FORT COLLINS, Colo. — A couple of Colorado State University graduates are helping to bring lab-grown chicken to our dinner plates.
They work at UPSIDE Foods in Berkeley, California. It's one of two businesses that have earned U.S. Department of Agriculture approval to both produce and offer cell-cultivated chicken to restaurants and shoppers.
"We're growing real animal meat directly from animal cells ... and this is making the same meat that you eat every single day," Eric Schulze saud.
Schulze's job at UPSIDE Foods, among other things, is to explain how the process works. Instead of taking the meat and tissues directly from the animal, the company takes cells from the chicken. Those cells are nourished inside the company's lab.
"We feed the cells the same thing animals would eat – amino acids, vitamins, all those things – and give it water warmth, oxygen," Schulze said. "The cells grow, within two weeks, we have an immense amount of muscle, in this case, for meat."
The process can be done at a much lower cost to our planet, he said.
"Right now, 20% of global greenhouse gases and 35% of methane production comes from just animal agriculture and growing our food," he said. "So being able to reduce any amount of that substantially is a boon for the climate."
According to the company, cultivated meat produces 85% to 95% less greenhouse gases than tradition meat production.
Some believe it could be the future of food in a warming climate. Marisa Bunning, a CSU professor of science and nutrition, is one of them.
"They do have challenges ahead of them that previous generations haven't had," she said.
Bunning mentored one of the graduates now working at UPSIDE Foods. She said food technology is, no doubt, moving fast and there's a growing number of scientists hoping to cultivate a career in it.
"They're really looking to make a difference," she said. "They're finding ways to do that."
Currently, you can order lab-grown chicken at the restaurant Bar Crenn in San Francisco, but the company hopes to expand to other cities, including Denver, if there is a demand.
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