Faking it: meat substitutes take centre stage

Renowned philosopher and animal rights activist Peter Singer has given his tick of approval for a non-meat mania that is being touted as this year's hottest culinary trend. Global marketing group JWT predicted faux meat - non meat products designed to look and taste like meat - on its "Next Big Thing" list for 2013 (The Age, Jan 2). At the same time, laboratories are racing to produce the first batch of edible, aesthetic, commercial "lab meat".

At the Minding Animals Conference in Utrecht, in July 2012, Singer announced the only way forward for animal liberation was the successful production and marketing of fake – or lab grown - meat. He realised that a vast number of carnivores would not be satisfied with munching on tofu shaped like chicken nuggets. They wanted the "real thing" even if that animal flesh was grown in a vat.

I had already sniffed the facon in the wind at the Minding Animals conference, where I was presenting a paper on human-animal hybrids in science fiction. I noticed factional fights between vegans, vegetarians and fair-weather carnivores as to what constituted an ethically and morally species-sound diet. (Should Academics Eat Their Subject Matter?)

Those concerned about the food on offer in Utrecht would have been happier at `De Vegetarische Slager' - the Vegetarian Butcher located in The Hague. Their chicken pieces (industrially processed soy with a handful of additives) have earned many a glowing references in vegan and culinary blogs.

As these and other alternative protein products are made to look and taste like meat – such as facon, tofurky, sausages (should that be fauxsages?) vegetarian jerky and vegan jerky, beef patties and "bacon bits" - I wonder at the enthusiasm of non-meat eaters to embrace the fleshy world. It's a bit like eschewing the sun and opting for a fake tan. Then again, maybe it is simply wanting to have your meatball and eat it too; and, like the pale skinned, wanting to blend in socially without suffering the consequences (or in meat's case, without the animal or environment suffering for your desire for that kebab). Throw another soy protein snag on the barbie, mate.

These faux meat products actually have a tradition going back centuries as in the case of recipes for seitan (a wheat gluten) to cater for religious non meat diets. There are now many more reasons, apart from religious, why people adopt a non meat lifestyle. According to CNN (Aug 13, 2012), research from the University of Oxford, published in 2011, estimated that lab-grown meat produces 78-96% lower greenhouse emissions than conventionally produced meat within the EU.

Concern about the environment and health issues as well as animal ethics leads the way with Melbourne's alternative fast food chain The Lord of the Fries. On their website they say the reason they don't even use cheese curds on their Canadian fries is because they couldn't source any without animal rennet. Their philosophy (apparently sung to the tune of Faith No More's 'We Care A Lot') is "we care a lot about the welfare of all the folks and animals". Yet even the LOTF burgers look just like meat burgers.

First, let us be clear that there is faux meat and then there is in vitro meat. Vegan butchers such as Sydney's 'Spoon's' proudly call themselves a "purveyor of fine faux meats". They are offering fare made from ingredients such as organic soy, flour and polenta. Their "traditional sausages" are described mouth wateringly as "a firm meaty style vegan sausage with robust flavours and a hint of chilli". It's a long way from the tin of "nut meat" that I valiantly attempted to nudge into an edible substance when I first left home.

Given that the production of lab grown meat must harvest animal cells somewhere along the line, would such hard core vegans have ethical issues with in vitro meat?

Singer had previously discussed the merits of in-vitro meat with the media, telling Wired Magazine in 2009 that, ethically, "it's the same with road kill."

Singer explained: "If they are only genetically modifying the meat at a cellular level, I don't have any problem. It's not something that is going to harm any animals. I hope the day will come that people won't want to eat meat from animals that have suffered for our benefit and have contributed to climate change."

The lab meat Singer is talking about has been created by scientists using animal cell cultures. Although much publicised research is taking place in The Netherlands and in the US to produce fake meat, there is so far no clear winner.

In 2008, the animal-rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) announced a $1 million prize for the first team to develop and market in vitro meat. They kept their money. The faux meat had to be tasty and appealing to consumers. Alas, one thing seems clear, and that is lab engineered meat has a long way to go before it gets the right "mouth feel" in terms of taste and texture needed to remotely pass itself off as the real thing. What has emerged from the lab "kitchen" so far is sadly a pile of mushy muscle mass.

Venerated Canadian science fiction author Margaret Atwood summed up the lab meat problem succinctly: "Their problem is the texture. It's sort of mush. So they're trying to figure out a way to exercise it."

Back in 2009, Wired Magazine reasoned that the name chosen for the new fake meat product will determine its destiny. So, what is the roll call? From my research, I have seen the following suggestions touted - Lab Meat, VatBeef, In-Vitro Meat, faux meat, fake meat, mock meat,synthetic or test-tube meat, bioprinted meat, 3D print meat, and tissue engineered meat. Perhaps science fiction writers have better ideas. William Gibson gave us shmeat (from 'Neuromancer'), and then there are Margaret Atwood's Secret Burgers from 'The Year of the Flood' (with ingredients we can only assume are similar to those in the 1973 science fiction film Soylent Green).

And figuring out how to present a marketable and palatable version of lab grown meat is just what is happening. Mark Post, Chair of Physiology at Maastricht University, is involved in pioneering research growing bovine stem cells in a vat. This "lab meat" or "VatBeef" could be the answer to protein loving vegans' prayers; save the planet from environmental destruction caused by cattle production; or be a dreadful "Frankenmeat" - depending on your point of view.

Four years ago, Post described the lab grown meat attempts as being "rather like wasted muscle mass" (The Telegraph, 29 Nov 2009). We hope it has improved with age.

In the US, researchers are working on an even more bizarre version of fake meat: print on demand meat using 3-D printer technology. University of Missouri bioengineering Professor Gabor Forgacs touted the concept at the October 2011 TEDMED conference in San Diego with his company Modern Meadow. Modern Meadow is starting out with manufacturing "photocopied leather" before moving to thin slithers of faux meat. You will never look at a photocopier the same way again.

Lab grown leather and lab-gown meat is nothing new in the art world. Bio-artist Oron Catts, who pushes the new frontiers of body art using wet biology, produced "victimless leather" as part of the Tissue Culture & Art Project which used conceptual art projects to explore cultural ideas around scientific knowledge. Catts successfully grew small amounts of cultured meat using muscle cells in 2001. Apparently the results were so repellent (though safe to eat) that diners at the art event spat it out. Catts described his tissue engineering research at the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts (SLSA) themed NONHUMAN 26^th Annual Meeting in the US in September 2012.

Catts (who is currently the Director of SymbioticA,the Centre of Excellence in Biological Arts within the School of Anatomy and Human Biology at The University of Western Australia) is a Visiting Professor of Design Interaction at the Royal College of Arts, London, and a Visiting Professor at Aalto University's Future Art Base, Helsinki. He wrote a thesis in the mid 1990s looking at the possibility of growing living surfaces over inanimate objects. His work NoArk 11 appeared in the 2009 RMIT Gallery exhibition entitled Super Human.

At an ArtMeatFlesh event hosted by Catts in the Netherlands in 2012, Zack Denfeld from the Centre for Genomic Gastronomy was teamed with Masstricht University's Mark Post to create a menu which would certainly get Margaret Atwood's creative juices flowing. The menu featured Fetal Bovine Serum & Beetroot Salad and Failed Food Utopia Amuse Bouche (with mealworms). If nothing else, the project forced participants to think about the non-human animals they are eating and ponder the ethical implications of what they are putting in their mouths. I am not sure, however, that Failed Food Utopia (FFU) is a good name for Lab Meat marketing campaign.