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Artificial Meat Industry: Production Methodology, Challenges, and Future

• Interactions between Biomaterials and Biological Tissues and Cells
• Open access
• Published: 20 May 2022
• Volume 74 , pages 3428–3444, ( 2022 )

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• Tarun Mateti 1 ,
• Anindita Laha   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-9436-9823 1 &
• Pushpalatha Shenoy 1  

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Biotechnology and food science have pioneered the notion of cultured meat. Conventional meat production face issues related to butchering, dietary inadequacy, foodborne disease, and the emanation of methane, which cultured meat evades while promising the texture and feel of real meat. Mass production techniques for plant-based meat analogs have been developed, whose products have hit the market. In vitro production on scaffolding and self-organizing techniques have manufactured small-scale meat products offering tunable nutrition, although more specialized contrivances are needed to build a cultured meat framework on a large scale. Prospective techniques like 3D/4D bio-printing, biophotonics, and cloning are current research subjects. Cultured meat needs to overcome societal and regulatory hurdles prior to commercialization, and, in any event, is a long-term necessity for humankind, although the high production cost and affirmation among people is the principal impediment.

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Introduction

The world's population of around 7.9 billion has nearly doubled over the past 50 years, with the number rapidly increasing every day. 1 , 2 People depend upon resources: natural, man-made, or capital, for their livelihood and wellbeing. As the population rises, natural resources deplete more quickly, and, although renewable schemes exist, food scarcity remains one of the most challenging subjects.

Unlike vegetation, which can be reproduced and used to develop man-made hybrids, meat production relies on butchery, which concerns us all, as animals play an essential role in the ecosystem. The development of artificial meat may be the best substitute and a renewable form of meat production feasible in the future. People would be delighted to continue consuming meat without the undercurrent of fear or guilt.

Goldfish and lamb were the first successfully cultured meats, 3 and various meat substitutes have since been cultured using suitable technologies. 4 , 5 , 6 The world witnessed the first-ever laboratory-grown beef burger in 2013; although palatable, its production cost over US$330,000. 7

Consuming red meat is associated with colorectal cancer, cardiac arrest, cardiovascular illness, and diabetes, 8 , 9 due to specific components. These can be excluded or induced at lower concentrations, while those serving health benefits can be included 10 in artificial meat products. Such products would also be unexposed to pesticides and bacteria, due to the controlled conditions in which they are manufactured. 11 , 12

This review describes the current state of artificial meat, its tested methodologies, critics, and challenges, and the future of this revolutionary technology.

Present Scenario/Global Outlook

Global meat consumption could double by 2050 due to the growing population. 13 However, there is a maximum to conventional meat production beyond which there would be high demand without any sources. 14 Such a situation will increase prices and worsen the global distribution of food.

Artificial meat has assets and barriers that affect its outlook: products need to be large scale, reach out to a large audience, and produce a turnover and, subsequently, profit. Also, consumers are most likely to purchase novel products resembling existing ones without much change in their utilization experience 15 ; only then will it compete with the established!

Plant-based meat alternatives are accessible in the market and have surpassed the only barrier, i.e., consumer acceptability, as people are credulous toward plant-based products. 16 However, they account only for a small portion of the total market 17 because of negative stigmas attributed to their taste and texture. 18 Although these products are serious alternatives, they are not currently deemed so by non-vegans. 16 , 17

The development of cultured meat is formative, and will take at least 10 years before being commercially available. 19 Its development necessitates substantial commitment and investment from the government and industry, as new manufacturing facilities with several untested technologies would be required. Although it presents a significant risk for investors, consumers are showing interest in the product becoming available. 20

The cloning process has been marketed and is available to companies. 21 However, the procedure is costly and will probably see lower success than other artificial meat forms. 22 Table I describes conventional and artificial meat production. 23 , 24

Classification of Artificial Meat

Artificial meat is a broad term that encompasses three main types of meat replacements: meat alternatives derived from plant extracts and fungi; cultured (or laboratory-grown or synthetic meat) produced in vitro through tissue engineering or derived from genetically modified organisms and cloned animals through genetic engineering. Figure 1 depicts such a classification.

Classification of artificial meat.

Fermentation-based meat substitutes (vegan meat) use non-animal proteins obtained from plants and fungi. 25 For example, soya meals offer high nutritional content, texture, and flavor similar to regular meat. Quorn (manufactured from fungal protein) offers burgers, steak, and sliced meat alternatives free of cholesterol and low saturated fat. 26

Tissue engineering enables in vitro production by seeding a scaffold with a few myocytes (i.e., muscle cells) and multiplying them through cell culture: the act of promoting cell development in an artificial medium through chemical and physical stimuli 27 (used to regenerate plants 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 ). Either cell source can create products:

Primary cells isolated from the original tissue or cell lines multiply in two ways: (1) by induction: teaching cells to multiply endlessly (genetic engineering or chemical manipulation), 33 and (2) by spontaneous mutations in which the cell demonstrates immortality 34

Primary cells isolated from native tissue.

While muscle stem cells have garnered the most attention, others, such as mesenchymal stem cells (i.e., connective tissue cells of any organ), can grow in serum-free conditions 35 , 36 , 37 due to their higher proliferation capacity. 38 Although embryonic stem cells (i.e., early-stage embryo cells) multiply continuously, they are more challenging to guide toward a muscle cell lineage. Additionally, human primary cell sources are available; 39 however, culturing human tissue for meat production would have profound ethical, medical, and regulatory ramifications.

Genetic engineering and biotechnology permit genome editing: sophisticated inter- and intra-species allele (i.e., gene) replacement technologies, to develop genetically modified organisms (GMOs). 40 GMOs can be utilized as food, and are extensively employed in medicine, research, and the conservation of existing characteristics. Several GMO instances in food include transgenic pigs, the manufacturing of cheese, transgenic cows for milk production, and enviropigs for omega-3 fatty acid synthesis. 41 , 42 Figure 2 gives an overview of artificial meat discussed in this paper.

Overview of artificial meat.

Meat substitutes Derived from Plant-Based Sources

Quorn is made from mycoprotein, whose primary component is Fusarium venenatum , a fungus found in soil. The fungus is fermented with sugar and centrifuged to give a batter utilized in various quorn items. Quorn can assist in lowering blood cholesterol levels and reducing energy expenditure. 43 , 44

Quorn foods include vegan alternatives of patties, nuggets, cutlets, steaks, burgers, and prepared meals like lasagna. Compared to other vegetarian protein sources, they have no cholesterol, a low saturated fat content, a healthy fatty acid profile, and fiber content. Additionally, the amino acid content of mycoprotein is similar to those of other vegetarian and animal proteins. Figure 3 describes the detailed manufacturing process of quorn. 45

The manufacturing process of quorn.

Soya meat (also known as textured vegetable protein) is a soya protein with fibrous consistency similar to regular meat. It contains more than 50% protein and makes high-protein grains, nuggets, and others.

Soya protein products have become popular due to their low price, good nutritional value, and diversity. There are two significant compounds: soya protein concentrate and soya protein isolate. With a minimum protein level of 65% on a dry weight basis, soya protein concentrate is an edible protein product, while soya protein isolate has a minimum protein content of 90%. 46

Soya meat is made by combining soya protein with water at 30°C in an extruder for approximately 3 h to eliminate anti-nutrients. The material is pulped, heated, and denatured to eliminate husk and to obtain a puffy solid that is later dried. In order to create a well-texturized structure, the temperatures in the process section are typically kept relatively high, around 70°C for 5–8 h. 47

Tempeh is the most recognized fermented food, and is high in nutrients and bioactive compounds. 48 Tempeh is produced by soaking and cooking soyabeans, to which fungus is later added. After 24 h, the tempeh will have a nutty taste and a chewy mushroom texture, which makes patties and other meat substitutes. Tempeh’s protein content is significantly enhanced during fermentation, making it more digestible than unfermented soyabeans. 49

Tempeh is the product of a mixed fermentation process involving yeasts, molds, various microorganisms, and Gram-negative bacteria, and lactic acid, 50 although the dominating constituent is Rhizopus oligosporus . 51 The two processes that manufacture tempeh from raw soyabeans are described in Fig. 4 . 52

The manufacturing process of tempeh.

Tofu is a well-known meat substitute made from soyabeans containing many nutrients like calcium, iron, and protein. Tofu is made by coagulating soya milk with CaSO 4 or MgCl 2 , and has approximately 8% protein, 4–5% lipids, 2% carbohydrates, and about 1% dietary fiber content on a fresh weight basis. 53 Vital vitamins and minerals can be added to tofu, so that it can provide a variety of nutritional and physiological benefits. 54 , 55 , 56 The manufacturing procedure is described in Fig. 5 . 57

The manufacturing process of tofu and kinema.

Kinema is a fermented food that is alkaline and sticky due to Bacillus fungus being used during fermentation. On a dry weight basis, kinema has 62% moisture and comprises around 7% ash, 17% fat, 28% carbohydrate, and 48% protein. 58 The manufacture of kinema is described in Fig. 5 . 59 , 60 , 61 , 62

Wheat gluten (also called wheat meat or seitan) is a popular meat replacement composed of gluten isolated from wheat. Seitan has a consistency comparable to meat, 63 and is used in vegan substitutes for burgers, sausages, schnitzel, minced meat, and nuggets. Additionally, most nations have wheat as an indigenous grain, making seitan production feasible worldwide.

Seitan is prepared by adjusting the wheat flour mixture's water content to between 40 and 80 (w/w%) to activate the gluten, and then the mixture is extruded into sheets to remove the starch, leaving only the gluten. The sheet stretches to impart directionality to the fiber structure throughout the process. Finally, with a humidity of around 75% and a temperature of about 75–120°C, the produced sheets are dried by heating. After drying, the gluten is crushed into a powder to obtain the seitan. 64

Edamame is made from immature soyabeans. The pods are cooked or steamed before serving with salt and other seasonings. 65 Edamame contains 73% water, 12% protein, 9% carbs, and 5% fat, and has 121 calories per 100 grams. It is high in protein, dietary fiber, and minerals like folate, manganese, and vitamin K. Edamame has 361 mg of omega-3 fatty acids and 1794 mg of omega-6 fatty acids in its fat composition. 66

Green soyabean pods are harvested before they mature (about 35–40 days after the crop blooms), 67 and are boiled, steamed, or microwaved. Before boiling or steaming, the pods’ ends are chopped off. Salt is added for flavor by either dissolving it in boiling water before adding the soyabean pods or after cooking. Fresh edamame should be consumed the same day it is harvested, since taste deterioration can occur in as little as 10 h, and will remain for 3 days in the refrigerator. If the pods are to be kept fresh, they should be moist to avoid discoloration and withering. 67

Miscellaneous

Sweet lupine seeds may make vegan meat alternatives. Meatless (a product of Meatless, Netherlands) is composed of lupine or wheat 68 in various forms, flavors, and colors. Many additional meat substitutes made from lupine are available, but have not penetrated key market groups.

In the United States, rice burgers and sausages called risofu (a term formed from the Italian word for rice, riso, and tofu) were inspired by the Shan region of Thailand, which produces rice-based tofu. Risofu combines brown, wild, and white rice to acquire maximum nutrients. 63

The combination of edible oils, thickening agents, cereals, rice, and algae may serve as a forerunner to vegan meat substitutes. For example, the Germans produce remis algen. 69 Another example is paneer or Indian cottage cheese made from cow or buffalo milk, and is prevalent in the Indian subcontinent and rich in nutrients.

Mass Production Techniques for Plant-Based Meat Analogs

Thermo-extrusion.

Processing techniques aim to construct plant-based or whole-muscle meat alternatives with the feel of real meat. 70 , 71 Thermo-extrusion is a frequently used method due to its low cost, energy efficiency, adaptability, and excellent productivity. It is the primary processing method employed to convert plant proteins into structured fibrils for later meat substitute products. Thermo-extrusion may be low-, intermediate-, and high-moisture extrusions. 72

Thermo-extrusion (Fig.  6 ) is a multipurpose procedure that includes expansion, shaping, heating, deaeration, homogenization, compression, shearing, hydration, and mixing. At elevated temperatures (140–180°C) and moderate to high moisture concentrations (40–80%), extrusion is carried out through a complicated shearing process by texturizing the protein and later forming fiber structures. 73 These circumstances allow precise control over the product expansion and protein gelation, batter shape, fat emulsification, and particle restructuring. 74 The extrusion process results in the micro-coagulation and fibrillation of protein components.

Thermo-extrusion processing of meat.

High-Temperature Conical Shear Cell

The high-temperature conical shear cell is a cone-in-cone device with a movable base cone. The space between the two cones is sealed to stop steam from escaping during heating, with temperatures ranging from 95 to 140°C. 75 The method produces fibrils by combining pea protein–wheat gluten and soya protein–wheat gluten. The mixture is heated continuously for 15 min, and then cooled to 25°C. The foods are kept at room temperature for at least 1 h to create structurally stable fibers while enclosed in a plastic bag. Soya protein blends treated at 110°C and 120°C have a mechanical strength equivalent to chicken meat, whereas pea protein blends at 140°C have comparable strength to soya protein blends. 76

Cultured Meat Production

This section discusses the feasibility of using tissue and genetic engineering methods to create edible animal meat and offering distinct environmental and social advantages over regular meat. Since cultured meat production is not butchered, it is feasible to have meat alternatives in a range of chicken, beef, and fish varieties, and later expanded to other options. 7 This topic is of interest to engineers because cultured meat production is a practical application of tissue and genetic engineering, with fewer significant technological difficulties than many clinical applications.

Skeletal muscle tissue constitutes the majority of edible animal meat. Using skeletal muscle tissue engineering methods to generate edible meat goes back decades, although few have researched it seriously. 77 In vitro manufacturing approaches may be broadly classified into scaffold-based and self-organizing strategies.

Proliferating myoblasts (i.e., skeletal stem cells), seeding them to a scaffold or carriers like a collagen meshwork, and then perfusing them with a culture medium in a fixed or rotating bioreactor, are all part of the scaffold-based technique. When exposed to various environmental stimuli, these cells fuse into myotubes and eventually differentiate into myofibers. 78 Myofibers produced through this process may subsequently be cooked and eaten like meat. A scaffold-based technique may be appropriate for boneless meals like hamburgers or sausages; however, it is incompatible with the manufacture of highly defined meats like steaks. 79

Benjaminson et al. 5 employed the self-organizing approach and were the first scientists to use tissue-engineered approaches for meat production. They cultivated goldfish skeletal muscle explants for 7 days in varied circumstances, and discovered an increase in its surface area from 5.2% to 13.8%. When explants were placed in a culture containing goldfish skeletal muscle cells, their surface area increased by 79%. Explants benefited from having all the cells that comprise muscle suitably closely resembling the in vivo structure. However, the absence of blood circulation in these explants precludes significant development since cells become necrotic when isolated from a source of nutrients.

Meat from genetically modified organisms and cloned animals also qualify as cultured meat. Genetically modified organisms have their genes altered through genetic engineering to contain DNA from another organism. This technique is extensively used to generate crops modified to be advantageous compared with their counterparts. 40 Animal cloning is a complex process to produce species with the exact genetic traits of its parent. So far, sheep, pigs, goats, cattle, and rabbits have been cloned but never consumed. 80

In-vitro Meat Production Techniques

Scaffolding technique.

Separating embryonic myoblasts from agricultural animals such as cattle, sheep, and pigs, and allowing them to develop in a stationary or rotating bioreactor using a plant-derived growth medium, would be required for a scaffold-based in vitro meat production system. These cells would divide and redivide for weeks or months, eventually transforming into muscle fibers on a scaffold within the bioreactor. 78 , 81

A large-scale bioreactor capable of mass culturing meat has yet to be designed and built. 4 Muscle creation requires using a circulatory system to provide nutrients and oxygen to growing cells or fibers while eliminating metabolic waste. Although tiny pieces of muscle obtain sufficient nutrients and oxygen through diffusion, cultured muscles with built-in blood arteries for oxygen and nutrition supply have not been developed. 82

Although several cell culture methods are already accessible, the most challenging step in producing in vitro meat is identifying the optimal culture medium composition. The medium should be inexpensive, made entirely of food-grade components, widely accessible in large quantities, and effective in maintaining and encouraging muscle cell development, proliferation, and differentiation. 4 Figure 7 describes the outline of the scaffolding technique of in vitro meat production.

Scaffolding technique.

3D/4D organ or bio-printing technique

Culture Media and Growth Factors

A culture medium should sustain and encourage development while readily accessible, inexpensive, and edible. Media with nutrients like amino acids, fatty acids, vitamins, trace minerals, and extracellular vesicles are essential for cell growth. Along with antibiotic/antimitotic combinations, certain cultures need an embryo extract. 83 , 84

Muscle cells are the primary source of insulin-like growth factor 1 and are necessary to generate in vitro meat. Scientists often increase myoblast differentiation and fusion by lowering mitogenic growth factor levels. Proliferating cells subsequently start generating insulin-like growth factor 2, which causes differentiation and the formation of myotubes. 85 Although a certain proportion of growth factors, inhibitors, and metabolic moderators are involved, it is often unclear which serum components are primarily responsible for cell growth. 86

Similar to the culture medium, the scaffold composition is related to in vitro meat production. Numerous biomaterials, both synthetic and animal-derived, have been tested. As animal-derived scaffolding, like collagen, closely matches the original in vivo micro-environment, differentiated myoblasts choose to align, compress, and form a muscle fiber. 87 The most successful efforts to generate in vitro meat have employed collagen-based scaffolds, 88 whereas efforts to employ synthetic biomaterials have encountered difficulties in contracting the tissue. 89

The importance of a bioreactor layout in tissue regeneration has been discussed previously. 90 , 91 Static bioreactors have been extensively utilized and entail seeding cells on a scaffold, followed by adding suitable growth media and culturing in an incubator. In vitro meat production will need the development of novel bioreactors capable of stimulating tissue growth and maintaining low shear and uniform perfusion at high volumes. Rotating bioreactors have been used extensively in skeletal muscle tissue engineering research.

