Growing Our Meat Strong

by CWA @ 29 Mar 2019

Plant-based meat substitutes are all everyone is talking about when discussing meat alternative with a low-carbon footprint, but what about lab-grown meat?

Some deem it as a great alternative to farming animals for food: it's clean, has a low carbon footprint and does not involve any killing. Lab-grown meat is a key protein alternative of the future and could be making its way to dinner plates here, as Singapore ramps up production of home-grown food.

This move is being supported by the Government's Research, Innovation and Enterprise 2020 plan, under which $144 million is going into food-related research, including sustainable urban food production, future foods and food safety science and innovation.

How does it work? Stem cells extracted from various animals will be grown, multiplied in bioreactors, and eventually undergo tissue engineering to make whole meat cuts, say researchers.

A*Star's (the Agency for Science, Technology and Research) Bioprocessing Technology Institute (BTI) is hoping that these meats would be grown on a large scale in bioreactors, and is currently doing test trials to see if they can do so. Eventually, the cells will comprise at most half of the meat, with the rest made up of bulking agents such as starch and other ingredients to improve taste and texture, while still maintaining the nutrional valiue of traditional meat.

For more information about Singapore's efforts to grow lab meat, please go here to learn more.

Growing Our Meat Strong

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