...AND CHEAPER...:

The health case

This section contains, among other things, a list of the things we won't get from lab-grown cell-ag foods, including:

pathogens like Salmonella and E. Coli

fecal contamination

meat and seafood growth hormones

mad-cow disease prions

botulism

swine and avian flu, and other illnesses

plastic particles in "seafood"

mercury in "seafood"

animal-production antibiotics that accelerate the development of resistant superbugs

Cell-ag also looks to promote greater food production stability and predictability, and can scale to help feed the planet's growing population. Their contaminant-free growing environment gives cell-ag foods a longer shelf life. Critical shortages can be more efficiently addresses after disasters, and famines can be avoided, and geographically independent production solves current supply issues in areas that struggle to import food.

(Brooke Becker/Shutterstock)

The environment case

Land use

We know that the extensive land-use requirements of animal-based products are among the main drivers of climate change. For some animals, it's an issue of grazing land. For others, such as seafood, it's processing. Here's how much less land Gasteratos estimates we'll use after switching to cell-ag.

cattle -- 99%

dairy -- 97%

poultry -- 66%

pigs -- 82%

seafood -- 55%

land overall -- 80%

Water

It's much the same story with water use.

cattle -- 98%

dairy -- 99.6%

poultry -- 92%

pigs -- -95%

seafood -- 86%

water overall -- 94%

Greenhouse gasses

Here's the reduction in greenhouse gases (GHG) a switch to cell-ag may produce:

cattle -- 96%

dairy -- 65%

poultry -- 74%

pigs -- 85%

seafood -- 59%

GHG overall -- 76%

Tweet   @brothersjudd