The bioprocess is divided into four stages: cell multiplication, differentiation of cells, product production, and waste valorization. The complexity of the environment in which muscle cells proliferate and differentiate distinguishes in vitro meat bioprocessing from existing bioprocesses. 92

The rotating wall vessel bioreactor spins at a rate that balances centrifugal force, drag force, and gravity force, and submerges the three-dimensional culture in the medium, assisting in developing tissue with a comparable structure to that found in vivo. 93 The biomechanical forces help create a laminar flow of the medium, which improves diffusion and achieves a high mass transfer rate with a low shear stress level.

Direct perfusion bioreactors are another type better suited to scaffold-based cultivation. The medium in this scenario runs via a porous scaffold, and gas exchange occurs in an external fluid loop. 94 This kind of bioreactor has a high mass transfer rate and significantly low shear stress.

Self-Organizing Technique

A more ambitious method for producing highly structured in vitro meat is to use explanted animal muscle tissue. It includes the creation of self-organized muscle tissue 79 or the in vitro proliferation of existing muscle tissue. 5

Benjaminson et al. 5 investigated whether homologous adult muscle tissue cells could bind and grow on a substrate. Slices of goldfish tissue were chopped and centrifuged to make pellets, and were put in Petri plates with a nutrition mixture and cultivated for 7 days. Benjaminson et al. examined a range of growth media (including fetal bovine serum, fish meal extract, and several mushroom extracts) to understand how each aided in developing explant muscle tissue, and identify possible substitutes for fetal bovine serum. After 2 weeks in culture, 81% of 48 cultures revealed tissue adhesion to the culture vessel, 63% displayed self-healing, and 74% displayed cell proliferation. When fetal bovine serum was utilized as the nutritional medium, the explanted tissue increased by around 14% and by more than 13% when maitake mushroom extract was utilized. After a week in a culture containing goldfish skeletal muscle cells, the surface area of the explants increased by 79%. The explants and newly formed tissue resembled fresh fish fillets, and were marinated in olive oil and garlic and deep-fried before being submitted to a sensory panel for evaluation. The sensory panel reported that the explants and newly grown tissue looked and smelled edible. 95 , 96 , 97

Li et al. 98 established a protocol for the isolation and proliferation of porcine muscle cells. The muscles were cut into small pieces, centrifuged to isolate the cells and make pellets, which were placed in Petri dishes to proliferate using a growth medium of fetal bovine serum and penicillin–streptomycin, and a differentiation medium of horse serum. The proliferation assessment shows around 70% proliferation in a week.

Recently, Wang et al. 99 harvested goat skeletal muscle cells and proliferated them up to 80% using a growth medium of fetal bovine serum and a differentiation medium of horse serum. The above studies prove the potency of fetal bovine serum and horse serum in proliferating muscle cells. Research is required to establish protocols using the reagents against various animal muscle cells for in vitro meat production using the self-organizing technique.

3D/4D Organ or Bio-Printing

Three-dimensional (3D) or four-dimensional (4D) organ or bioprinting (Fig.  8 ) is based on conventional printing principles. Computer-aided design (CAD) software is used to create the prototype of the bio-product. Cells are sprayed onto gels according to CAD, and, on culturing, the cells fuse to form the bio-product, which can have the basic cellular structure and vascularization to deliver blood. 100 , 101 , 102

3D bioprinting is one of the most effective and appealing techniques for creating functionally and anatomically identical organs or tissues for regenerative tissue and organ therapeutic applications. It accurately deposits biomaterials and various cell types into a single 3D tissue architecture. 4D printing, which employs comparable technology, extends 3D printing and adds another dimension of alteration over time. The target organs or tissues are sensitive to humidity and temperature, and this technique is utilized to repair muscle, bone, and cardiovascular tissues. 103

In 2021, Aleph Farms, in collaboration with The Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, successfully cultivated the world’s first rib-eye steak using 3D bioprinting. It possesses fat similar to regular meat and is claimed to be tender and juicy. The company also states it will be able to produce any kind of meat with the technology in the future. 104

Biophotonics

Biophotonics is a new process that uses laser light to bind particles together. It produces “optical matter” in the form of desired structures, in which material can be deposited and held together until the light is removed. The material held can combine to form a new solid structure. The mechanics of this extraordinary property of light is still poorly understood.

The novel technology may manufacture meat if the muscle cells can fuse, and could instill features such as fat easily, compared to other techniques. Biophotonics could be an alternative to hold cells instead of adopting conventional scaffolding techniques. 101 To date, red blood cells and hamster ovaries have been created using biophotonics. 105

Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology aims to design a molecule-sized robot capable of manipulating matter on an atomic level that can create nearly any material from the start by assembling the molecules precisely. This could apply to producing meat, although this is financially and technologically unfeasible at the time. 101

Nanotechnology could preserve meat without reducing nutrients and extend shelf life. 106 , 107 To improve male fertility, selective breeding can be achieved by isolating viable sperms through magnetic nanoselection, whose application could extend to animals. 108 Nanodevices, coupled with anti-microbial particles, can track genuity, expiry date of meat products, and meat spoilage, and provide safe standards. 109 , 110 , 111

Nanotechnology offers great potential, and future attempts in meat production will need to overcome the limits of current approaches by developing edible and inexpensive cultured cells, scaffolds, culture media, and growth hormones.

Genetically Modified Organisms and Cloned Animals

Genetically modified organisms may be considered the third class of artificial meat. Despite their similarities, animals whose genomes have been changed purposely in a laboratory should be considered artificial.

Cloned animals are the fourth class of artificial meat. Cloning is just a scientifically aided approach to producing identical descendants. As it is a man-made procedure, the meat may be seen as artificial.

Genetic modification of animals has been discussed previously, 40 and it may mitigate the environmental effect of conventional meat production. Although feasible theoretically and has been tested, no genetically engineered animals have been authorized for human consumption.

Animal cloning allows the spreading of existing genetics by increasing the number of animals with a specific genotype and cutting carbon emissions. 112 Cloning animals with good genetics could complement other strategies like genetic manipulation, but might have some negative consequences relating to animal conservation. However, the cloning process is not without defects, with some acquiring deformities, such as large/abnormal offspring syndrome and immature deaths directly resulting from the cloning technology. 22

A colossal challenge in the industrial uptake of GMOs is their licensing. Although taming genetically modified animals has been a subject of recent research, the idea's critical reception has been hostile and has not yet been approved. 113 , 114 Such impediments negatively affect investment returns, although no significant infrastructure investment is needed to farm genetically modified livestock. The significant cost involved is disseminating the product within the population. 115

Nutritional Value

Any in vitro meat product must at least meet the nutritional content of regular meat to compete in the market. Along with a high protein level and complete amino acid profile, regular meat has various additional beneficial elements, including vitamins, minerals, and bioactive substances. 116

The growth medium must be supplied with nutrients not produced by muscle cells. For example, vitamin B12 is produced exclusively by certain gut-colonizing bacteria and found exclusively in regular meat. To be present in an in vitro meat product, vitamin B12 created commercially would need to be supplied. Iron is plentiful in regular meat in the heme form, which is present in myoglobin and hemoglobin. 117 Ferric ions associated with transferrin (a blood-plasma protein) will probably need to be added to the culture medium to provide iron in an accessible form to the muscle cell mitochondria to be incorporated into heme, resulting in the synthesis of myoglobin. 118 However, transferrin levels will need to be controlled to avoid excessive amounts of free ferric or ferrous ions, promoting the formation of harmful reactive oxygen species. 119 Myoglobin concentrations in the muscle cells are to be kept low until a significant population of myotubes is created, which might also assist in calculating the optimal growth time necessary before harvesting in vitro meat. 120

Productions Costs and Market Size

Compared to a $1 beef hamburger that can be made in no time, the first in vitro hamburger in 2013 cost over $300,000 and took 2 years to develop. 7 Ever since, production technologies have developed immensely to reduce costs and commercialize in the future. Table II describes the recently predicted production costs by companies around the world.

The estimated global market for cultured meat will be $214 million by 2025 and $593 million by 2032, 121 with entrepreneurs aggressively establishing start-ups. However, its market falls short of plant-based analogs, whose value was estimated to be $4.6 billion in 2018 and $85 billion in 2030. 122

Bryant et al. 123 asked participants about their willingness to replace regular meat with cultured meat in their diet, and 64.6% of participants were willing to try cultured meat, 49.1% were willing to buy it regularly, and 48.5% were ready to replace regular meat in their diet. However, this study is contradicted by Hocquette et al., 124 where the majority were not willing to buy cultured meat. Similarly, studies by Bekker et al. 125 and Verbeke et al. 126 showed positive results, whereas participants in other studies by Verbeke et al. 15 , 127 and Siegrist et al. 128 were less optimistic. The studies were conducted in different countries and with participants from different cultures and backgrounds. When these and similar other studies are put together, the key to boosting cultured meat’s market size is revealed: science-backed advertising! Cultured meat’s acceptance will vary across cultures, genders, and most importantly, depending upon people’s awareness. Cultured meat pioneers must focus on sharing information and building trust in consumers. Knowledge is power!

Regulatory Pathways

Food regulatory pathways ensure safety for consumers, and cultured meat products are likely to be regularized as novel foods. Schneider 141 and Petetin 142 argued that regulations were inadequate at the time of writing to deal with the technology without significant improvement in the United States and European Union, respectively. Schneider believes that conventional meat is not a natural version of in vitro meat, and the appropriate regulation depends upon the production technique. Petetin speculates on the benefits of the 2013 draft, of which a version was approved by the European Union removing equivalence considerations existing in previous regulations. However, she argued that genetically modified organism products are not cultured meat, which the European Union adopted in 2015 instead of regulating these type of products. 34 It is vital to establish that all cultured meat is of animal origin, although animal cells are only a tiny proportion of the total materials. On acceptance, the regulation would involve many organizations, including livestock, the environment, food, and local authorities.

The use of the word ‘meat’ is debated; a belief exists that the word is meant to come from a real animal, and the use of the word for laboratory technology is misuse and causes confusion. If so, should cultured meat be called ‘meat’? If not, what should it be called that would not distance itself from conventional meat? The answer is likely to differ between countries and interests!

A potential food fraud: attempts to sell cultured meat as regular meat and vice-versa, could lead to many regulatory concerns. Also, the possibilities of mislabeling products and producing meat from non-livestock species (human, dangerous animals, insects, etc.) could lead to serious health issues as research reports that consuming cancerous in vitro cell lines may transfer DNA. 143 , 144 Evidence of cultured meat being safe long term is minimal, as it is challenging to foresee possible risks.

Cultured meat is subject to scientific uncertainty: it might have positive and negative consequences. The danger of cultured meat being potentially toxic and having irreversible consequences affects its market. In contrast, delaying commercialization would also attract doubt. 145 The technology also lacks a protocol for choosing the right type of cells, and currently relies only on stem cells or precursor cells for meat production.

Currently, regulatory frameworks are unclear and in progress. Various regulatory approvals are required, backed by research, before cultured meat hits the market for the public.

Challenges and Prospects

Although artificial meat offers distinct benefits over conventional meat, several ambiguities over its acceptability, manufacturing costs, and societal acceptance persist. Also, popular cultured meat production techniques possess drawbacks that hinder their use in specific applications. Table III describes the advantages and disadvantages of the cultured meat production techniques mentioned in this paper.

In contrast to conventional meat, artificial meat is colorless. Consumers do not appreciate this significant disparity. Natural colors like sugar beet or saffron may be added, 146 and, as previously discussed, including heme present in myoglobin and hemoglobin proteins can add nutritional value but also impart a red color to cultured meat, making it resemble red meat. Another drawback is the absence of texture. Transglutaminase may improve the texture, although it establishes odd chemical linkages and creates non-conventional amino acids. However, these compounds may be not be digested and so present a threat to human health. Thus, more research is required to elucidate involving transglutaminase in artificial meat.

Production costs remain high, particularly serum from animal blood, which is required to enhance in vitro cell development. So far, all trials on in vitro meat have been conducted on a small-scale meat production basis; energy expenses are considerably reduced in laboratories when a tiny bioreactor is used. However, it is unclear how large-scale manufacturing might affect the end products’ prices and time to market. Humbird 147 estimates the market price for premium quality in vitro meat to be a minimum of $50/kg, whereas large-scale batch processes using low-cost media could provide meat under $25/kg.

Livestock is responsible for a significant proportion of greenhouse gas emissions. A potential benefit of cultured meat is its help in reducing methane emissions. Cattle farming releases methane, carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxide, whereas in vitro meat releases carbon dioxide primarily due to the use of fossil energy. 148 However, Mattick et al. 149 inconclusively contradicts this analogy, whereas Lynch et al. 150 state that global warming may reduce initially, but not long term as carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere.

In vitro meat will need less land than conventional meat production, although this would not be advantageous as livestock are vital in maintaining soil fertility. However, energy resources (electricity, fossil fuel, etc.) requirements will increase on large-scale production. Therefore, production techniques utilizing natural energy resources like solar, wind, hydrothermal, geothermal, biofuel, and tidal energy are to be developed, replacing preceding approaches.

Since cultured meat is a technical product, it cannot be assumed that the present customer views it as natural, and is likely the most significant disadvantage. Other concerns include the dangers of consuming untested materials, the possibility of misusing technological advances to culture human muscle tissue resulting in victimless cannibalism, people undervaluing cultured meat, disgust towards cultured meat (the ’yuck’ factor), and many more. 151

Although mass production techniques for plant-based meat analogs have been developed, in vitro meat is non-equivalent to conventional meat without similar texture, flavor, and nutritional content. Currently, the product does not meet consumers’ expectations, making mass production an aspect for future discussion. Therefore, the in vitro meat industry is in its infancy, requiring procedures to be optimized through extensive research and challenges relating to cost, perception, nutrition, flavor, texture, energy consumption, environmental impact, and availability being addressed before mass production can become a reality.

The societal challenges surrounding cultured meat have been framed primarily in ethics and consumer acceptability. However, they are insufficiently broad for investigating politics, which will benefit society and address genuine concerns and barriers.

Academic ethical literature provides compelling arguments favoring cultured meat, especially when a philosophical approach is used. 152 Typically, these focus on a successful cultured meat system's environmental and animal welfare advantages. While some say that making cultured meat is a moral obligation, others suggest that vegetarianism may be preferable. 153 , 154 Negative perspectives suggest that cultured meat perpetuates the present fetishization of meat, and, because of its high cost, may result in a guilt-free meat-eating elite operating at the expense of the poor. 155 Others have voiced concerns about the notion as a whole, claiming that resorting to biotechnology to address ethical quandaries is damaging, and that cultured meat is a dreadful illustration of the decontextualization and molecularization of viability. 156

A second significant area of research has been the public's perceptions of cultured meat. Occasionally, a few limit this to a question of consumer acceptability. However, this issue should be phrased generally, to include more political and personal opinions, ambiguities, and adverse effects of the societal ramifications of cultured meat. Existing research on attitudes toward cultured meat uses several approaches, but they all agree on one point: they discover a spectrum of perspectives ranging from highly supportive to highly hostile, with many in between. According to social media analyses and comments on news stories on cultured meat, the seeming unnaturalness of cultured meat may be a source of disagreement.

While these ethical and consumer acceptability concerns are critical, it is also critical to expand the understanding of cultured meat to include the associated political, social, and institutional ramifications. These concerns are mutually reinforcing, and they must be examined concurrently. Numerous arguments favoring cultured meat and other substitute proteins have stressed their ability to disrupt and mitigate the adverse effects of conventional animal agriculture. However, up to now, cultured meat has lived only in promissory tales rather than in actual, material forms. It is unknown what the future of cultured meat will look like, what inputs will be needed, or their environmental and ethical footprints.

Artificial meat technologies are advancing at a breakneck pace to increase customer expectations for health, environmental sustainability, and animal welfare. The manufacture of small-scale cultured meat products of edible quality should shortly be feasible, although large-scale production still seems challenging and is likely to take time, even if possible. Artificial intelligence-assisted cultured meat production seems to be one of the potential answers. It is impossible to close the demand–supply imbalance via traditional meat production with the rising demand for meat. Cultured meat production should be pushed to supply customers with environmentally friendly and disease-free meat.

At the moment, the only products generally accessible to customers are meat substitutes made from plant proteins. While traditional meat production involving animals is unlikely to be phased out, the sector will encounter a complex commercial and regulatory climate, resulting in industry-wide changes.

Despite its current hefty price, cultured meat's manufacturing costs will likely fall soon. Product-oriented advertising will be more successful in attracting consumers to this unique product than emphasizing the advantages of the manufacturing process. However, cultured meat will not compete with alternative meat replacements, such as plant-based foods, currently on the market, and have a lower consumer acceptance rate.

This unique product has significant obstacles ahead, with societal acceptability and manufacturing costs at the forefront before becoming a commercial reality. Numerous technologies are not yet suitable for commercial use and are battling regulatory laws. Although cultured meat attracts animal rights activists, a few animals must still be killed to gather their cells. Extensive research, support, and investment from government authorities and industries are needed to translate artificial meat into a large-scale industry and to replace conventional meat production.

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Acknowledgements

We want to acknowledge Manipal Institute of Technology and Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, for their unconditional support in carrying out this work.

Author Contributions

TM: conceptualization, data curation, writing: original draft & editing. AL: supervision, writing: review. PS: image design.

Open access funding provided by Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal.

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Mateti, T., Laha, A. & Shenoy, P. Artificial Meat Industry: Production Methodology, Challenges, and Future. JOM 74 , 3428–3444 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11837-022-05316-x

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• Published: 26 October 2023

Cultured meat acceptance for global food security: a systematic literature review and future research directions

• Leonore Lewisch   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-5380-2811 1 &
• Petra Riefler   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-9879-9962 1  

Agricultural and Food Economics volume  11 , Article number:  48 ( 2023 ) Cite this article

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Cultured meat is a novel technology-based meat alternative with the potential to complement protein supply for a growing world population. An increasing body of consumer research has investigated personal factors explaining consumers’ acceptance of cultured meat. Research on cultural and economic drivers impacting consumer responses across countries, however, is scant. In this light, this article aims to provide a cross-cultural perspective on cultured meat acceptance and guide future empirical research in this domain. First, this article proposes a framework to explain cross-national differences in cultured meat acceptance comprising societal factors (i.e., culture and religion), indicators of the food environment (i.e., meat production and consumption), and economic market parameters (i.e., gross domestic product, carbon dioxide emissions, and population growth). Second, the paper applies a systematic literature review, including 105 empirical consumer studies related to cultured meat. Third, the identified papers are analyzed according to the proposed framework. The findings of this descriptive analysis demonstrate that empirical research to date has predominately been conducted in countries that produce and consume high amounts of meat and are characterized by high gross domestic products per capita. Many of these surveyed countries harbor secular-rational and self-expressional cultural value orientations. Other country types have been less prominently explored, although they represent potentially relevant target markets for cultured meat in the future. Cross-cultural research aiming to explain differences across countries is scarce. To guide future research, the paper develops research propositions relating societal factors, food environment, and market-related factors to consumer acceptance of cultured meat across countries.

