We have had two recent reports in the Indian press about making meat in the lab: one in The Statesman on June 28, 2023, and the second one in The Hindu on July 9, 2023. They both focussed on the Indian efforts in making meat in the laboratory, rather than killing animals on the farm or in specially constructed slaughterhouses.
In fact, the making of meat in the laboratory has been going on both in the U.S. and Europe. The idea is not to kill the animal for flesh but to save it and grow its meat in the laboratory. As the article in The Statesman points out, there are several reasons why lab-cultured meat is a better option: there is zero cruelty; lab meat can be made with much less fat, no cholesterol and no saturated fats, thus healthier for the consumer; once the lab meat is available in the future, it may become cheaper than conventional meat and; lab meat will have less environmental impact.
The last point is particularly important since it is estimated that there are more than 50 billion chickens raised for meat in the world each year. That works out to about 136 million chickens killed each day worldwide. The U.S. is the third most prolific country for chicken farming. The site Rooster Haus Rescue points out that 23.3 million land animals are killed in the U.S. alone every single day. Similar numbers exist for pork and beef. All this also adds about 15% of greenhouse gas emissions, affecting the environment as well.
