Lab-grown meat products such as hamburgers that are made without being killed in Great Britain within two years in Great Britain.
The technology for growing meat products from cells has been available for some time, but products have not been sold in the UK due to a lack of regulation and safety research on technology.
The British Food Standards Agency (FSA) hopes to speed up the timeline to assess a full safety evaluation of Laboratory so that they can be for sale.
Familiar news and daily pleasure, exactly in your inbox
Watch yourself-the Yodel is the source for daily news, entertainment and feel-good stories.
Professor Robin May, the chief scientist of the FSA, said the BBC: “We work very closely with the companies and academic groups involved to work together to design a regulatory structure that is good for them, but at all costs ensures the safety of these products as high as possible.”
Lab-grown products for animals are already for sale, where pets sell chicken bites at home that combine plant ingredients with cultivated meat.
How is labeled meat made?
The cultivated meat is grown with the help of 'cellular agriculture', in which a monster of cells is taken from a living animal, usually under local anesthesia.
The cells are then placed in a bioreactor-a tank full of nutrient-rich growth medium with which the cells can multiply.
The cells grow into muscle and fat and are then harvested from the bioreactors and on 'scaffolding' – edible materials that, for example, help them form in a hamburger.
Cultivated meat is grown using 'Cellular Architecture' techniques. (Getty Images)
The scaffolding is small, almost microscopic structures that are used to grow cells to become realistic lumps of meat that look like muscle fibers. Each cultivated meat company has its own methods for growing cells and to structure them in something that looks like meat.
Aleph Farms-a cellular farm that is active in the food technology-space creates 'steak' by growing it along a vegetable scaffolding to replicate muscle fibers with meat, fat and connective tissue.
The combination of tissues is placed in a food broth for four weeks and grow into a thin slice of 'steak' that can be grilled.
Is it technical vegan?
Although no animals are damaged in the production of cultivated meat, it is not considered vegan.
The vegan society says that cultivated meat is still about using cells of cultivated animals and is therefore not strictly vegan.
“Veganism as philosophy is concerned with ending the exploitation of and cruelty to non-human animals,” says vegan society.
“As such, it is understandable that some vegans may be attracted to the possibilities of this technology. Since our policy position makes clear, grown meat is not vegan or a panacea for the horrors of animal use and exploitation.”
How does it taste?
The taste of cultivated meat has evolved considerably, with breakthroughs improving texture and taste over the years.
Writing in the Spark, the weekly climate newsletter from Mit Technology Review, in March 2023, Casey Crownhart said: “It was certainly different from beef, but perhaps not in a bad way. The texture was similar, which was logical because it was usually made of plants.
“In terms of taste, I thought that the lab-grown meat might have been a bit closer to the beef hurger, but I asked me that I was wondering if I would feel the same if I didn't know what was what was. I drove that my brain made me think it tasted more like meat, because there were animal cells in it?
A dish made with the cultivated chicken from Good Meat in California. (Getty)
Online publication inverse tested lab grown chicken and said that although it tasted like chicken, it felt somewhere between fish and poultry. The publication wrote: “I take a bite and the taste is savory and somewhat familiar. It tastes like chicken, to use an old cliché, but it doesn't necessarily feel like chicken.”
In 2022, Time Magazine tried the steak from Aleph Meat, which is supplied in a strip of beef from stem cells in a bioreactor. Climate correspondent Alyn Baker was impressed and wrote: “It is just as soft and juicy as the interior of a Filet Mignon. While I cut it, the meat cracks in strands that are more characteristic of a chest, but with none of the dryness.
“I take a bite. The taste is pure meat – a caramelized crust that makes room for a savory wealth. The square shape and thin cut betray the origin of my steak, but the eyes closed, I would not know the difference … It doesn't taste like the future. It tastes like the steak.”
Is it kosher and halal?
Some cultivated meat are certified as kosher, but there is no universal agreement between rabbis about whether all cultivated meat is kosher.
Orthodox trade union Kosher, the world's largest kosher certification authority, certified products from the Israeli chicken product company Supermeat.
The most important rabbi of Israel ruled that Aleph Farms is thin steak kosher and is not considered meat. But there are still questions for some authorities, especially about issues such as where the cells come from.
Different authorities have made different views, but – broadly spoken – cultivated meat can be Halal.
Speaking with the National in 2024, Farhan Siddiqi said, graduated from the UMM Al Qura University of Mecca and the imam of Dar Al Hijra Islamic Center in the US state of Virginia, cultivated meat can be Halal if certain conditions are met.
A lot of power -cultivated meat is not halal because the cells are taken from a living animal.
To be Halal, the meat must come from a cow that was slaughtered in accordance with Islamic law, Siddiqi said, which means that it was humanly slaughtered by a Muslim, had drained his blood and was in good health when she was killed.
Where is lab meat approved – and where is it forbidden?
Singapore was the first country to approve of lab-grown meat for human use and approved the technology in 2020.
In 2023, the United States approved lab-grown meat, with products available through restaurants in San Francisco and expected in regular retail by 2026.
Israel has approved some products for sale, and countries, including the Netherlands and Australia that make progress in the direction of approving meat products with laboratory.
Italy, on the other hand, forbade cultivated meat in December 2023 because of the fears about how it can influence traditional agriculture.
The American state of Florida has also forbidden it with the Governor Ron Desantis, who announced in May 2024 that he “wanted to save our beef” from the “Global Elite” and the “authoritarian plans”.