Introduction

The global world population is continuously growing and is expected to reach 10.3 billion by 2070 (Roser et al. 2021 ). Thus, the food industry is challenged to feed an increasing number of people. There are nowadays “[…] three potential pathways to meet the needs of the world’s growing population for protein in a sustainable and healthy way: alternative proteins; changes to current production systems; and consumer behaviour change” (Godfray 2019 , p. 9). This systematic literature review focuses specifically on cultured meat as a particular alternative protein type. Cultured meat shows considerable scaling potential since multiple amounts can be produced with the cells of a single animal (Tomiyama et al. 2020 ). In theory, “[…] 1 billion cultured beef burgers (113 g each) could be produced in 1.5 months from muscle stem cells biopsied from one living cow […]” (Tomiyama et al. 2020 , p. 146). Thus, cultured meat might represent a viable approach to feed an increasing number of people worldwide. In contrast to plant-based alternative proteins, cultured meat is an animal cell-based and lab-grown product (Post 2012 ). Cultured meat as human food was first created in 2013 (Painter et al. 2020 ) and became commercially available in 2020 in Singapore (Witte et al. 2021 ). In 2023, cultured meat has been cleared for sale in the USA (The New York Times 2023 ), after having been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2022 (FDA 2022 ).

To date, over 150 firms are operating in the cultured food industry (comprising both meat and seafood), which have received investments of approximately USD 2.8 billion (Good Food Institute 2022 ). Recently, policymakers of different countries (i.e., Israel, China, South Korea) have announced to financially support cultured meat research in the future, whereas other governments (e.g., Italy) have taken action to ban this future food (BBC 2023 ). Although market forecasts vary substantially, (e.g., CAGR of 52% and 96% between 20022/23 and 2030, see Grand View Research 2022 and Allied Market Research 2021 ), a positive global market development as suggested by market research companies (Brennan et al. 2021 ; Witte et al. 2021 ) appears plausible in case cultured meat gets approved for sale in additional countries.

Turning to the demand side, consumer-oriented cultured meat studies have investigated how consumers make sense of this novel food technology by exploring the underlying associations (e.g., Bekker et al. 2017 ; Marcu et al. 2015 ; Verbeke et al. 2015 ). Research has further examined consumer perceptions regarding the benefits (e.g., ecological and animal welfare, see Weinrich et al. 2020 ) and barriers (e.g., unnaturalness, see Siegrist et al. 2018 ) of the production method. A series of experiments has also shown that information provision and framing affect cultured meat acceptance (e.g., Bryant and Dillard 2019 ; Rolland et al. 2020 ). In addition, certain individual-level drivers (e.g., innovativeness and universalism, see Lewisch and Riefler 2023 ) and barriers (e.g., disgust sensitivity and food neophobia, see Wilks et al. 2019 ) were found to relate to consumers’ acceptance of this novel food technology.

Based on these empirical contributions, a number of literature reviews (e.g., Bryant and Barnett 2018 ; Pakseresht et al. 2022 ) have aimed to provide an overview of the general drivers of and barriers to cultured meat consumption at an individual consumer level. They identify ecological sustainability, animal welfare, food security, and health-related aspects as key perceived benefits of cultured meat, while common concerns center around (dis-)trust in science, unnaturalness, and food safety (Bryant and Barnett 2020 ; Kantono et al. 2022 ).

While the body on knowledge of individual dispositions impacting cultured meat acceptance is relevant and valuable, evidence from cross-country research clearly indicates that consumer responses strongly vary between nations (e.g., Bryant et al. 2019 ; Chong et al. 2022 ; Siegrist and Hartmann 2020a ). Furthermore, the relevance of personal drivers might be contingent upon individuals’ cultural and national contexts. For example, empirical research shows distrust in scientists (Lewisch and Riefler 2023 ; Wilks et al. 2019 ) and biotechnology (Hwang et al. 2020 ) to reduce willingness to try cultured meat in some nations (Austria and Korea), while not affecting behavioral intentions in other regions (USA). Since the societal and economic market context as well as the national (food) environment in general impact individual food choice (Stoll-Kleemann and Schmidt 2017 ), cross-cultural and cross-national differences appear relevant to better understand consumer acceptance of cultured meat as an alternative to conventional meat.

Against this background, this review aims to add to consumer research on technology-based food innovations by providing a complementary perspective that reflects upon selected societal and economic market criteria as well as the national food environment to explain consumers’ cultured meat acceptance. Drawing upon Stoll-Kleemann and Schmidt’s framework of meat consumption reduction ( 2017 ), our paper takes a macro-level perspective and aims to add to the current understanding on how consumer acceptance of cultured meat might be impacted by (i) culture and religion as societal factors , (ii) the amounts of conventional meat production and consumption as indicators of the food environment , and (iii) gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, national carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions, and population growth as economic market factors .

Using a systematic literature review approach (Snyder 2019 ), we provide an overview of the extant empirical research regarding the above factors. Based on our descriptive analysis, we illustrate which types of countries have been studied extensively, and which have been neglected. We further develop a theoretical framework and research propositions for future empirical research.

The remainder of this literature review is organized as follows: first, we develop the conceptual model. Next, we elaborate on the methodology used in this review and conduct a descriptive analysis. We then discuss our results and formulate research propositions for empirical studies. Finally, we conclude with implications for practitioners and directions for future research.

Conceptual framework of cultured meat acceptance

For our review, we built upon Stoll-Kleemann and Schmidt’s model ( 2017 ), which conceptualizes different types of drivers underlying meat-eating behavior that we adapted to cultured meat acceptance (see Fig.  1 ). The drivers focal to our review comprise societal factors, the food environment, and economic market parameters, in addition to personal factors that have been the emphasis of previous literature reviews (Pakseresht et al. 2022 ). In the following, we conceptually introduce the focal factors and the indicators we used within these categories.

Cultured meat acceptance framework adapted from Stoll-Kleemann and Schmidt ( 2017 ). Components considered are highlighted

Societal factors

According to Stoll-Kleemann and Schmidt ( 2017 , p. 1269) „[c]ultural and religious traditions […] influence and shape people’s behaviour towards meat”. Building on this insight, we consider a country’s culture as well as its predominant religion and level of religiousness as societal variables in our review.

Scholars agree that culture is difficult to define (e.g., Alonso et al. 2018 ; Wright et al. 2001 ) and typically understand this term as “[t]he programming of the human mind by which one group of people distinguishes itself from another group […]” (Hofstede Insights 2022 ). Thus, culture is deeply embedded in social structures and shapes consumers’ everyday lives in several ways. Apart from cultural influences on behavior in general (for an overview see, e.g., Oyserman 2017 ), cultural belonging also specifically impacts dietary habits and food preferences (Alonso et al. 2018 ; Furst et al. 1996 ; Lee and Lopetcharat 2017 ; Wright et al. 2001 ). To this end, cultural influences are particularly eminent regarding meat consumption (Vranken et al. 2014 ) since “[…] the societal centrality of meat has been ascribed to the power represented by its consumption, demonstrating economic, cultural, and symbolic capital […]” (Leroy and Praet 2015 , p. 205). In the context of cultured meat, the role of cultural influences remains widely unexplored, although this gap has been identified (e.g., Bryant and Barnett 2018 ). For this reason, researchers have suggested that “[f]uture studies should […] explain differences between various countries and cultures” (Onwezen et al. 2021 , p. 11).

Religion and religiousness

Religion as such “[…] has proven even more difficult to define than culture […]” (Alonso et al. 2018 , p. 114). Although religion and culture are intertwined to some extent, we followed extant conceptualizations as separate constructs for the purpose of our review (Bonney 2004 ). Religious affiliations do not only affect values, beliefs, community belonging (Mathras et al. 2016 ) and consumers’ shopping behavior (Mokhlis 2009 ) but also play a crucial role in shaping dietary habits (Sabaté 2004 ). To this end, religions frequently restrict alcohol consumption and impose fasting periods. In addition to this general influence on dietary choices, researchers have observed a particularly strong influence on meat consumption habits. Indeed, many religions have created versatile rituals, festive traditions, and strict taboos regarding meat consumption (Leroy and Praet 2015 ), and they forbid specific types of meat to be eaten (Randers and Thøgersen 2023 ). In light of these implications, we assume that religious confessions as well as the degree of religiousness in a country affect consumer acceptance of cultured meat as a substitute meat product.

External factors

In the original framework of Stoll-Kleemann and Schmidt ( 2017 ), external factors comprise political as well as economic market aspects and reflect upon the prevailing food environment. The authors argue that this dimension is essential because a change in meat consumption habits “[…] requires supportive government policies and practices, new and different business practices and civil society initiatives working in synergy” (p. 1270). In this light, we consider external circumstances to affect cultured meat acceptance in national markets, and we thus include the prevailing food environment as well as selected economic market parameters in our framework.

• Food environment

Food environment refers to the “[…] opportunity to obtain food, which includes physical, socio-cultural, economic, and political influences […]” (Enriquez and Archila-Godinez 2022 , p. 3700). In other words, the food environment dictates access to specific types of food in a market economy (Stoll-Kleemann and Schmidt 2017 ). Thus, a country’s food environment depicts a contextual condition for food availability and ultimately food choice. As cultured meat as an animal cell-based future food is not authorized for sale in most parts of the world (i.e., except for Singapore and the USA), conventional meat appears to be the most proximate product currently available in national markets, compared to meat analogues (e.g., tofu) that stem from a different source of protein (e.g., plants). Thus, we include conventional meat production and consumption levels in our framework as indicators of the respective food environment.

National meat consumption levels depict citizens’ implicitness for eating animals and indicate the evolutionary centrality of meat as food within a given society (Leroy and Praet 2015 ). Hence, this measure implies whether meat is consumed as a specialty on festive occasions or as part of an everyday meal. Thus, a country’s reliance on conventional meat consumption might have a dual effect on the acceptance of cultured meat. On the one hand, a high dependence on meat in a national cuisine indicates deeply enrooted consumer habits that might be difficult to change, thus resulting in greater resistance to cultured meat. In fact, extant research has shown that a high degree of meat attachment reduces behavioral intentions toward meat alternatives (Van Dijk et al. 2023 ). On the other hand, a high national demand for meat might result in a substantial market potential for cultured meat as a substitute product. Since countries with high meat consumption levels are typically wealthy (Ritchie et al. 2019 ), consumers in such markets might also have a greater likelihood of adopting such novel products because “[…] local governments located in wealthier […] communities initiate, adopt and implement more innovations” (Damanpour and Schneider 2006 , p. 225). To this end, extant empirical research shows that individual consumers’ meat-eating behavior also corresponds to their behavioral intentions toward cultured meat (Bryant et al. 2019 ; Gousset et al. 2022 ; Wilks and Phillips 2017 ), suggesting a link between meat consumption levels and acceptance of cultured meat as a food technology innovation.

In addition to consumption levels, we also consider the amount of conventional meat production at a country level (i.e., the supply side) as it signalizes the relevance of the meat industry within a given market. Combined, meat production and consumption levels further reflect upon the significance of foreign trade in a country’s meat industry. The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations elaborates that “[t]he key to sustainable agricultural growth is more efficient use of land, labour and other inputs through technological progress, social innovation and new business models” (FAO 2017 , p. 48). Hence, food technology innovations such as cultured meat could not only disrupt the current practices of the conventional agricultural sector but also provide an opportunity for a seminal development of this industry, thus affecting its diffusion and acceptance.

Economic market factors

Regarding economic market factors, we consider GDP per capita as a general indicator of economic development. We further add national CO 2 emissions and population growth to our framework to reflect specifically upon the ecological and social sustainability of a given market economy. Similar to GDP, these indicators are also known to relate to economic growth (Li et al. 2021 ; Peterson 2017 ).

GDP per capita is a key economic measure that reflects upon economic prosperity. GDP is understood as “[…] the sum of gross value added by all resident producers in the economy plus any product taxes and minus any subsidies not included in the value of the products” (World Bank 2021a ). Since economic growth and innovation diffusion are closely related (Maradana et al. 2017 ; Mohamed et al. 2022 ), GDP might be an indicator of diffusion and consumer acceptance of cultured meat as an innovative food product. This assumption is supported by the exemplary insight that Singapore and the USA, the only countries in which cultured meat is approved for sale, are also characterized by high levels of GDP per capita (World Bank 2021a ). From a different angle, GDP also relates to consumer lifestyles (Saleem and Ali 2019 ), which might be another prerequisite for the adoption of innovations (Huang et al. 2011 ; Xie et al. 2022 ).

From a sustainability perspective, global CO 2 emissions have more than doubled within the past 50 years (Ritchie et al. 2020 ) and could increase further by 50% until 2050 (OECD 2011 ). Compared to the conventional meat production industry, which produces approximately 54% of agricultural greenhouse gases (OECD/FAO 2021), cultured meat is estimated to potentially reduce emissions by 78–96% according to early estimations (Tuomisto and Teixeira de Mattos 2011 ). A more nuanced analysis is provided by a recent lifecycle assessment that finds cultured meat to have less impact on global warming than beef (and also than pork and chicken if sustainable energy is used) (Sinke and Odegard 2021 ). Considering this potential of lowering greenhouse gas emissions compared to conventional beef (Smetana et al. 2023 ), we expect that a country’s current level of CO 2 emissions—and thus, the necessity to take measures of reduction—might relate to the acceptance of cultured meat.

Finally, feeding a continuously growing world population represents one of the key challenges of the twenty-first century (World Resources Institute 2019 ). Compared with conventional meat, multitude amounts of cultured meat can be produced from the cells of a single animal (Tomiyama et al. 2020 ). Hence, this food technology could ensure a protein supply for future generations, which might be a particularly pressing issue for fast-growing consumer markets. For this reason, we include the population growth rate per country as a relevant indicator of cultured meat acceptance at a national level.

Methodology

Literature search.

To provide an overview of the societal and economic setting, as well as the prevailing food environment of extant empirical research in the context of consumers’ cultured meat acceptance, we conducted a systematic literature review following the guidelines proposed by Snyder ( 2019 ). As such, we first defined the search string, i.e., “cultured meat” OR “* vitro meat” OR “artificial meat” OR “synthetic meat” OR “clean meat” OR “lab * meat” OR “cell * meat” OR “cultivated meat”. We further specified that at least one of these keywords had to appear in the article title. The search was conducted in the Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar databases, covering all articles published in English by June 2023. Additionally, we set the following screening criteria to fit the purpose of our review: first, we only considered publications that are consumer-focused, so that we excluded contributions from other domains. Second, we only included empirical research published in peer-reviewed journals to ensure high-quality standards. Third, only studies that provided clear information on the geographic context of the empirical study were considered in our review.

As shown in Fig.  2 , the initial database search yielded 1713 results. After removing 719 duplicates, 994 articles were screened at the abstract level. Ninety-eight articles met all the inclusion criteria and were read on a full-paper level. Based on these articles, we identified seven additional relevant papers using the snowball technique. In summary, the literature search yielded a final sample of 105 peer-reviewed journal articles that built the basis for our systematic literature review.

Information on search procedure

Measures and analysis

For our descriptive analysis, we assessed culture according to the cultural value map of Inglehart and Welzel ( 2010 ), for which recent data were provided by the World Values Survey ( 2022a ). This framework consists of a two-by-two matrix that classifies countries according to their traditional versus secular-rational values on the one hand and based on their survival versus self-expressional orientations on the other hand. While traditional values signalize “the importance of religion […] and traditional family values”, secular-rational values “have the opposite preferences”. Furthermore, survival values are characterized by “low levels of trust” while self-expression values place “high priority to environmental protection” (World Values Survey 2022b ). Based on the potential implications of these insights for cultured meat acceptance, we considered the dimensions of the cultural map of Inglehart and Welzel ( 2010 ) relevant to our research context.

We further assessed the predominant religion in each country based on information provided by the site Infoplease ( 2017 ) and operationalized the mean level of religiousness in a country according to a report by the Pew Research Center ( 2018 ). Regarding the food environment, meat production and consumption were measured according to data from the FAO aggregated by Ritchie and colleagues ( 2019 ). These data indicated meat production levels in tons at a country level. To account for differences in population sizes when comparing production levels across national markets, this number was divided by the respective country population (World Bank 2020 ). Finally, all three economic market measures (GDP per capita, national CO 2 emissions and national population growth) were assessed based on data from the World Bank ( 2019 , 2021a ; b ).

Regarding our procedure for the descriptive analysis, we created a table comprising all relevant studies. We first captured the national background in which the respective data collection took place and then arranged the studies according to their geographic region. Subsequently, we added a column for each of our analysis factors relating to (i) societal background, (ii) food environment, and (iii) economic market characteristics. Subsequently, we gathered data from the respective online sources. As a next step, we performed a descriptive analysis and investigated the societal and economic market context, as well as the prevailing food environment in which the extant studies were conducted. Based on this approach, we were able to detect certain patterns and peculiarities, which we discuss in detail in the next section. An overview of the extant publications and our descriptive analysis can be found as an online resource.

Geographic study contexts and general remarks

Overall, 49 countries were investigated in 84 single-country and 21 cross-country studies (see Fig.  3 ). As shown in the Additional file 1 of this review, 54 studies have been conducted in a (predominately) Western European context, covering 17 different countries. Moreover, eleven Asian countries have been explored throughout 27 publications, of which China has been the primary focus. Nineteen publications have further worked with participants from the USA, and one study has focused on Canadian respondents. Regarding the Middle and South American region, Brazil, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, and Mexico have been investigated by a total of 13 studies. Four publications have surveyed Australian participants, and five studies have specifically queried data from New Zealanders. Finally, three South African, one Ethiopian, and one Nigerian studies exist as well as one cross-country study that has conducted research in 12 different African nations (Kombolo Ngah et al. 2023 ).

