Table of Contents Sections

  1. Chapter 1

    The Dietary Reckoning

  2. Chapter 2

    From Muscles to Meals

  3. Chapter 3

    (Deli) Counter Culture

Massive Science Report № 3

You Are What You Meat

We worked with scientists in the field to explain how we’re growing meats in labs—and when you can eat them. It's your introduction to the next agricultural revolution.

This report was made possible with support from

New Harvest

Editor's Note

Massive’s Science Reports are meant to provide science-curious readers with a greater understanding of the scientific veracity of claims made in popular media. There can be a wild deluge of information, hot-takes, op-eds, advertisements, branded content and panic-inducing press when science research goes mainstream - and it can be hard to parse as a consumer. That’s why we try to create reports that provide clarity - is the science real, or just hype? What do we actually know, and more importantly, what do we still need to figure out?

In this report, we jump into the topic of lab-grown meat. The proliferation of stakeholders and their debate over terminology (cultured meat, lab grown meat, clean meat, cell-based meat, cultured tissue) is an indication of the number of competing voices and motivations in the field. We wanted to provide a factual guidebook for analyzing these voices based on research and science, not marketing.

We opened up a call in Massive's consortium of scientists for those with expertise in fields that converge around lab-grown animal products: regenerative medicine, genetic engineering, cellular agriculture, agricultural and food sciences and tissue engineering. We chose five scientists who worked with our editors for over eight weeks to translate peer-reviewed research, answering frequently-asked questions and explaining commonly misunderstood concepts. 

The end product is You Are What You Meat, Massive's third Science Report. We hope over time to add to this report and keep it a living document as research progresses. Stay tuned for the report download and ask the report writers questions if you have them. 

This report was partially supported by New Harvest, a non-profit organization dedicated to funding the basic research and academic systems needed to build the field of cellular agriculture. New Harvest had no role in choosing scientists to write the report, and had no editorial input in the creation of the report. They simply requested that the report be made freely available to everyone.
 

  • Nadja Oertelt

Ad