NOVEMBER, 2035 – Autumn is in full swing when the autonomous taxi drops you off for family dinner. The Internet is abuzz with rumors about the upcoming Bush/Clinton presidential race (Jenna and Chelsea this time) and the Detroit Lions are preparing to continue their NFC domination.

Walking through the door—which announces your arrival, thanks to its IoT connection—the first thing you notice is that comfortingly familiar smell of Thanksgiving dinner. The kitchen appliances (also IoT connected) are busy preparing a feast for the whole family.

And that’s when you see it.

A burger made from in vitro beef. (Image courtesy of David Parry/PA Wire.)

Sitting in the oven, where you’d expect to see a fully dressed turkey, is a flat meat-colored slab.

Welcome to your first Thanksgiving dinner of in vitro turkey!

The Evolution of in vitro Meat

As bizarre as this scenario might sound (presidential candidates and NFC champions aside), the idea of growing just the meat instead of the whole animal goes at least as far back as Winston Churchill.

In an article titled ‘Fifty Years Hence’, Churchill wrote, “We shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing, by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium.”

Forty years later, the first in vitro cultivation of muscle fibres was reported.

Just over four decades after that, the world’s first lab-grown hamburger was eaten in August 2013. It cost $325,000, which was donated by Google co-founder Sergey Brin. Using bovine stem cells, researchers managed to grow strips of cow muscle for meat.

Cooking a burger made of in vitro beef. (Image courtesy of David Parry/PA Wire.)

In case you’re wondering how it tasted, here’s a quote from nutritionist Hanni Rützler:

"I was expecting the texture to be more soft... there is quite some intense taste; it's close to meat, but it's not that juicy. The consistency is perfect, but I miss salt and pepper. This is meat to me. It's not falling apart."

No one is likely to pay $325,000 for a burger that’s “close to meat” but as of April 2015 the price for a roughly 4 ounce burger is now estimated at just over $11, or $80 per kilogram of meat. That figure comes from Mark Post, who led the research team in 2013. While it’s still a little on the pricey side, I’d pay $11 to try a cruelty-free burger, wouldn’t you?

Challenges for in vitro Meat

As with any new technology, the main obstacles to bringing vat-grown meat out of the lab and into commercial manufacturing are scale and cost.

Producing in vitro meat on a large scale requires muscle cells that proliferate quickly, a common problem for tissue engineering. The cells also need a source of nutrients.

Ideally, the growth medium would be inexpensive and (if we’re motivated by ethics) devoid of additional animal products. The good news is that a growth medium has already been identified for turkey.

Turkey muscle grown in vitro. (Image courtesy of Douglas McFarland/South Dakota State University.)

If our aim to is grow “real” muscle, indistinguishable from meat grown the old-fashioned way, a circulation system is necessary to deliver nutrients and oxygen as well as to remove waste. The muscle would also need to be stretched or “exercised” in order to develop properly.

Putting in vitro Meat on the Table

Whatever your gut may be telling you about vat-grown meat, its benefits over conventional meat are hard to deny.

Post estimates that a small piece of muscle could yield up to 10,000 kilograms of meat. At that rate of return, growth hormones would become unnecessary. We could also add omega-3 fatty acids to the meat as it grows, increasing its health benefits.

The environmental benefits of switching to in vitro meat should be obvious. Farm animals take up huge amounts of space and require constant care. Meat growing in a vat does not.

Indeed, the strongest arguments for in vitro meat are the ethical ones. A lump of muscle tissue is incapable of suffering. This is why animal welfare organizations generally support it. In fact, in 2008 PETA offered a $1 million prize for the first company to bring lab-grown chicken to consumers by 2012.

Although that deadline has passed, it seems likely that many of us will see commercial in vitro meat in our lifetimes. Post believes that, “20 [to] 30 years from now we will have a viable industry producing alternative beef.” If that prediction is borne out, turkey can’t be far behind.

Here’s a fun experiment if you happen to encounter a vegan ranting about cruelty to turkeys: show them a few pictures of in vitro meat and ask how eager they’d be to tuck in.