Information on geographical distribution of extant consumer-focused cultured meat research created with datawrapper.de

Figures  4 and 5 further illustrate the steadily growing number of articles published per year Footnote 1 as well as the study distribution per journal.

Number of publications per year

Journals with more than one consumer-focused cultured meat study

Assessment of societal factors

Using the Inglehart–Welzel framework (see Fig.  6 ), most cultured meat acceptance research was conducted in countries classified as secular-rational/self-expressional nations ( n  = 18), followed by research in countries that display (i) survival/traditional ( n  = 12), (ii) survival/secular-rational ( n  = 6), and (iii) self-expressional/traditional cultural value orientations ( n  = 5). Hence, although extant studies cover all four cultural types, we observe an emphasis on countries with secular-rational/self-expressional value dispositions.

Cultural context of empirical studies on cultured meat acceptance

Regarding religious contexts, 34 of the 49 national study settings are characterized by a predominance of Christianity. In addition, nine Islamic, three Buddhist, one Shinto as well as one Hindu country have been researched. Thus, compared to other religious confessions, Christian regions are overrepresented in cultured meat research. Since “[o]nly in Christianity, there are no rules related to meat consumption” (Vranken et al. 2014 , p. 98), extant research is predominately conducted in a religious context where eating meat as a social practice is accepted rather than stigmatized. In contrast to other religions, the Christian confession does not forbid specific meat types to be eaten in general but still impose certain restrictions around meat consumption, thus “[…] underlining the need for proper contextualization to avoid overgeneralizations” (Leroy and Praet 2015 , p. 207). Regarding religiosity, 54% of global consumers say that religion is very important to them (Pew Research Center 2018 ). As shown in the Additional file 1 , this percentage is higher in 20 and lower in 23 of the researched countries, suggesting that prior studies were placed both in religious and profane consumer markets.

Assessment of food environment

Globally, 43 kg of meat are annually produced and consumed per capita (Ritchie et al. 2019 ). Based on our descriptive analysis, 21 (17) of the researched countries produce (consume) less meat, while 27 (31) nations report production (consumption) levels above the global average. Thus, countries with high meat production and consumption levels have primarily been investigated by extant consumer-focused studies. In contrast, countries with less reliance on conventional meat have been explored to a lesser extent.

Assessment of economic market factors

Regarding the economic market factors, 25 (23) of the examined nations report GDP per capita above (below) the global average of USD 12,262.9 (World Bank 2021a ). Similarly, 22 (26) countries depict CO 2 emissions above (below) the global average of 4.4 metric tons (World Bank 2019 ). In addition, 18 countries grow faster than average (0.9%) while the remaining 30 nations either depict a slower or a regressive population growth rate (World Bank 2021b ). Thus, we observe a research focus on countries characterized by high GDPs, low CO 2 emissions per capita, and slow population growth, as shown in the Additional file 1 .

Discussion and research propositions

We identified and analyzed 105 consumer-focused studies on cultured meat according to the framework depicted in Fig.  1 . Our findings show that extant research has covered a wide range of geographical contexts but that certain country types are still over- and underrepresented in terms of societal and economic market factors as well as the prevailing national food environment. In the following section, we highlight the peculiarities and patterns that we have observed. Based on the findings of our descriptive analysis, we further discuss how these factors might relate to cultured meat acceptance and develop research propositions (for a summary, see Fig.  7 ).

Research propositions

While extant research has worked with consumer samples of distinct cultures, countries with secular-rational/self-expressional values have been most frequently explored. Hence, the extant results might be applicable only to regions characterized by such cultural dispositions. Cross-country contributions find that consumer acceptance varies across nations (e.g., Bryant et al. 2019 ; Siegrist and Hartmann 2020a ). Although these studies have primarily explored cultured meat responses at an individual consumer level, first empirical evidence shows that culture-specific variables (i.e., social image eating motivation) explain the divergent acceptance rates across countries (Chong et al. 2022 ). This finding further supports the preceding qualitative insight that the understanding and categorization of cultured meat might depend on cultural belonging (Bekker et al. 2017 ; Hansen et al. 2021 ). In addition, individual consumers’ value dispositions also impact behavioral intentions toward cultured meat (Lewisch and Riefler 2023 ), suggesting that cultural values at a societal level might also relate to consumer acceptance.

Based on these insights and building on the framework of Inglehart and Welzel ( 2010 ), we argue that due to traditionalists’ inherent difficulties in accepting change and embracing innovation, a traditional value orientation might constitute a barrier to accept cultured meat as a novel food. Hence, consumers of traditional countries might be less inclined to adopt a new food technology compared to consumers residing in secular-rational contexts. Furthermore, since the perceived importance of ecological welfare impacts behavioral intentions toward cultured meat (Lewisch and Riefler 2023 ), self-expressional nations characterized by high levels of environmental concern (Inglehart and Welzel 2010 ) might recognize more societal value in this food innovation than countries characterized by survival value profiles. Since the latter tends to be accompanied by a fear of cultural change (Inglehart and Welzel 2010 ), this characteristic could also hinder the diffusion of disruptive technology innovations. Thus, we formulate the following proposition:

Secular-rational and self-expressional values are positively related to cultured meat acceptance, whereas traditional and survival values are negatively related to cultured meat acceptance.

Regarding a country’s predominant religion, extant cultured meat research has focused primarily on Christian consumer markets, followed by Islamic countries. However, Hindu and Buddhist regions have been largely neglected, although they represent a community of 1.2 billion and 506 million consumers worldwide (World Population Review 2023a , b ). Similarly, no single study focuses on a Jewish consumer sample, despite Israel being the first country to have a cultured meat factory in place (New Atlas 2021 ). Some initial research results suggest that consumers directly transfer religious dietary restrictions to cultured meat. As such, the numbers of Muslims who eat pork (30.1%) and Hindus who eat beef (18.2%) corresponds to the share of consumers who consider cultured meat appealing (27.5% and 18.9%, respectively) (Bryant 2020 ). Further, the labelling of cultured meat as halal might be crucial for product acceptance within Muslim communities (Ho et al. 2023 ; Terano et al. 2023 ). Thus, religious confessions might determine whether cultured meat is ultimately accepted in a specific market.

In addition to the role of religious confessions in the context of cultured meat, research has rarely assessed individuals’ religiousness. The few existing studies show that individuals accepting cultured meat are less religious than other consumer segments (Faletar and Cerjak 2022 ) and less willing to pay for this food innovation (Kantor and Kantor 2021 ). In addition to direct effects, we argue that religiousness might also indirectly relate to consumer responses. For example, the perceived unnaturalness of cultured meat is frequently considered a key barrier (Siegrist and Hartmann 2020b ). Since “[…] religious values […] reduce acceptance rates of GM foods […]” (Alonso et al. 2018 , p. 117), we assume religiousness to also moderate the relationship between unnaturalness and consumer acceptance of cultured meat as another scientific food innovation. In light of the above, we expect consumers’ religious confession as well as their level of religiousness to affect cultured meat acceptance. Hence, we suggest the following proposition:

A country’s predominant religion affects dispositions toward cultured meat, and religiousness moderates the relationship between religious confessions and cultured meat acceptance.

Countries with high meat production levels somewhat dominate cultured meat research, indicating a significant reliance on the meat industry. From a consumer perspective, studies show that individuals perceive cultured meat as a threat to the well-being of farmers (Shaw and Iomaire 2019 ), although professionals in the meat industry report more positive attitudes toward this food innovation (Bryant et al. 2020 ). The introduction of cultured meat on a large scale might result in new jobs that differ tremendously in the skill requirements (Bryant 2020 ). This situation, together with a potential reduction in conventional animal husbandry, might result in conventional meat producers facing increased job insecurity (Bryant 2020 ). Hence, established value chains could be disrupted, both within and across national markets. Thus, policymakers might undertake certain measures to protect the conventional meat sector (Stoll-Kleemann and Schmidt 2017 ), as has recently been the case when industry representatives were campaigning against plant-based meat substitutes (The Pig Site 2020 ). Hence, we expect that such undertakings might impede the diffusion of cultured meat as a future food and consequently aggravate consumer acceptance. Thus, we formally propose the following proposition:

High levels of conventional per capita meat production in national markets are negatively related to cultured meat acceptance.

Similar to production levels, existing research on cultured meat has focused on countries with high levels of meat consumption. Since cultured meat is expected to have certain advantages over conventional meat in terms of ecological sustainability (Gursel et al. 2022 ) and animal welfare (Chriki and Hocquette 2020 ), consumers residing in countries characterized by high meat consumption levels might recognize a particular societal value of this food technology innovation. From a different perspective, a high national demand for conventional meat also indicates a substantial market potential for cultured meat as a substitute. Based on these insights, we formally propose the following relationship between per capita meat consumption and cultured meat acceptance:

High levels of conventional per capita meat consumption in national markets are positively related to cultured meat acceptance.

Although economic market factors are known to influence the diffusion of innovations, their impact has not yet been empirically investigated in the context of consumer-oriented cultured meat research. This gap illustrates the current emphasis on explaining individual consumers’ perceptions rather than focusing on market-related criteria.

As GDP influences consumer lifestyles (Saleem and Ali 2019 ), we assume that this economic indicator affects the positioning of cultured meat from a marketing perspective. Because of the relationship between GDP per capita and consumers’ purchasing power, GDP is likely to also affect the diffusion speed of cultured meat, as this food innovation is assumed to be sold at a premium when first being introduced to consumer markets (Brennan et al. 2021 ). In addition, GDP is also positively related to a country’s economic freedom (The Heritage Foundation 2022a ). Considering that Singapore (i.e., the first country to allow cultured meat for sale) was ranked as the economically freest country in 2022 (The Heritage Foundation 2022b ), this criterion might also pave the way for cultured meat as a future food source. Accordingly, we propose the following relationship:

GDP per capita is positively related to cultured meat acceptance.

Regarding CO 2 emissions, the majority of the examined countries exhibits emissions below the global average, thus classifying as not highly polluting. In light of the severe ecological impact of conventional meat (OECD/FAO 2021), shifting production and consumption toward potentially more sustainable food alternatives could be a viable approach for tackling environmental deterioration. Against this background, we assume that consumers residing in highly polluting countries might perceive greater potential in cultured meat, resulting in a positive relationship with consumer acceptance. Extant findings indeed demonstrate that environmental concern strengthens individuals’ behavioral intentions toward cultured meat (Lewisch and Riefler 2023 ). In addition, countries characterized by high national CO 2 emissions might endorse reduction measures throughout distinct sectors at national and supranational levels (e.g., Green Deal, see European Commission 2019 ). Hence, the conversion of conventional meat production facilities to cultured meat laboratories might be institutionally funded. In line with the above, we propose the following:

High levels of overall CO 2 emissions in national markets are positively related to cultured meat acceptance.

Finally, most consumer research on the acceptance of cultured meat has been conducted in countries with low or negative population growth rates. Thus, areas characterized by fast-growing populations, such as Africa (Saleh 2022 ), have not yet been explored in detail. Exceptional in this regard is the recent cross-country contribution of Kombolo Ngah and colleagues ( 2023 ) that has conducted research in 12 different African countries. We assume that population growth has twofold implications for the acceptance of cultured meat. First, this indicator is related to the challenge of feeding a continuously growing population (World Resources Institute 2019 ), which makes the need for alternative proteins in fast-growing markets particularly urgent. Given the scaling potential of cultured meat (Tomiyama et al. 2020 ), this novel food technology could countervail resource scarcity and ensure a global protein supply. Second, population growth might effectuate a shift in demographic patterns. Drawing on the insight that younger consumers are more open to cultured meat than older citizens (Slade 2018 ), we assume that this structural change might benefit perceptions of cultured meat. Hence, we expect a positive relationship between a country’s population growth rate and cultured meat acceptance:

A high annual population growth rate in national markets is positively related to cultured meat acceptance.

Cultured meat is an alternative to conventional meat production that is expected to enter an increasing number of national consumer markets (Good Food Institute 2022 ). From a societal perspective, cultured meat might have the potential to contribute to a global food supply in the future, given its scaling potential in the production process (Tomiyama et al. 2020 ). Empirical research on consumer acceptance of this innovation has been steadily growing over the past ten years. However, while personal factors driving acceptance have received particular attention in this stream of literature, the relevance of cultural and economic market factors has largely been neglected. This paper aims to provide an impetus for more cross-cultural research considering the influence of these factors on cultured meat acceptance in national consumer markets and the practical significance of this future food for achieving an increased global protein security. This review also provides an overview of extant research settings and proposes a framework with corresponding research propositions relating cultural and economic market factors as well as the national food environment to cultured meat acceptance. In the following, we discuss avenues for future research, before we present the practical implications and limitations of our work.

Avenues for future research

In our review, we have observed that cross-country research represents only a fraction of the empirical body of consumer research on cultured meat acceptance (i.e., 21 of 105 papers). Extant cross-country studies show that cultured meat acceptance varies between countries (e.g., Bryant et al. 2019 ), demonstrating the practical relevance of such research designs. Thus, we first recommend that future research conducts more such investigations by simultaneously collecting data from respondents of different countries to systematically assess the impact of cultural and economic variables.

Second, we suggest that scholars explore consumer markets that have been neglected at the time of writing. Such investigations could focus on African, South American, and Eastern European consumers. The fact that the African population is the youngest worldwide (Saleh 2022 ) and that meat production in certain South American countries has almost doubled within the past 20 years (Ritchie et al. 2019 ) demonstrates the practical need for additional scientific empirical research in these geographic areas. To date, only three studies have worked with Singaporean consumers, although cultured meat has already been approved for sale by policymakers (Witte et al. 2021 ). Hence, we recommend that future research simulates field experiments in this pioneering country.

Third, extant research has focused primarily on countries that display a self-expressional/secular-rational cultural value orientation. Thus, empirical studies of other cultures would be valuable. In a similar vein, only a few studies have yet empirically examined the extent to which religious confessions might explain structural differences in consumer acceptance of cultured meat (e.g., Boereboom et al. 2022 ; Faletar and Cerjak 2022 ; Ho et al. 2023 ; Kantor and Kantor 2021 ); hence, for the purpose of validation, replication studies are needed. To this end, future studies are also required to explore whether personal religiousness moderates the relationship between consumers’ confessions and their acceptance of cultured meat.

Fourth, we have observed that in absolute numbers, a substantial amount of consumer samples was drawn from countries where low GDP ( n  = 23) and meat consumption levels ( n  = 17) prevail. Since these characteristics are often related to malnourishment (Roser and Ritchie 2019 ) and because cultured meat appears to show considerable scaling potential (Tomiyama et al. 2020 ), future studies could examine whether consumers residing in such markets differ in perceived drivers of and barriers to cultured meat consumption from individuals in saturated markets.

Lastly, we have noted that extant studies typically do not elaborate on the meat type that cultured meat is intended to replace (i.e., with some exceptions, such as the research of Arango et al. 2023 ). However, this distinction might be crucial for consumers who eat only specific animals, either for religious reasons, taste preferences or individual tolerability. The need for studies differentiating between meat types is further supported by empirical results, suggesting that consumers’ behavioral intentions toward cultured meat stem from their conventional meat-eating behavior (e.g., Bryant 2020 ; Wilks and Phillips 2017 ).

Practical implications

Based on our systematic literature review, we derive several implications for policymakers and practitioners. As such, our review offers an overview of which countries have been explored by extant articles to provide practitioners with guidance when deciding on strategic focus markets. Considering that research results might be the subject to societal and economic boundaries as well as characteristics of the respective food environment, we further encourage the consideration of such context variables when transferring academic findings to managerial agendas. As different drivers of and barriers to cultured meat consumption might prevail across markets, it will be a key challenge to address the most exigent issues in national marketing campaigns.

In addition, we recommend that practitioners consider specifically the respective economic market conditions relevant to cultured meat commercialization. For example, high levels of meat consumption signalize an increased market potential for cultured meat as a substitute product, whereas slow economic growth might indicate a more reluctant innovation diffusion (Maradana et al. 2017 ).

Besides these implications, we also acknowledge certain limitations of our review. First, only English papers were considered, resulting in a possible neglect of articles published in local languages. Second, our framework includes a carefully selected set of societal and external factors that is not holistic and might be complemented by future research. Third, in a handful of cases, some data points were not available at a country level and are thus missing (see Additional file 1 as an online resource).

Data availability

The dataset supporting the conclusions of this article is included within the article’s additional files.

Journals with one publication each are: AGRARIS Journal of Agribusiness and Rural Development Research, Amfiteatru Economic, Animals, ATRS Journal, Brazilian Journal of Marketing, Environmental and Resource Economics, Environmental Science and Pollution Research, Food Control, Food Frontiers, Food Research International, Frontiers in Psychology, International e-Journal of Educational Studies, International Journal of Advertising, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, Journal of Agricultural Economics, Journal of Business Economics, Journal of Cleaner Production, Journal of Environmental Psychology, Journal of Food Products Marketing, Journal of Food Science, Journal of Integrative Agriculture, Journal of International Food & Agribusiness Marketing, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Psychology & Marketing, Public Understanding of Science.

Abbreviations

Gross domestic product

Carbon dioxide

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Lewisch, L., Riefler, P. Cultured meat acceptance for global food security: a systematic literature review and future research directions. Agric Econ 11 , 48 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40100-023-00287-2

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• Cultured meat
• Systematic literature review

Cultured Meat: Promises and Challenges

Affiliation.

• 1 Toulouse School of Economics, INRAE, University Toulouse Capitole, Toulouse, France.
• PMID: 33758465
• PMCID: PMC7977488
• DOI: 10.1007/s10640-021-00551-3

Cultured meat involves producing meat from animal cells, not from slaughtered animals. This innovation has the potential to revolutionize the meat industry, with wide implications for the environment, health and animal welfare. The main purpose of this paper is to stimulate some economic research on cultured meat. In particular, this paper includes a prospective discussion on the demand and supply of cultured meat. It also discusses some early results on the environmental impacts of cultured meat, emphasizing the promises (e.g., regarding the reduction in land use) but also the uncertainties. It then argues that cultured meat is a moral improvement compared to conventional meat. Finally, it discusses some regulatory issues, and the need for more public support to the innovation.

