In November 2022, the FDA made a surprise announcement: It had no further questions about the safety of a lab-grown chicken product from Upside Foods, one of the largest startups attempting to produce marketable lab-grown meat. This de facto approval of the product surprised most industry analysts, who expected the regulatory battle over lab-grown meats to be much more drawn out. While the approval didn't put the product directly on shelves, it brought a previously abstract possibility — that people could buy real meat without killing an animal — much closer to reality.
When compared to conventional meat products, best-case-scenario lab meat production could avoid many of the ethical and environmental issues that come with conventional meat production. These products aren't completely free of animal inputs, since cell cultures, hormones and some other inputs originate from animal samples, but growing meat without livestock would largely sidestep the immense cruelty of factory farming. Supporters and investors hope that lab meats would be more appealing to some consumers than plant proteins manipulated to resemble real meat. But whenever a product alleges it has the potential to fundamentally reshape an industry, it's worth digging deeper to figure out just how realistic those claims are.
