On Oct. 7, it was announced that astronauts on the International Space Station had successfully grown their own meat from microscopic animal cells, using a process called cell-culturing. The bit of cow muscle they produced was small, but it was a historic accomplishment nonetheless.
The ISS project was part of a joint venture by San Francisco-based Finless Foods and Israel-based Aleph Farms, just two of many startups pioneering the concept of cell-cultured meat. Their technology isn’t just a sci-fi fantasy, conceived to nourish future space colonies: It has very real implications for our food systems right now.
The omnivore’s dilemma deepens. Cell-culturing is a pretty straightforward, and interesting solution for decreasing our carbon-footprint while keeping us well-fed. For the rest of us, vegetarianism seems to be the best way to reduce your carbon-footprint. Not into that idea? Even just cutting beef from your diet alone can reduce your carbon footprint a sizable amount. But, replacing farm-grown meats with lab-grown meats? This introduces new wrinkles into an already complex problem our society needs to solve I we want to end climate change.