Keywords: Animal welfare; Climate change; Cultured meat; Food innovation; Land use; Meat; Meat consumption; Meat production; Pollution; Regulation.

© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2021.

The Academics Helping the Meat Industry Avoid Climate Scrutiny

A new paper says two university research centers have essentially functioned as a p.r. arm for the meat industry..

In the fall of 2006, the United Nations released the first-ever large-scale investigation of animal agriculture’s effect on the climate. The 390-page report, titled “Livestock’s Long Shadow,” found that animal agriculture was “one of the largest sources of greenhouse gases and one of the leading causal factors in the loss of biodiversity.” The meat industry, which had previously faced little to no scrutiny for fueling the climate crisis, suddenly found itself having to deal with Paul McCartney citing the report to advocate for a vegetarian diet.

Initially, the industry attempted to solve its P.R. problem by pushing out press releases and fact sheets from suspiciously named front groups like the Center for Consumer Freedom and industry trade associations like the American Meat Institute. But as a new paper published this week makes clear, Big Meat swiftly turned instead to institutions the public was more likely to trust: universities.

The new paper , published in the peer-reviewed journal Climate, comes from University of Miami environmental science professor Jennifer Jacquet and Viveca Morris, executive director of the Law, Ethics and Animals Program at Yale Law School (I worked briefly at the latter as a college student). In the years following the U.N.’s report, they find, the animal agriculture industry responded by funding the work of industry-friendly academics, eventually bankrolling two of “the most prominent U.S. university centers engaged in shaping public understanding and public policy related to the livestock industry’s climate impacts.”

This is a page straight out of tobacco and fossil fuel companies’ playbooks: funding so-called “ merchants of doubt ” to distort public conversations away from solutions in line with scientific consensus. These efforts, Jacquet and Morris write, have “helped downplay livestock’s contributions to climate change, increase public trust that the industry is proactively reducing emissions on its own accord, and shape climate policymaking in the industry’s favor.”

The bulk of Jacquet and Morris’s study focuses on Frank Mitloehner, an animal scientist who has run one of these two centers—the Clarity and Leadership for Environmental Awareness and Research, or CLEAR, Center at University of California, Davis—since its launch in 2018. Mitloehner’s ties to Big Ag go back over a decade. In 2009, armed with over $26,000 from the Beef Checkoff program, a marketing and research group funded by beef producers, he co-published an article attacking the “Livestock’s Long Shadow” report’s claim that the U.S. livestock industry’s relative contribution to emissions was greater than the transportation sector’s. Technically, the article had a “point,” as one co-author of the U.N. report admitted in response to Mitloehner’s critique, since the U.N. report calculated livestock emissions by looking at their full “lifecycle,” which includes impacts from fertilizer production and land-use changes but didn’t do so for transportation. But Mitloehner’s article didn’t challenge the empirical evidence the report unearthed about the environmental damage of animal agriculture.

The media, however, told another story, portraying Mitloehner’s article as a thorough rebuttal of “Livestock’s Long Shadow.” One researcher, as Morris and Jacquet note in their paper, found that “universally, the story was reported as though the link between animal agriculture and greenhouse gas emissions had been disproven.” Industry publications crowned Mitloehner, who was not a climate scientist and had never contributed to a U.N. climate report, “the scientist who debunked Livestock’s Long Shadow” and “the scientist setting the record straight on cows and climate change.”

Over the next decade-plus, Mitloehner became a prominent evangelist for industry-friendly talking points, insisting that animal agriculture is not a major source of greenhouse emissions (it is ), that reducing meat consumption “wouldn’t do much to save the planet” ( it would ), and that technological measures, such as anaerobic digesters and feed additives, are enough to mitigate livestock-induced warming ( they aren’t ). He became a go-to media “expert” on cattle emissions and a pugnacious livestock defender on Twitter, where he accumulated over 30,000 followers. He also had a direct influence on policy, advising the Obama White House and writing a non-peer-reviewed white paper that an industry group credited with keeping criteria related to reducing meat consumption out of federal dietary guidelines.

Throughout this period, Mitlehoener was receiving enormous sums of money from industry and industry-aligned groups. Reviewing his C.V., Jacquet and Morris found that he received a whopping $5,498,000 from these sources between 2002 and 2021, which represents just under half of his total reported funding during the period. And yet even that may be underestimating the true extent of the funding: His C.V., they write, “omits multiple industry funding sources noted elsewhere” and “does not disclose financial and professional ties to industry groups beyond his academic role.”

As he faced increased public scrutiny, Mitloehner dismissed allegations that this support compromised his research. In 2022, after The New York Times reported that the CLEAR Center had been set up with a $2.9 million gift from the Institute for Feed Education and Research, or IFeeder, the nonprofit wing of an industry group that represents a number of Big Ag corporations, Mitloehner scornfully described his critics as “people who delight in making the assumption that cooperating with members of a sector must spell dishonesty and a breach of ethics.” The CLEAR Center is “so much more than keyboard warriors shouting on social media,” he continued, “but we are all too often taken hostage by their attacks and their demands.”

When I contacted Mitloehner for comment this week about Jacquet and Morris’s paper, he called the paper “ideological” and said he hadn’t “fully read” it. “I’m proud of the work I do in the CLEAR Center that is helping to further methane mitigation in livestock,” he wrote via email. “I understand that some people want to see the livestock sector shrink or disappear, and they believe attacking me will further that cause, but my work and that of the CLEAR Center is moving the needle toward more sustainable food production. I would love to think we all want the same thing, food that nourishes a growing population with a smaller environmental footprint, but it’s clear some are threatened by that notion.” A U.C. Davis representative I contacted did not comment on Jacquet and Morris’s findings by publication time.

But as a number of journalists and researchers have already pointed out, the issue with Mitloehner isn’t necessarily his research. As the food and climate journalist Jenny Splitter wrote in 2022, “The problem has always been that CLEAR is not really a research lab. It’s mostly—or maybe entirely—a communications project.” A focus on P.R. was central to the group’s inception: The CLEAR Center’s anodyne name came courtesy of Charleston/Orwig (now C.O.nxt), a P.R. firm that worked to burnish Exxon’s image in the 1990s. A lack of focus on academic research, moreover, is clear from the group’s website, in which the “Research” tab links only to Mitloehner’s personal ResearchGate profile. The site also links directly to Mitloehner’s personal blog, which includes such gems as, “The bogus burger blame” and “When did beef become a four-letter word?”

This approach was by design: Jacquet and Morris quote from IFeeder documents praising Mitloehner as a “a neutral, credible, third-party voice to news reporters and stakeholder groups at conferences and other important governmental meetings,” whose voice would help consumers “feel good about the choice they are making to include protein in their families’ diets.” The CLEAR Center was created, the documents say, to work “with decision makers, thought leaders and consumer influencers.”

This is one distinction between Big Ag’s approach and that of Big Tobacco or Big Oil, Jacquet told me. Whereas fossil fuel and tobacco companies prioritized funding academics whose studies came to industry-friendly solutions, Jacquet said, Big Ag companies are much more focused on promoting university-affiliated voices who will directly intervene in “public discourse, advocacy, and lobbying efforts.” The actual research, in this approach, isn’t the main point.

Though the majority of the study focuses on Mitloehner, it also zeroes in on one of his former students, Kimberly Stackhouse‐Lawson. Stackhouse-Lawson was hired in 2020 to run an initiative at Colorado State University called AgNext, which became, thanks to significant industry funding, “one of the largest university centers in the country focused on climate change and animal agriculture,” according to Jacquet and Morris. Stackhouse-Lawson, who had just six first-authored academic bylines to her name when she was made a full professor, had previously been employed by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, where she, in her own words, worked “closely with communications professionals to promote beef’s image and defend beef’s freedom to operate to enhance consumer, influencer and stakeholder trust in beef.” She then went on to work for the U.S. subsidiary of JBS, the world’s biggest meat producer, averring that her “primary career objective is to expand the role of animal protein in global diets.” Her day-to-day work at AgNext—forming industry partnerships, testifying to Congress, and appearing in JBS-sponsored content in The Wall Street Journal and Politico—was “not so different than what it was at JBS,” she told Meatingplace, an industry publication. While I contacted Stackhouse-Lawson and Colorado State University representatives to ask about Jacquet and Morris’s paper, neither provided comment before publication.

These two academics’ careers alone would be a shocking indictment of Big Ag’s influence over academia. But when I wrote to Jacquet to ask how big of a problem industry funding really is, she responded that Mitloehner and Stackhouse-Lawson reflect a broader trend. “This is the tip of the iceberg in terms of animal ag influence at universities because we were only looking at two universities and the topic of climate change,” she wrote. “Once you broaden out to issues like other environmental impacts, nutrition/health, it gets incomprehensibly large.”

Jacquet and Morris are “on a treasure trove,” Austin Frerick, an antitrust and agriculture expert at Yale told me. The new paper barely scratches the surface of the meat industry’s influence in academia, he said. “There’s so much more there.”

Jack McCordick is a reporter-researcher at The New Republic.

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Meat accounts for nearly 60% of all greenhouse gases from food production, study finds

Production of meat worldwide causes twice the pollution of production of plant-based foods, a major new study has found

The global production of food is responsible for a third of all planet-heating gases emitted by human activity, with the use of animals for meat causing twice the pollution of producing plant-based foods, a major new study has found.

The entire system of food production, such as the use of farming machinery, spraying of fertilizer and transportation of products, causes 17.3bn metric tonnes of greenhouse gases a year, according to the research. This enormous release of gases that fuel the climate crisis is more than double the entire emissions of the US and represents 35% of all global emissions, researchers said.

“The emissions are at the higher end of what we expected, it was a little bit of a surprise,” said Atul Jain, a climate scientist at the University of Illinois and co-author of the paper, published in Nature Food . “This study shows the entire cycle of the food production system, and policymakers may want to use the results to think about how to control greenhouse gas emissions.”

The raising and culling of animals for food is far worse for the climate than growing and processing fruits and vegetables for people to eat, the research found, confirming previous findings on the outsized impact that meat production, particularly beef, has on the environment.

The use of cows, pigs and other animals for food, as well as livestock feed, is responsible for 57% of all food production emissions, the research found, with 29% coming from the cultivation of plant-based foods. The rest comes from other uses of land, such as for cotton or rubber. Beef alone accounts for a quarter of emissions produced by raising and growing food.

Grazing animals require a lot of land, which is often cleared through the felling of forests, as well as vast tracts of additional land to grow their feed. The paper calculates that the majority of all the world’s cropland is used to feed livestock, rather than people. Livestock also produce large quantities of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.

“All of these things combined means that the emissions are very high,” said Xiaoming Xu, another University of Illinois researcher and the lead author of the paper. “To produce more meat you need to feed the animals more, which then generates more emissions. You need more biomass to feed animals in order to get the same amount of calories. It isn’t very efficient.”

The difference in emissions between meat and plant production is stark – to produce 1kg of wheat, 2.5kg of greenhouse gases are emitted. A single kilo of beef, meanwhile, creates 70kg of emissions. The researchers said that societies should be aware of this significant discrepancy when addressing the climate crisis.

“I’m a strict vegetarian and part of the motivation for this study was to find out my own carbon footprint, but it’s not our intention to force people to change their diets,” said Jain. “A lot of this comes down to personal choice. You can’t just impose your views on others. But if people are concerned about climate change, they should seriously consider changing their dietary habits.”

The researchers built a database that provided a consistent emissions profile of 171 crops and 16 animal products, drawing data from more than 200 countries. They found that South America is the region with the largest share of animal-based food emissions, followed by south and south-east Asia and then China. Food-related emissions have grown rapidly in China and India as increasing wealth and cultural changes have led more younger people in these countries to adopt meat-based diets.

The paper’s calculations of the climate impact of meat is higher than previous estimates – the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization has said about 14% of all emissions come from meat and diary production. The climate crisis is also itself a cause of hunger, with a recent study finding that a third of global food production will be at risk by the end of the century if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise at their current rate.

Scientists have consistently stressed that if dangerous global heating is to be avoided, a major rethink of eating habits and farming practices is required. Meat production has now expanded to the point that there are now approximately three chickens for every human on the planet.

Lewis Ziska, a plant physiologist at Columbia University who was not involved in the research said the paper is a “damn good study” that should be given “due attention” at the upcoming UN climate talks in Scotland.

“A fundamental unknown in global agriculture is its impact on greenhouse gas emissions,” Ziska said. “While previous estimates have been made, this effort represents a gold standard that will serve as an essential reference in the years to come.”

• Meat industry
• Climate science
• Agriculture

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Annual Meat Conference Report: Power of Meat study reflects retail pressures

NASHVILLE — How can retailers win consumer dollars in the meat department when everything is so “stupid expensive?” The authors of the 2024 Power of Meat study sought to answer that question first by shedding light on reasons consumers are pessimistic about the broader economy and strategies meat and poultry retailers can leverage to meet consumers’ needs beyond price.

The Power of Meat study was conducted by 210 Analytics on behalf of FMI – the Food Industry Association and the Meat Institute’s Foundation for Meat and Poultry Research and Education and is made possible by Cryovac a division of Sealed Air. Anne-Marie Roerink, principal of 210 Analytics, presented findings from the 19 th edition of the annual study during a general session at the Annual Meat Conference (AMC) in Nashville held March 17-20 at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Resort.

Meat remains the biggest revenue generator among the fresh departments at retail with $99 billion in sales, 98.2% household penetration and 48 purchases per year. However, data cited from Circana, MULO+ showed meat department prices rose 2.1% in 2023, below the rate of total food and beverage inflation (+5.9%). Consequently, the sustained impact of several years of inflation caused shoppers to buy products on sale and adapt the amount (54%), type (45%), cut (43%) and brand (40%) of meat and poultry they purchased, the Power of Meat study said.

Inflationary pressure felt by consumers materialized in the meat department as shoppers bought meat less frequently and bought less per purchase — dollar sales were flat (0.1%) and pound sales decreased 1.0% year-on-year, according to Circana MULO+.

According to data cited from Circana, Generation X (the smallest of the generations) accounts for the greatest proportion of sales at 32%, while Boomers buy meat most frequently at 53 times per year. Millennials spend the most money at nearly $17 per meat purchase.

“It is a pattern that we are seeing across the entire store because one thing is for certain, the pressure on America’s pocketbook is real,” Roerink said. “If we compare today’s food and beverage prices to those seen in 2019, people are spending 32% more on food and beverages than they were prior to the pandemic.

“They’ve used credit cards to supplement what they make. They’ve depleted the savings that they had. We also know that in March, about this time last year, those additional SNAP benefits ran out. Student loans are due again. So, there’s a lot of pressure in the pocketbook and all that is resulting in the patterns that we’re going to talk about today.”

Patterns emerging from consumers’ shopping and meal choices show 43% of Americans cutting back on restaurant meals. And meat eaters who are buying restaurant meals less often, 75% said they try to recreate restaurant-type meals at home.

“As price conscious shoppers look for ways to continue enjoying their favorite proteins, they are cooking more at home and including meat in everything from new recipes found online to their favorite comfort meals and holiday feasts,” said Rick Stein, vice president of Fresh Foods for FMI — The Food Industry Association. “With shoppers including meat in nearly 87% of home-cooked meals every week and looking to meat to make occasions special, the opportunities to provide great choice, taste and value continue to grow.”

Winning strategies

Beyond price though, longer-term demographic trends present an opportunity to align product assortment, marketing and merchandising with changing purchase patterns, according to the study.

For example, Gen X (the smallest of the generations) accounts for the greatest proportion of sales at 32%.

“If we dig even deeper and we do the same exercise based on the different generations that are in the marketplace, you see that the big money makers right now are Gen X,” Roerink said. “Even though it’s a small generation, they’re very much punching above their weight given the fact that they are very likely to have families as well as the income to match.”

Boomers remain an important demographic for meat and poultry retail because they buy meat most frequently — 53 times per year.

“Boomers are in our stores quite a bit,” Roerink said. “They don’t spend as much as the other generations while they’re in the store but look at their number of trips at 53 times per year compared to just 40 times per year (for millennials).”

And Millennials spend the most money per meat purchase, according to Circana data.

“That means each and every time millennials are in the store, we need to make sure that those purchases count,” Roerink said.

Retailers can optimize trips and units sold per trip by leveraging consumers’ acceptance of case-ready meats which have reached record highs. Based on findings from this year’s Power of Meat study,  Roerink recommended that retailers consider pack size variety, freezer-ready packaging, secondary displays and cross-merchandising.

Additionally, a majority of consumers (91%) surveyed for the Power of Meat study said they can be persuaded to spend a little more on meat and poultry. Top reasons given for spending more include holidays, special occasions and entertaining friends and family.

This trend emphasizes the need to optimize sales during primary holidays like Thanksgiving and secondary occasions such as anniversaries and birthdays while recognizing traditions are changing.

“A cut or kind of meat/poultry consumers deem healthier, a preferred pack size or brand, and convenience can also prompt them to splurge a little,” according to the study.

Building on perceptions of health and nutrition, seven in 10 consumers believe meat is an overall healthy choice that provides fuel and essential nutrients, and 83% of meat shoppers consider at least one “better-for” attribute when buying meat. However, consumers also are interested in portion size variety and suggestions for nutritious choices without sacrificing taste or paying more. The Power of Meat study found that, compared to 2008, “…  ‘protein’ is a more desirable package callout while fewer consumers are focused on fat, sodium, cholesterol and saturated fat when buying meat and poultry.”

Consumers continue to favor brands that can tell the story of where the meat and poultry comes from. The meat and poultry industry has done an excellent job of this as 55% of consumers said they feel good about animal welfare practices in the United States, up from 43% in 2020.

Shopping for meat and poultry is a balancing act between money, time, nutrition, taste and meal occasion for consumers. Convenience is important but price takes precedence for shoppers trying to manage tight household budgets. The solution for a majority (87%) of consumers is meals that mix prepared foods and scratch-cooked items. But price has become a headwind to that trend.

