“If I see a problem, I like to think there’s a better way to do it.”
Mark Rober, Inventor
Eastern North Carolina is chicken farming country. My least favorite thing about driving through this part of the state is passing trucks with chickens stuffed in cages. I can’t stand seeing the animals on their way to a factory, and eventually, our grocery stores. I’ve also learned a lot lately about the carbon footprint of commercial animal farms. So, what if there were a better way to produce chicken?
Our love affair with chicken
As a flexitarian, I eat a little chicken, and as a country we eat a lot. If you ever pass a Chick-Fil-A, the drive-though line gives you a snapshot of Americans’ love affair with chicken. We’re not giving it up anytime soon; and I’m not saying we should.
I admire people who choose a vegetarian or vegan diet, but the reality is, chicken is a staple in the diets of people all over the world. Compared with other forms of meat, it has lot of upside too. It’s a healthy way to eat protein. Also, poultry farming has a much smaller environmental impact than beef.
So what’s the problem with chicken?
Aside from animal welfare issues, raising chickens for food comes with other problems. Commercial poultry farming uses significant natural resources, and adds to the CO2 and methane emissions warming our planet. It also contributes to pollution and antibiotic resistance.
A new alternative
A potential game-changer just quietly slid under the radar. A few weeks ago, the FDA gave a green light to the first lab-grown chicken. Two US companies got approval to sell lab-grown – a.k.a. “cultivated” – chicken to restaurants. Whoa.
Cultivated chicken isn’t like the beef alternative products that have hit the market in recent years. Those are designed to have meat-like taste and texture, but don’t contain animal product. This is actual meat grown from cultured chicken cells. It does more than taste like chicken…it is chicken.
Upside of cultivated chicken:
- It’s real chicken meat
- No animals are harmed
- Uses fewer natural resources
- Reduces heat-trapping gas emissions
- Cuts pollution near farms
- Eliminates waste of the unused parts
Don’t panic, the chicken farming industry won’t disappear overnight. Far from it. The US produces roughly 50 billion pounds of chicken per year. At this stage, the lab process is more expensive than raising animals, and the supply is limited.
Improvements in the technology of cultured meat will increase supply and bring costs down over the next several years. We would be a long away from replacing poultry farming, but there is hope for a better way to product meat down the road.
What can we do?
I plan to give this chicken a try when it is available near me. What do you think? In the meantime, the most helpful things we can do when it comes to food are:
- Waste as little as possible
- Consider cutting back (even slightly) on meat consumption
Let’s do something about climate change. Learn about it. Think about it. Talk about it.