Artificial meat is grown in containers, such as test tubes, petri dishes and stainless steel bioreactors. When cultivating artificial meat, scientists will first remove suitable cells from animals. Then, under appropriate regulation (such as suitable temperature, pH, aseptic conditions, etc.), these cells are cultured in a container.

During the culture period, scientists should regularly add nutrients such as protein and salt to meet the needs of cell proliferation. In this way, after a period of time, through cell culture, the tissue is amplified by a number of cells, that is, the "meat" is created.

What's the difference between artificial meat and ordinary meat? Compared with ordinary meat, artificial meat is more "pure"-it is meat. Artificial meat has no bones, no fur, not even fat. Although artificial meat is essentially a cell mass produced by cell culture, it is no different from ordinary meat in taste and taste.

Cell culture must be carried out under aseptic conditions, so the production process of artificial meat eliminates the influence of pathogenic microorganisms and pollutants, which is more hygienic and safe.

From the production process of artificial meat, we can see that compared with ordinary meat production, artificial meat seems to be more low-carbon and environmentally friendly. Since the birth of artificial meat, many scientists and artificial meat manufacturers have also promoted it in this way.

They believe that artificial meat requires less land, feed, water and antibiotics than ordinary meat, and there is no need to raise livestock, so it is particularly low-carbon and environmentally friendly, after all, livestock is one of the main sources of greenhouse gases. But a recent study seems to subvert people's perceptions.

Artificial meat is not low-carbon? Many people think that artificial meat is low-carbon and environmentally friendly, but this may not be the case. Scientists in the United States have found that artificial meat may have 25 times more impact on climate change than ordinary meat.

Scientists at the University of California, Davis assessed the production process of artificial meat, estimating and accounting for the energy consumption and carbon emissions of each process throughout the production process to assess the potential impact of artificial meat on climate change. They found that the nutrient solution used for cell culture is the main culprit in the production of artificial meat affecting climate change. Because the production process of proteins, salts, sugars and other substances in the nutrient solution needs to consume energy and produce carbon emissions. For example, in the process of sugar production, the process of planting sugar cane and sugar beet and the process of sugar production all require energy and release greenhouse gases side by side.

However, some scientists who support artificial meat believe that a necessary prerequisite for such a conclusion is that the energy needed in the production process of artificial meat comes from fossil energy, and if green energy is used in the production of artificial meat, the potential impact on climate change will be greatly reduced. The research team of Delft Environmental Consulting in the Netherlands pointed out that the land saved by artificial meat can be used to produce renewable energy and plant protein, which can help save energy and reduce emissions.

At present, all the studies on the impact of artificial meat on climate change are still at the theoretical level. Only after artificial meat is produced on a large scale can we know whether artificial meat is really low-carbon and environmentally friendly.

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