The Power of Meat study said that “While most consumers spend less than 30 minutes preparing dinner, they purchased value-added that is typically sold at a price premium less often. This resulted in value-added meat and poultry sales being down across most proteins in 2023 for the first time in years.”

As for younger meat and poultry shoppers, retailers need to meet them where they are, and for millennials and Gen Z that means social media platforms.

“Gen Z draws meal inspiration from TikTok, YouTube and Instagram, whereas Boomers rely on routine meals, family/friends and recipe websites,” the study said. “This shows the importance of providing meal inspiration across platforms and closing the gap between inspiration and purchase.”

Finally, price and promotions are important to consumers, but taste will keep them coming back and buying meat.

“Help shoppers create meals they want to make again: 92% of shoppers agree the meat/poultry can be a great price, but if it did not taste good, they will not buy it again,” the study concluded. “Emphasize quality and taste and provide relevant tips by preferred cooking appliances. Air fryers are now the number three appliance in preparing meat and poultry, behind the stove and oven.”

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USDA Announces Up to $12 Million in Grant Funding Available to Promote U.S. Agricultural Products and Address Food Insecurity in Underserved Communities

Public affairs.

WASHINGTON, March 21, 2024 -- The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) today announced up to $12 million in funding available to strengthen and explore new market opportunities for U.S. agricultural products and increase access to locally grown food in communities experiencing food insecurity. The funding is available through three grant programs administered by the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS): the Acer Access and Development Program, the Federal State Marketing Improvement Program, and the Micro-Grants for Food Security Program.

“Each of these grant programs focus on a different area of the food system, but all work to support USDA’s goals to create new market opportunities that bring equity and financial stability to small farms and that rural and historically underserved communities have access to fresh, locally grown foods,” said USDA Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs Jenny Lester Moffitt. “The projects funded through these programs will improve the nation’s food system by developing new products, supporting small-scale producers and improving healthy food access in food insecure communities.”

Acer Access and Development Program

This year, up to $6 million is available through the Acer Access and Development Program for projects that expand consumer awareness of the maple syrup industry and provide valuable resources to maple syrup producers. The program promotes the domestic maple syrup industry by funding research and education projects related to maple syrup production, natural resource sustainability in the maple syrup industry, and the marketing of maple syrup and maple-sap products. Acer funding is authorized by the 2018 Farm Bill and funded through annual appropriations.

Examples of projects previously awarded grants funds through the Acer Access and Development Program include:

• Stockton University used Acer Access and Development Program funding to help increase maple syrup production in New Jersey and the larger Mid-Atlantic region through the use of novel technology, landowner engagement, and sustainable forest management. The project fostered a new consumer base for maple products in a region where pure maple products are not embedded in the culture of the community.
• A West Virginia University Research Corp project used Acer Access and Development Program funding to assemble a team of experts in forest management, forest operations, forest pathology, landowner assistance, and maple syrup operations to create an integrated program designed to promote maple syrup production by educating forest landowners, foresters, and loggers on the nuances of southern sugarbush management. The program helped increase maple syrup production by increasing the number of maple trees tapped as landowners learn about these opportunities.

Federal State Marketing Improvement Program

Through the Federal State Marketing Improvement Program, up to $1 million in grant funding is available to support projects that explore new market opportunities for U.S. food and agricultural products and to encourage research and innovation aimed at improving marketing system efficiency and performance. The program supports state departments of agriculture, state agricultural experiment stations, and other appropriate state agencies. FSMIP is authorized by the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946 and funded by annual appropriations.

One successful project that recently received funding through the Federal State Marketing Improvement program was managed by the University of Kentucky. The university received the grant to identify best practices in sustaining financially profitable relationships between local producers and restaurants. The project focused on developing strategies for verifying local purchasing, evaluating different systems for verifying businesses’ level of local sourcing, and gauging consumer willingness to pay for locally produced foods. By understanding the strategies of consumer engagement and local product incentivization and verification, the project developed best practices that state departments of agriculture are using to improve local-sourcing programs. These outcomes improve economic opportunities for farmers and extended rural economies.

Micro-Grants for Food Security Program

Additionally, up to $5 million is available through the Micro-Grants for Food Security Program to agricultural agencies in eligible states and territories to increase the quantity and quality of locally grown food in food insecure communities through small-scale gardening, herding, and livestock operations. The program focuses on food insecure communities in areas of the U.S. that have significant levels of food insecurity and import a significant quantity of foods. The agricultural agencies or departments competitively distribute the funds through subawards to eligible entities. The Micro-Grants for Food Security Program is authorized through the 2018 Farm Bill and funded by annual appropriations.

Through a subaward from the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, a family in Alaska recently received funding through the Micro-Grants for Food Security Program to increase food availability in their local community. The funding enabled the family to freeze dry Alaskan fruits and vegetables and purchase a high tunnel and freeze drier. As a result, they increased their gardening space and now provide biweekly food deliveries to families, supplying 18 people in their area.

Application Information

A Request for Applications (RFAs) for each program is available on the program webpages listed below. Applications must be submitted electronically through www.grants.gov  by 11:59 p.m. ET on the date listed in the respective RFAs. Grant applications submitted after the due date will not be considered unless the applicant provides documentation of an extenuating circumstance that prevented their timely submission of the grant application. More information is available in the AMS Late and Non-Responsive Application Policy .

AMS encourages applications for initiatives that benefit smaller farms and ranches, new and beginning farmers and ranchers, underserved producers, veteran producers, low-income, and minority individuals, and underserved communities. For projects intending to serve these entities, applicants should engage and involve those beneficiaries when developing projects and applications.

USDA touches the lives of all Americans each day in so many positive ways. In the Biden-Harris Administration, USDA is transforming America’s food system with a greater focus on more resilient local and regional food production, fairer markets for all producers, ensuring access to safe, healthy and nutritious food in all communities, building new markets and streams of income for farmers and producers using climate smart food and forestry practices, making historic investments in infrastructure and clean energy capabilities in rural America, and committing to equity across the Department by removing systemic barriers and building a workforce more representative of America. To learn more, visit www.usda.gov .

Get the latest Agricultural Marketing Service news at www.ams.usda.gov/news or follow us on Twitter @USDA_AMS. You can also read about us on the USDA blog.

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Supporting research and innovation in agriculture, with funding for 101 new projects

From: Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada

News release

The governments of Canada and Manitoba are providing $16.3 million in grant funding under the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership (Sustainable CAP) to support 101 projects under the Research and Innovation program over the next three years, federal Agriculture and Agri-Food Minister the Honourable Lawrence MacAulay and Manitoba Agriculture Minister Ron Kostyshyn announced today.

March 22, 2024 – Winnipeg, Manitoba – Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada

The funding will go towards research and capacity building to accelerate innovation in agriculture in Manitoba, supporting companies that are leading innovative research and putting Manitoba at the forefront of sustainable agriculture research.

Projects improve sustainability, resiliency and competitiveness of agriculture and agri-food sectors by accelerating the development and adoption of technologies and products that enhance efficiency and sustainability while addressing challenges such as climate change. Funding is available for stakeholders including primary producers, Agri-Processors, industry organizations, academic institutions and research bodies, industry service providers, and Indigenous governments, communities, and groups.

A call for letters of intent under the Research and Innovation program is now open for innovative industry-led research and development and/or capacity building project ideas for funding commencing in spring 2025. In April 2023 over $8.4 million was provided to support 4 7 p rojects and today an additional $ 7.9 m illion is being provided to 5 4 proj ects, for a total of 101 proje cts funded at $16 .3 milli on under the Research and Innovation program, the ministers added.  

"Folks around the world are looking for more sustainable agri-food products and I know our producers can deliver. By investing in research and innovation across the value chain, we can address current and future challenges and help make sure the sector remains resilient, competitive, and efficient." - The Honourable Lawrence MacAulay, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food

"Research and innovation drives growth and economic development in rural Manitoba. Manitoba producers are leading the way with innovative research, putting Manitoba at the forefront of sustainable, environmentally friendly, and efficient agriculture. We're investing in them so they can better feed Manitoba and feed the world." - Ron Kostyshyn, Manitoba Minister of Agriculture

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Intermittent fasting linked to higher risk of cardiovascular death, research suggests

Intermittent fasting, a diet pattern that involves alternating between periods of fasting and eating, can lower blood pressure and help some people lose weight , past research has indicated.

But an analysis presented Monday at the American Heart Association’s scientific sessions in Chicago challenges the notion that intermittent fasting is good for heart health. Instead, researchers from Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine in China found that people who restricted food consumption to less than eight hours per day had a 91% higher risk of dying from cardiovascular disease over a median period of eight years, relative to people who ate across 12 to 16 hours.

It’s some of the first research investigating the association between time-restricted eating (a type of intermittent fasting) and the risk of death from cardiovascular disease.

The analysis — which has not yet been peer-reviewed or published in an academic journal — is based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey collected between 2003 and 2018. The researchers analyzed responses from around 20,000 adults who recorded what they ate for at least two days, then looked at who had died from cardiovascular disease after a median follow-up period of eight years.

However, Victor Wenze Zhong, a co-author of the analysis, said it’s too early to make specific recommendations about intermittent fasting based on his research alone.

“Practicing intermittent fasting for a short period such as 3 months may likely lead to benefits on reducing weight and improving cardiometabolic health,” Zhong said via email. But he added that people “should be extremely cautious” about intermittent fasting for longer periods of time, such as years.

Intermittent fasting regimens vary widely. A common schedule is to restrict eating to a period of six to eight hours per day, which can lead people to consume fewer calories, though some eat the same amount in a shorter time. Another popular schedule is the "5:2 diet," which involves eating 500 to 600 calories on two nonconsecutive days of the week but eating normally for the other five.

Zhong said it’s not clear why his research found an association between time-restricted eating and a risk of death from cardiovascular disease. He offered an observation, though: People who limited their eating to fewer than eight hours per day had less lean muscle mass than those who ate for 12 to 16 hours. Low lean muscle mass has been linked to a higher risk of cardiovascular death .

Cardiovascular and nutrition experts who were not involved in the analysis offered several theories about what might explain the results.

Dr. Benjamin Horne, a research professor at Intermountain Health in Salt Lake City, said fasting can increase stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline, since the body doesn’t know when to expect food next and goes into survival mode. That added stress may raise the short-term risk of heart problems among vulnerable groups, he said, particularly elderly people or those with chronic health conditions.

Horne’s research has shown that fasting twice a week for four weeks, then once a week for 22 weeks may increase a person’s risk of dying after one year but decrease their 10-year risk of chronic disease.

“In the long term, what it does is reduces those risk factors for heart disease and reduces the risk factors for diabetes and so forth — but in the short term, while you’re actually doing it, your body is in a state where it’s at a higher risk of having problems,” he said.

Even so, Horne added, the analysis “doesn’t change my perspective that there are definite benefits from fasting, but it’s a cautionary tale that we need to be aware that there are definite, potentially major, adverse effects.” 

Intermittent fasting gained popularity about a decade ago, when the 5:2 diet was touted as a weight loss strategy in the U.K. In the years to follow, several celebrities espoused the benefits of an eight-hour eating window for weight loss, while some Silicon Valley tech workers believed that extreme periods of fasting boosted productivity . Some studies have also suggested that intermittent fasting might help extend people’s lifespans by warding off disease .

However, a lot of early research on intermittent fasting involved animals. In the last seven years or so, various clinical trials have investigated potential benefits for humans, including for heart health.

“The purpose of intermittent fasting is to cut calories, lose weight,” said Penny Kris-Etherton, emeritus professor of nutritional sciences at Penn State University and a member of the American Heart Association nutrition committee. “It’s really how intermittent fasting is implemented that’s going to explain a lot of the benefits or adverse associations.”

Dr. Francisco Lopez-Jimenez, a cardiologist at Mayo Clinic, said the timing of when people eat may influence the effects they see. 

“I haven’t met a single person or patient that has been practicing intermittent fasting by skipping dinner,” he said, noting that people more often skip breakfast, a schedule associated with an increased risk of heart disease and death .

The new research comes with limitations: It relies on people’s memories of what they consumed over a 24-hour period and doesn’t consider the nutritional quality of the food they ate or how many calories they consumed during an eating window.

So some experts found the analysis too narrow.

“It’s a retrospective study looking at two days’ worth of data, and drawing some very big conclusions from a very limited snapshot into a person’s lifestyle habits,” said Dr. Pam Taub, a cardiologist at UC San Diego Health.

Taub said her patients have seen “incredible benefits” from fasting regimens.

“I would continue doing it,” she said. “For people that do intermittent fasting, their individual results speak for themselves. Most people that do intermittent fasting, the reason they continue it is they see a decrease in their weight. They see a decrease in blood pressure. They see an improvement in their LDL cholesterol.” 

Kris-Etherton, however, urged caution: “Maybe consider a pause in intermittent fasting until we have more information or until the results of the study can be better explained,” she said.

Aria Bendix is the breaking health reporter for NBC News Digital.

Jeff Bezos' philanthropic fund is pouring $60 million into alternative meats to try to make them taste better

• Jeff Bezos' Earth Fund is allocating $60 million to try to improve alternative meats.
• The goal is to make them taste better and reduce the cost of plant-based alternatives.
• Fake meats are hailed as a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions but don't always taste great.

Jeff Bezos' philanthropic fund is allocating $60 million to improving alternative meats by making them taste better and cost less.

Lauren Sánchez , Bezos' fiancée and the vice chair of the Bezos Earth Fund, announced on Tuesday that the fund is investing the money as part of a $1 billion commitment to transforming the food industry.

The $60 million will go into establishing research centers, which will work to improve quality and nutrition, and reduce the cost of manufacturing fake meat, according to a press release.

"There are also enormous opportunities to enhance the texture and boost flavor through innovation in cell biology and engineering," it said.

In a video interview, Andy Jarvis, director of Future of Food at the fund, told Bloomberg that alternative meat is "imperative if we are to stay within planetary boundaries, if we are to feed 10 billion people within those boundaries."

Related stories

"They need to cost less, they need to be more flavorful," he added.

The Earth Fund was created in 2020 following a commitment of $10 billion from Bezos, the third-richest man in the world , to fight against the climate crisis and to protect nature.

According to the United Nations Environment Programme, increased consumption of meat and dairy alternatives could contribute significantly to curbing climate-harming emissions, particularly in high and middle-income countries.

A July 2022 report from the Boston Consulting Group found that investing in alternative meats has the highest emissions savings per dollar of invested capital of any sector.

And according to the Good Food Institute, there is an appetite for plant-based foods. It said that plant-based meat and seafood hit retail sales of $1.4 billion in the US in 2022.

Despite this, taste and cost remain barriers to consumers trying alternatives.

A third of US consumers say they won't buy plant-based meat because it costs too much , the institute said.

Business Insider's Grace Dean reported last August that Beyond Meat's sales tanked by nearly a third in Q2 of 2023 because financially squeezed consumers were switching to cheaper proteins, or forgoing altogether.

Watch: Can lab-grown steak fix the broken beef industry?

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Meat and Human Health—Current Knowledge and Research Gaps

Nina rica wium geiker.

1 Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports, University of Copenhagen, DK-2200 Copenhagen N, Denmark; kd.uk.sxen@ardl (L.O.D.); kd.uk.sxen@bhs (S.B.); kd.ovon@ara (A.A.)

Hanne Christine Bertram

2 Department of Food Science, Aarhus University, DK-8200 Aarhus N, Denmark; [email protected]

Heddie Mejborn

3 National Food Institute, Division of Food Technology, Technical University of Denmark, DK-2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark; kd.utd.doof@jemh

Lars O. Dragsted

Lars kristensen.

4 Danish Meat Research Institute—DMRI Technological Institute, DK-2630 Taastrup, Denmark; kd.ksigolonket@krl

Jorge R. Carrascal

5 Department of Food Science, University of Copenhagen, DK-1958 Frederiksberg C, Denmark; kd.uk.doof@ziuregroj

6 IPROCAR, University of Extremadura, E-10004 Caceres, Spain

Susanne Bügel

Arne astrup.

Meat is highly nutritious and contributes with several essential nutrients which are difficult to obtain in the right amounts from other food sources. Industrially processed meat contains preservatives including salts, possibly exerting negative effects on health. During maturation, some processed meat products develop a specific microbiota, forming probiotic metabolites with physiological and biological effects yet unidentified, while the concentration of nutrients also increases. Meat is a source of saturated fatty acids, and current WHO nutrition recommendations advise limiting saturated fat to less than ten percent of total energy consumption. Recent meta-analyses of both observational and randomized controlled trials do not support any effect of saturated fat on cardiovascular disease or diabetes. The current evidence regarding the effect of meat consumption on health is potentially confounded, and there is a need for sufficiently powered high-quality trials assessing the health effects of meat consumption. Future studies should include biomarkers of meat intake, identify metabolic pathways and include detailed study of fermented and other processed meats and their potential of increasing nutrient availability and metabolic effects of compounds.

1. Introduction

Since ancient times, meat has been a cornerstone of the human diet, and still is in many populations. Even though the amount and source of meat ingested differs between countries and cultures, most Western main meals include a meat-containing dish to which vegetable accompaniments are supplementary. Meat contains several vitamins and minerals, as well as all essential amino acids, making it an excellent protein source [ 1 ]. Despite minor differences depending on species and the animal’s diet and age, saturated fatty acids (SFAs) generally constitute almost half the fat in meat, and meat contributes to approximately half of the maximal recommended intake of SFAs [ 2 , 3 ]. The high contribution of SFA has been in the spotlight in recent years, as several large observational studies found positive associations between a high intake of red and processed meat and the risk of cardiovascular diseases, cancer and all-cause mortality, as well as type 2 diabetes [ 4 , 5 , 6 ]. As a means of reducing the risk of mortality and disease, dietary guidelines have, during the past 30 years, advocated limiting SFA intake to less than 10% of total dietary energy [ 7 , 8 ]. However, SFAs are found in a large selection of foods, varying in their composition with regard to specific SFAs. Furthermore, these foods also differ in structure and content of other nutrients, causing the foods to exert different physiological effects. The current recommendations to reduce SFA intake fail to take into account the different effects of SFAs from different sources [ 9 , 10 , 11 ].

Risk-of-bias and heterogeneity analyses indicate that the observed link between red and processed meat and an increased risk of disease seen in meta-analyses of observational studies may be due to confounders [ 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 ]. This highlights, that extrapolation from observational studies should be conducted with caution when evaluating the health effect of meat across populations with major differences in food culture. There is emerging evidence that the specific nutrients in meat may not cause an effect per se, but that the overall composition of the diet and the matrix from the meals are likely to modulate or even cause the observed adverse effects. Several factors, including fiber [ 17 ], calcium [ 18 ], and cooking practices [ 19 ], are likely to be strong effect modulators when investigating meat and disease, and study quality and the inclusion of factors related to the different food cultures surrounding meat intake are likely to play a role as well [ 15 ]. This may also include probiotic metabolites from the fermentation of meat, potentially exerting physiological and biological effects, yet unidentified.

The aim of the present paper is to present and discuss the current knowledge and to identify research gaps when assessing the health effects of meat in the human diet.

2. Meat as a Source of Nutrients

2.1. amino acids.

With meat being compositionally equivalent to human skeletal muscle, it supplies us with amino acids, having an optimal composition for the support of protein synthesis for building and maintaining muscle. Support and maintenance of skeletal muscle mass is of utmost importance for maintaining both physical function and metabolic health. In alignment with this, meat constitutes an important part of the diet for the elderly to prevent age-related declines in muscle strength and frailty (sarcopenia). Thus, an inverse association between the intake of animal protein and the incidence of frailty was observed in a cohort of 1822 older subjects followed for 2–4 years [ 20 ]. In younger and physically active subjects, meat protein intake was recently documented to have direct beneficial effects on body composition and muscle strength [ 21 ]. While protein quality is commonly evaluated based on the content of essential amino acids, the bioavailability and bio-accessibility of amino acids are also decisive for the nutritional value of proteins. Hodgkinson and colleagues found that raw meat has a Digestible Indispensable Amino Acid Score (DIAAS) value of 97, while boiled and pan-roasted meat have similar DIAAS values of 99 and 98, respectively. In roasted and grilled meat, the DIAAS is reduced to 91 and 80, respectively [ 22 ]. A sophisticated isotope-labelling study revealed higher bioavailability of amino acids from well-cooked meat (cooking at 90 °C for 30 min) than raw meat (cooking at 55 °C for 5 min) when ingested by elderly people [ 23 ], illuminating the fact that cooking of meat enables strategic modulation of bioavailability.

While meat is a pivotal source of essential amino acids, it also supplies amino acids, amino-acid-derived metabolites and peptides that have important bioactive properties. Thus, taurine, creatine, hydroxyproline, carnosine, and anserine, which are all mainly obtained from meat, have been proposed to exert important physiological functions [ 24 ]. Amino acids are fermented by the microbiota into metabolites with potentially positive as well as negative impact on health; this fermentation takes place especially when other substrates are unavailable. The composition of diet and meals are therefore important determinants of the gut environment. Diets low in dietary fiber, dairy and other potentially protective factors but high in protein may result in a pro-inflammatory response locally as well as systemically, leading to higher risk of disease. In an intervention study comparing Mediterranean diets with habitual diets high in meat and low in dietary fiber, the stool, urine and blood metabolite profiles were consistent with a decrease in toxic amino acid metabolites when a varied diet with dietary fiber was introduced [ 25 ].

2.2. Vitamins and Minerals

In addition to proteins, meat also supplies us with minerals and vitamins, e.g., the average daily intake among British adults of 189 g contributes with approximately 19, 52, 28 and 38% of iron, zinc, selenium and phosphorus, respectively, according to the reference values of heterogeneous groups [ 2 , 3 , 26 ]. Zinc is difficult to consume in adequate amounts in diets low in animal-based foods. Even though iron is abundant in a variety of foods, its bioavailability is highest when the source is meat. In meat, iron is complexed and present as heme-iron, which has a considerably higher bioavailability than non-heme-iron. Thus, in the small intestine, approximately 23% of heme-iron is absorbed, whereas this is the case for only 2–8% of non-heme iron [ 27 ], and red meat therefore remains the best dietary source of iron [ 28 ]. In addition to the higher availability of heme-iron, meat also contains other, yet unidentified, factors increasing iron absorption from other foods (also known as the ‘meat factor’) [ 29 , 30 ]. In relation to vitamins, meat is an important source of complex B vitamins. In fact, meat, fish and other animal-derived foods (such as dairy) are the only unfermented foods that naturally provide vitamin B 12 [ 3 ], and meat and meat products contribute with approximately 30% of the total UK dietary intake of vitamin B 12 [ 3 ]. Collectively, this highlights the need for contemplating the profound effects that replacing a balanced omnivore diet with a vegan diet may have on mineral and vitamin status.

2.3. Fatty Acids

Generally, as fat in red meat consists of approximately 40% SFAs, 50% monounsaturated fatty acids, 5% trans fatty acids and 4% polyunsaturated fatty acids [ 26 ], meat is considered a major source of saturated fat. Previous observational studies have linked saturated fat with an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases and diabetes; however, studies that are more recent indicate that this was likely confounded by industrial trans-fats in margarines. Attempts to reduce SFA in meat have resulted in several successful approaches to modulate the fatty acid composition of pork and beef through strategic feeding strategies [ 31 ].

In contrast to monogastric animals (e.g., pigs), the fatty acid composition in meat from ruminants (e.g., cattle) reflects the composition of the diet to a lesser extent due fermentation and biohydrogenation in the rumen. Although a more unsaturated fatty acid profile can be obtained in pork and beef through feeding strategies, increasing the proportion of unsaturated fat often has deteriorating effects on meat quality, as it is found to be more prone to oxidation and has a less firm structure [ 31 ], resulting in meat products that are perceived as unacceptable by consumers [ 32 ]. Nevertheless, when addressing fat in meat, an often overlooked fact is that meat originating from ruminants also contains conjugated linoleic acid and unique rumen-derived fatty acids such as branched-chain, vaccenic and rumenic acids, which exert physiological activities and thus have been associated with several positive health effects [ 33 ]. Early studies indicated beneficial effects in animal studies. However, these ruminant fatty acids are trans-fats that could potentially cause adverse effects as well; still, a number of Cochrane-based meta-analyses indicate an overall neutral effect of ruminant fats on health in human intervention studies [ 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 ].

2.4. The Nutrient Contribution from Meat

In the Danish National Survey on Diet and Physical Activity 2001–2013, it was shown that meat and meat products (without poultry and fish) contribute significantly to the average Dane’s intake (as % of total intake) of protein (27%), fat (21%), saturated fatty acids (20%), mono-unsaturated fatty acids (26%), vitamin A (40%), vitamin D (16%), thiamine (33%), riboflavin (17%), niacin (27%), vitamin B6 (21%), vitamin B12 (35%), phosphorus (15%), iron (20%), zinc (33%) and selenium (25%) [ 38 ]. The contribution from meat to the dietary nutrient intake is higher in men than in women [ 39 , 40 ]. Thus, meat is an important contributor of several nutrients in a general Danish diet, and if the dietary meat content is reduced, it is important to substitute the meat with various foods that can supply the nutrients usually originating from meat. For example, in a plant-based diet with a low meat content, focus should be on replacing the meat with foods that in particular supply high-quality protein, riboflavin, vitamin B 12 and vitamin D, iron, zinc and selenium [ 41 ].

3. What Is Fresh and Processed Meat?

Despite clear definitions within the European Union Law [ 42 , 43 ], the definition of processed meat is inconsistent and varies internationally and between studies, which makes interpretation and comparison of results difficult. Most cohort studies agree to define processed meat as meat that is salted, cured, smoked or dried. The definition of red meat, however, in some studies includes processed meat or some types of processed meat, e.g., bacon; this makes it difficult to identify if it is meat per se or the processing that exerts the observed health effects. Processed meat is often associated with industrially produced products that are cured and/or smoked. In private households and in the catering industry, frying and grilling are normal processing steps in producing the final ready to eat product. Even though fried meat is not comparable to industrially processed meat, frying can contribute to the content of carcinogenic compounds in meat.

3.1. Industrial Processing of Meat

The industrial production of processed meat products originates from three fundamental technologies for preservation of meat that were discovered in ancient time, i.e., drying, curing, and smoking [ 44 , 45 ]. Evidence indicates that the practice of hanging meat free for ventilation and thereby removing moisture from the surface decreases the water activity and thereby prevents spoilage bacteria from growing on the meat. Curing by rubbing meat with salt dates back more than 5000 years and due to nitrate-containing impurities in the salt, the shelf life of the meat did not only increase because of salt but also through the presence of nitrite generated from the reduction of nitrate. Salt and nitrite diffuse into the interior of the meat and prolong shelf life by lowering water activity and by means of a direct antimicrobial effect of nitrite. By using a wooden fire to dry meat, it might have been discovered that smoking results in an alternative flavor in addition to a longer shelf life. Smoke contains numerous components that inhibit bacterial growth and prevent lipid oxidation, which explains the positive effect on shelf life. These three fundamental preservation technologies (drying, curing, and smoking) combined with heat treatment have, over time, evolved into the different processes that are used today in the meat industry to produce and increase durability in a vast variety of meat products. A newer methodology of meat preservation is by the addition of antioxidants such as ascorbic acid and its salts. The legislation regarding this method is, however, to a higher degree defined by limiting the water activity rather than a health effect [ 43 ].

Nearly all processed meat products are cured, meaning that salt is added and, in most cases, nitrite or nitrate. Basically, cured meat products can be divided into two main groups based on their respective processes [ 46 ]: dry-curing or wet-curing, as illustrated in Figure 1 .

Classification of cured meat products. Adapted from Flores and Toldrá, 1993 [ 46 ] and Toldrá, 2017 [ 47 ].

3.2. Dry Curing

Dry curing involves the use of salt typically in combination with nitrite and/or nitrate, which is rubbed on the surface of entire pieces of meat. The salting process is followed by a drying and ripening period, which runs for several month to years before the product is ready for consumption. Typical products are the Italian Parma and the Spanish Iberico hams. To produce fermented sausages, salt is mixed with minced meat followed by a drying and fermentation period. Spices and bacterial starter cultures are also added to these products to aid in the fermentation process, and especially in the northern part of Europe, the products are also smoked. In the United States, the drying process of fermented sausages is often limited, and the products are cooked [ 47 ].

3.3. Wet Curing

Wet curing of entire pieces, e.g., cooked ham/loin and bacon, typically involves the use of needle injection of brines containing salt, nitrite, ascorbate and often also phosphates. The diffusion of salt is accelerated by physical treatment in a process known as tumbling, optionally smoked and the product is cooked. An exception is bacon, which is dried for a short time, mildly heat treated, and/or smoked [ 47 ]. So-called enhanced meat, where the meat receives added water containing salt and is sold as ‘fresh’ meat, is also within this category, although the consumer performs the cooking process. To produce wet-cured products of minced meat, e.g., cooked sausages, salt and nitrite is mixed with minced meat, added water, spices and ascorbate, filled in casings, and cooked (optionally smoked). Typical products are wieners, mortadella, and frankfurters.

4. Maturation and Fermentation

A significant amount of meat is consumed worldwide after a maturation process, including dry-ageing, dry-curing and dry-fermenting. Whereas these processes were historically designed to preserve meat, nowadays they aim for producing a variety of highly delicious products. The ripening process leads to the hydrolysis of certain components such as proteins and lipids, and the formation and release of low molecular weight compounds, both volatile and non-volatile, which give these products an intense and characteristic flavor [ 48 ]. There is a huge diversity of meat products of these types all around the world, but they share some common points that are of interest for their potential health outcomes: (1) they include a considerable strong dehydration, up to more than 50% weight loss for some products; (2) they imply significant chemical and biochemical transformation of meat components, including protein and lipid hydrolysis, protein and lipid oxidation and Maillard type reactions as most relevant ones; (3) the process for most of them includes the addition of sodium chloride and nitrates and/or nitrites; (4) most of them undergo extensive microbial transformations by different bacteria, mold and yeast species; this microbiota contributes to acidification, formation of nitrosomyoglobin, proteolysis, lipolysis and flavor formation, to mention their main roles.

While all these changes are directed to obtain a shelf-stable flavorful product with a particular chewy but tender texture, as a side effect, their nutritional and health outcomes may also be significantly affected. First of all, as a consequence of dehydration, nutrient density notably increases, so that meat products processed that way have a higher content of some nutrients in which meat is rich, such as proteins, iron, zinc, niacin, pyridoxine or cobalamin. Nevertheless, other compounds, e.g., ubiquinone (coenzyme Q10) with health properties tend to decrease or even disappear during the ripening process [ 49 ].

Secondly, the extensive proteolysis during the maturation, as a result of endogenous and microbial proteases, leads to high levels of free amino acids and peptides with large differences in molecular weight [ 50 ]. In turn, this leads to faster amino acid uptake rates during digestion (additional compared to regular cooking), which has been linked in some cases to higher anabolic potential for protein-rich foods [ 51 ]. On top of that, some of these new generated peptides show bioactive properties, mainly antihypertensive and antioxidative in hypertensive rats [ 52 ]. Human studies have also demonstrated prolonged gastric emptying and increased satiety [ 53 ]. It is well known that during meat protein digestion, peptides with bioactive properties are released. In the case of aged meat products, these proteolytic processes already take place during the ripening, and as a consequence, such peptides are already present in the product before human digestion. The extent of proteolysis, the type of enzymes involved and the raw material strongly influence the type, number and quantity of bioactive peptides generated in these ripened meat products. Thus, it has been shown that 24-month ripened Iberian ham contains higher levels of highly active angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitory activity than dry-cured hams processed for shorter times [ 54 ]. Such bioactive peptides have also been identified in aged beef [ 55 ], aged duck [ 56 ] and dry-fermented sausages [ 57 ]. In fermented products, it has been evidenced that the type of starter culture is related to the type, the amount and activity of these bioactive peptides [ 58 ]. It has been hypothesized that the presence of antihypertensive peptides might counteract the effect of their high salt content on blood pressure; however, studies to document their effects in humans are still missing.

The consumption of hydrolyzed proteins has been linked to other potential positive health outcomes, such as the regulation of bile acid metabolism [ 59 ] and induced satiety [ 60 ]. In fact, meat hydrolysates have been shown to increase the release of cholecystokinin [ 61 ], a gut peptide hormone inducing satiety: this may lead to smaller and less frequent meals and eventually to a lower dietary intake.

Lactic acid bacteria are commonly used as starter cultures for the production of fermented meat products due to their distinct biochemical effects, mainly lactic acid generation, pH drop, flavour generation and bio-protective effects [ 62 ]. In fact, the traditional production of dry-fermented products was based on the fermentation of added sugars by naturally present lactic acid bacteria. Some of the commercial starter strains and also some indigenous isolates from dry sausages have shown probiotic properties. In fact, since these products are not heat-treated, they provide suitable conditions required for the survival of probiotics. Additionally, it seems that the meat product matrix may help probiotics to survive through the gastrointestinal tract [ 63 ]. Moreover, there have been numerous attempts to select and use probiotic bacteria adapted to the harsh conditions of dry-fermented sausages (high salt, low aw, low pH, low sugar content, nitrites, etc.). Naturally occurring bacteria in sausages are mostly strains of lactic acid bacteria with a high degree of hydrophobicity, which usually is linked to probiotic potential. For example, strains of Lactobacillus sakei , L. curvatus , L. plantarum , L. brevis , L. fermentum , L. lactis , L. pentosus , Pediococcus acidilactici or P. pentosaceus , isolated from Scandinavian, Greek, Spanish or other commercial fermented sausages, have been characterized as probiotic [ 64 ]. Other types of added probiotic bacteria have difficulties in surviving in the dry-sausage environment.

On the negative side, the high salt content and the presence of nitrites in this type of meat products have been pointed out as potential causative factors in developing hypertension and colorectal cancer, respectively. It remains to be investigated whether the presence of antihypertensive peptides may counteract their effect on blood pressure in humans. On top of that, the amount of salt in processed meat products has steadily decreased in the UK during the last few decades [ 65 ]. Going further in this direction appears potentially problematic, since lower levels may imply microbiological risks and texture defects, and salt substitutes, e.g., calcium and potassium salts, tend to confer an unpleasant taste [ 65 ]. As far as nitrites are concerned, their role in cured products is crucial in controlling microbial growth (especially that of Clostridium botulinum ), stabilizing color and promoting the formation of a characteristic flavor [ 66 ]. On the other hand, their presence in foods may lead to the formation of carcinogenic N-nitrosamines. While this has been experimentally proven, the levels of such compounds are quite low or even non-detectable in non-heated products, such as dry-cured and dry-fermented sausages. In addition, the common use of high amounts of ascorbic acid in these products strongly limits the formation of these harmful compounds [ 65 ].

5. Fortification of Meat Products

An approach that has been taken to combat potentially harmful effects associated with the ingestion of processed meat is to fortify processed meat products with ingredients that may counteract or neutralize such negative health effects. There is extensive evidence that intake of dietary fibers is associated with beneficial effects on gut health. Using a rat model, it was recently shown that fortification of pork sausages with inulin resulted in significant effects on the metabolites generated in the gastrointestinal tract by the gut microbiome [ 67 ]. Thus, fortification of processed meat with inulin enhanced the formation of acetate, propionate and butyrate, the characteristic short-chain fatty acids that have been identified as pivotal in the beneficial effects associated with dietary fiber consumption [ 68 , 69 ]. In a human intervention study, Perez-Burillo and colleagues [ 70 ] also showed that inclusion of dietary fiber in a fermented meat product (salami) stimulated the formation of butyrate upon ingestion. Furthermore, it has also been shown that including butyrylated starch in the diet enhances short-chain fatty acid content in the gut and attenuates the formation of unwanted O6-methyl-2-deoxyguanosine adducts, which is known as toxic and mutagenic modification, and found to be associated with high red meat intake [ 71 ]. Consequently, current knowledge indicates that fermentable dietary fibers and short-chain fatty acid-containing compounds can counteract the potential harmful effects in the colon associated with intake of processed meat. Unfermentable dietary fiber is less explored, but in animal model studies, they also seem to have considerable potential in cancer prevention [ 72 ].

Intriguingly, cohort studies also point at a high calcium intake having a positive effect on colon health [ 73 , 74 ]. Using a rat model, Thøgersen and colleagues [ 67 ] recently investigated the effect of fortifying processed meat with calcium and inulin in combination or alone. Interestingly, addition of calcium-rich milk minerals significantly reduced both the formation of unwanted N-nitroso compounds in the gastrointestinal tract when compared with ingestion of non-fortified processed meat and stimulated the formation of short-chain fatty acids in the colon [ 67 ]. Consequently, promising results reveal that potential harmful effects associated with meat ingestion in fact can be mitigated through modulation of the meat product matrix and fortification of meat products or strategic design of meals with the inclusion of components such as dietary fiber and calcium that neutralize unintended effects in the gastrointestinal tract associated with meat intake.

6. What Do We Know and Not Know on the Food Matrix

The food matrix can be defined as the nutrient and non-nutrient components of foods and their molecular relationships, i.e., chemical bonds, to each other [ 75 ]. Nutrients are seldom present in a free form, but are incorporated into larger molecules or embedded in granules or specific compartments. This association with other constituents of the food affects the release of the nutrients from the food and thereby both the accessibility and bioavailability of any given nutrient [ 76 , 77 ]. In other words, it is not the total amount of a nutrient ingested that determines the amount absorbed, but the food matrix, interaction between nutrients and host related factors. The food matrix directly affects the digestion and absorption of the nutrients in the gastrointestinal tract.

In the past, the nutritional quality of a food was associated with the total amount of nutrients; however, due to food matrix effects, the amount absorbed actually differs between foods despite having equal contents. Several examples of food matrix effects are known for plant foods; the best-known examples are probably the phytate–mineral interactions, where minerals are tightly bound to phytate and only released upon degradation (fermentation or soaking) of the phytate, and carotenoids, which are released from plant cells by cutting or chopping the vegetables [ 78 ], by being solubilized into lipids in the food matrix and by several other factors [ 79 ]. Another intriguing example is the absorption of carcinogens, including food mutagens from fried meat, onto chlorophyll; this absorption has been shown for aflatoxin B1 to be sufficiently strong to reduce DNA damage in humans [ 80 , 81 ]. This observation also further underlines the importance of ingesting highly proteinaceous foods together with a complex food matrix including fresh greens. In relation to meat, cooking reduces the amount of fat, peptides and vitamins while increasing the concentration of some minerals, e.g., Zn and Fe (particular in beef), while the effect on Ca and Mg is inconclusive [ 82 , 83 ]. In addition to heme-iron being better absorbed than non-heme-iron, and red meat therefore being a superior source of iron [ 28 ], ingestion of supplemental prebiotics increases the absorption of heme-iron from beef [ 84 ], suggesting that, e.g., inulin fortification or fermentation of meats may further increase iron availability and potentially that of other minerals. In all cases, preparation of the food by heating, chopping or fermentation may liberate or release the nutrients and non-nutritive compounds from the food matrix and thereby improve or reduce their bio-accessibility, depending on the meal composition.

Food matrix effects are important, but meal composition, as well as interactions between foods in the meal, also affect bio-accessibility and bioavailability. The ‘meat factor’, whatever it is, is an example [ 29 ]. When consuming meals composed of both vegetables and meat, the meat factor promotes the absorption of non-heme iron from the plant products [ 30 ].

7. Meat and Chronic Disease—How Good Is the Evidence?

Due to limitations in the duration of intervention studies needed to measure chronic disease endpoints, most studies on the effects of meat consumption on health outcomes, such as cardiovascular disease (CVD) and cancer, are observational. The number of studies is high and systematic reviews and meta-analyses have therefore been conducted repeatedly by different groups. However, conclusions are divided and the issue therefore controversial.

7.1. Meat and Cancer

In the continuous update project [ 85 ] on colorectal cancer risks, the evidence for an effect of red as well as processed meat intake has been judged as strong, but the overall conclusion was graded in that the evidence for processed meat was classified as sufficient , while that for red meat was classified as probable . This was based on overall limited heterogeneity of the studies included in the analysis, no observed small-study bias, significant dose–response and plausible mechanisms. The grading of the evidence for red meat was decreased from sufficient in 2007 to probable in 2018. This may have been caused by published meta-analyses failing to show a significant overall effect and geographical differences with significant effects observed in Europe but not in the Americas or Asia. These conclusions are corroborated by similar findings in several recent meta-analyses [ 12 , 86 , 87 ]. However, some meta-analyses report similar magnitudes and trends but conclude that the magnitude of the cancer-causing effect is limited and the evidence as weak and likely to be affected by significant heterogeneity and confounders [ 15 , 16 ]. Uncertainty as to the classifications of meat into red and processed meat, interactions with other dietary factors and geographical variations are some of the factors described as potential confounders. While official recommendations in most countries support reductions in red and processed meat intake based on the findings by international organizations, there is obviously some scientific controversy as to the technical judgement of the quality of evidence and the impact of decreased intakes on colorectal cancer risk. Some of this could be resolved by better biomarkers of red and processed meat intake [ 88 , 89 ] as well as biomarkers related to their potential mechanisms of action, which should help in removing potential confounding factors.

7.2. Meat, Cardiovascular and Chronic Disease

Händel and colleagues performed an umbrella review of systematic reviews on associations between processed meat intake and morbidity and mortality of chronic diseases [ 14 ]. The quality of the systematic reviews reporting positive associations between processed meat intake and the risk of various cancers and cancer mortality, type 2 diabetes and CVD, and CVD mortality was moderate, and the overall certainty in the evidence was very low across all individual outcomes, due to a serious risk of bias and imprecision. The results of the generally more biased case–control studies were more likely to suggest a positive association than the results from cohort studies.

In a systematic review and linear dose–response meta-analysis of prospective studies, Schwingshackl and colleagues found a positive association between hypertension and intake of red meat (relative risk 1.14 per 100 g/day; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.02, 1.28) and of processed meat (relative risk 1.12 per 50 g/day; 95% CI: 1.00, 1.26) [ 90 ]. However, the authors conclude that the overall quality of the meta-evidence for the association in the studies included was of low quality.

Lippi and colleagues found no clear association between red meat consumption and ischemic heart disease in a systematic review of prospective cohort and case–control studies due to the large heterogeneity of the criteria used for defining red meat and diagnosing ischaemic heart disease [ 91 ].

A recent systematic review and meta-analysis on associations between red and processed meat intake and risk of heart failure found no association for highest versus lowest red meat intake (relative risk 1.04; 95% CI: 0.96–1.12), but a positive association for processed meat intake (relative risk 1.23 per 50 g/day; 95% CI: 1.07–1.41) [ 92 ]. Unfortunately, the quality of the included studies was not graded. Subgroup analyses showed a significant association between processed meat intake and heart failure among Europeans (relative risk 1.33 per 50 g/day, 95% CI = 1.15–1.54), but not among Americans. No association was found between heart failure risk and red meat intake in either continent [ 92 ].

Neuenschwander and colleagues found a positive association in dose–response studies of processed red meat (hazard ratio 1.44; 95% CI: 1.18–1.76), processed meat (hazard ratio 1.37; 95% CI: 1.22–1.54), and bacon (hazard ratio 2.07; 95% CI: 1.40–3.05) intake and risk of type 2 diabetes in an umbrella review of prospective cohort studies [ 93 ]. No significant association was found for unprocessed red meat (hazard ratio 1.11; 95% CI: 0.97–1.28). The methodological quality of the meta-analyses was mostly high, but the quality of evidence was low for unprocessed red meat, moderate for processed red meat and high only for processed meat and bacon.

7.3. Interpretation of Observational Studies

When assessing results in meta-analyses, the data are only as valid as each individual study. Differences in the definition of which products to include in the categories of meat and processed meat (and exclusion of specific meat products [ 94 ]), and differences in serving sizes among countries play an important part in the validity and interpretation of the results. Equally important are the characteristics, medical history and total dietary intake of the participants included in the studies; factors influencing the results but, despite several statistical models, close to impossible to eliminate.

Overall, the observational evidence for the effects of red meat on chronic disease is weak and methodological issues have downgraded the overall judgment, although the direction of the effect for colorectal cancer is quite consistent. The evidence for adverse effects of the heterogeneous group of processed meat is moderate-to-strong for several endpoints with colorectal cancer as the most important effect. Scientific disputes exist regarding the consistency of the evidence for most endpoints. Better insights and tools such as biomarkers to support accurate intake assessments [ 88 , 95 , 96 ], discrimination between different groups of processed meats and assessment of mechanisms in cancer development are likely to resolve some of this controversy. The potential nutritional and mechanistic confounders are discussed in the following section.

8. The Importance of Confounders and Co-Factors

When estimating associations between meat intake and disease risk by comparing groups with high and low meat intake, respectively, it is pivotal to be aware which foods substitute meat in the low-meat diet. High meat intake is not necessarily confounded by an unhealthy diet, e.g., low in fruit, vegetables, whole-grain and dietary fiber intake and high in sugar and alcohol [ 97 ]. However, it was observed in analyses of dietary patterns in adult Danes that the 25% of the population with the highest reported meat intake along with an unhealthy diet (the highest quartile) have a red meat intake that is significantly higher (approximately 20% higher) than the 25% of the population with highest meat content in combination with a healthy diet (144 g/10 MJ compared with 121 g/10 MJ) [ 98 ]. For processed meat, the difference is even higher (32%; 87 g/10 MJ for those with an unhealthy diet compared with 66 g/10 MJ along with the healthy diet). This was also observed in an Irish study where a high intake of processed meat was associated with a low intake of fruit, vegetables, fish and whole grain, indicating a less healthy diet [ 94 ]. Thus, comparing disease risk in groups with high and low meat intake without corrections for dietary quality will inevitably be a comparison of unhealthy and healthy diets if no or inappropriate corrections for dietary quality are made. Moreover, the groups with high meat intake along with an unhealthy diet were shown to have a significantly higher dietary intake of foods which may have the potential to increase disease risk (e.g., fried potatoes, high-fat gravy, fatty spreads and fast foods) when compared with groups with high meat intakes as part of a healthy diet [ 98 ].

Many cohort studies present estimates including both a basic model with corrections for only basic confounders, e.g., age, sex and energy intake, and a more extended correction, e.g., body mass index, smoking habits, social status, and intake of healthy foods such as fruit, vegetables and whole grains. However, it can be questioned whether such correction are sufficient to take into account all differences in dietary quality that accompany high and low dietary meat content. In addition, it can be questioned whether corrections for too many confounders will interfere with the actual effects examined. However, it is not unusual that after extensive corrections for confounders, the associations found in the more basic model are no longer present [ 99 ], indicating that the corrections strongly modulate the estimates.

9. Research Gaps and Recommendations

A summary of recommendations and identified issues relevant for future research is presented in Table 1 .

Summary of recommendations and future research.

Emerging evidence indicates that foods cannot just be viewed as sources of specific nutrients, rather as a totality of several nutrients and other components that exert an effect depending on the composition, processing, meal composition and consumer habits ( Figure 2 ). As an example, the effect of SFA from butter differs from that of similar SFA in fermented dairy products [ 9 , 10 , 100 ]. This is an effect which, to an extent, may be explained by different low density lipoprotein (LDL) particle sizes being affected differently by SFA intake [ 101 , 102 ] or by the differences in content of dairy calcium. Analysis of the total number of LDL particles is commonly used to evaluate CVD risk, but particularly small LDL particles seems to be highly correlated with CVD whereas the larger LDL particles are not. Future studies should include analyses and a presentation of the different LDL particle sizes in order to separate the specific effect. In addition to the effect of SFA intake, the pathophysiological effects of salt and other additives from industrial processing are yet to be identified [ 103 ].

Shifting from saturated fatty acid-based to food-based dietary guidelines for cardiovascular health. CVD, cardiovascular disease; SFA, saturated fatty acid. Used with permission from Astrup et al. 2020 [ 10 ].

When viewing the baseline characteristics of participants in two large cohorts according to quintiles of total red meat consumption, it becomes clear that those with the highest meat consumption also have a lower consumption of fish, vegetables and whole grains [ 4 , 17 ], pointing towards a lower intake of several kinds of dietary fiber among these meat-eaters. Other studies also found those with a higher intake of meat to have a less healthy eating pattern [ 98 ], suggesting that an effect may be due to the absence of dietary fiber or other plant components more than the intake of meat per se, exerting an effect of health parameters. The positive effect of dietary fiber on human health is well established; for example, a change to a more healthy diet is shown to improve the gut microbiome and functionality independently from energy intake [ 25 ]. However, studies with equal meat contents are lacking. A high-quality human intervention study investigating the effect of processed meat with and without appropriate types of dietary fiber in humans could elucidate the effect on risk markers of CVD and microbiota and evaluate whether the absence of dietary fiber negatively influences the metabolic effects after the consumption of processed meat.

Despite the large body of observational studies on meat consumption and health outcomes, confounding factors and different or undefined subgrouping of meat types make it difficult to evaluate to what extent residual confounders might explain the modest increases in risk observed in association with red and processed meat intake. We therefore advocate for the completion of randomized controlled interventions of high quality to assess the effect of pre-defined meat consumption on relevant validated biomarkers among healthy people as well as among those at risk of CVD, type 2 diabetes and cancer (especially colorectal cancer).

In conclusion, meat is a source of high-quality proteins, minerals and vitamins and other compounds, difficult to obtain in sufficient amount from other sources. The current available research is inconclusive and does not support that meat consumption as part of a healthy diet increases the risk of disease. Moreover, considering the potential confounding factors and lack of interventional studies, there is a need for sufficiently powered randomized controlled trials assessing the effect of meat consumption on shorter-term risk markers. While several biomarkers exist and have been partially validated according to a currently proposed standard [ 104 ], additional work is needed for their full validation [ 88 , 89 , 95 , 96 ]. Good biomarkers to assess intakes of different meats and of potentially protective dietary components in observational studies is another need to resolve the effect and confounders. In addition, mechanistic studies to therefore identify pathways and identify potential fermentation and processing methods increasing nutrient availability and effect are warranted.

Author Contributions

A.A. arranged a workshop on meat in relation to health, in collaboration with the Danish Agriculture and Food Council. A.A., H.C.B., H.M., L.O.D., L.K. and N.R.W.G. participated in the workshop and S.B. and J.R.C. were invited to join as participating scientists in writing the manuscript. NRWG drafted the manuscript based on summaries on presentations delivered by the participants of the workshop. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

The authors have presented the scientific discussion framing this manuscript during the Expert Workshop “Processed meat” held in June 2020 in Copenhagen, Denmark. The Danish Agriculture and Food Council funded the workshop and the publication fee. The funders had no role in preparing or reviewing the manuscript prior to submission.

Conflicts of Interest

NRWG reports receiving research funding from Danish Dairy Research Foundation, Arla Food for Health, Danish Agriculture and Food Council, and Danish Pork Levy Fund, and receiving an honorarium from the Danish Agriculture and Food Council for writing the present paper. HCB reports receiving research funding from Danish Dairy Research Foundation, Arla Food Ingredients, and Arla Food for Health, and a personal fee to participate in a workshop at the Danish Agriculture and Food Council. HM reports working on projects, including the workshop associated with the present paper, where the Danish National Food Institute has received grants or financial support from the Levy Fund for Agriculture or the Danish Agriculture and Food Council. LOD reports receiving a personal fee to participate in a workshop at the Danish Agriculture and Food Council. JRC reports working on projects receiving funds from Danish Pork Levy Fund, Danish Meat Research Institute, Danish Innovation Fund, Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology and Ministry of Education and Science. SB has nothing to disclose. LK reports receiving a personal fee to participate in a workshop at the Danish Agriculture and Food Council. AA reports receiving research funding from Danish Dairy Research Foundation, Arla Food for Health, Danish Agriculture and Food Council, and Danish Pork Levy Fund, and a personal fee to participate in a workshop at the Danish Agriculture and Food Council.

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

• News & Analysis on Food & Beverage Development & Technology

Precision breeding project aims to revolutionise the UK potato industry

20-Mar-2024 - Last updated on 20-Mar-2024 at 14:26 GMT

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Led by agri-tech R&D business B-hive Innovations, the new research project, called TuberGene, is funded as part of UKRI’s National Engineering Biology Programme and aims to harness the power of gene editing to address pressing challenges and secure a sustainable future for the potato industry.

The UK potato sector produces around five million tonnes of potatoes each year but faces significant hurdles, including producing a significant number of potatoes that don’t meet commercial specifications, costing millions of pounds annually. Additionally, changing consumer preferences have caused fresh potato sales to gradually decline, as people opt for quicker-cooking alternatives like rice and pasta.

With new legislation allowing the commercial development of gene edited crops, ​ the project presents an exciting opportunity to transform the industry. Researchers will focus on two key goals: reducing bruising-related discoloration and making potatoes quicker to cook. These improvements aim to enhance potato quality, cut down on food waste, and meet the evolving needs of consumers.

B-hive Innovations is a team of agritech and biotech pioneers bringing innovative processes to the fresh produce supply chain, which has attracted significant support as part of UKRI’s funding initiative. Also part of the scientific team delivering the research are Branston Ltd, the James Hutton Institute and James Hutton Ltd.

Dr. Rob Hancock, research scientist at the James Hutton Institute, said: "Gene editing and other precision breeding technologies offer unprecedented opportunities to rapidly enhance the traits of potatoes, meeting the need to quickly respond to the changing preferences of consumers. By targeting specific genes responsible for traits like bruising susceptibility and cooking times, we can create varieties that meet the needs of both growers and consumers."

A key part of the project involves sequencing the genome of the Maris Piper potato, a beloved variety in the UK. This foundational work will pave the way for future targeted gene editing to enhance other desirable traits.

Barbara Correia, principal research scientist at B-hive added: “This project leverages the bioinformatics expertise in our business and the genome sequencing allows us to build a pipeline to address other issues in potato farming, such as disease resistance, as we move towards the creation of a Super Spud. It also means that we can apply our skills more easily to other crops, thereby helping more of the UK’s fresh produce sector and safeguarding global food security.”

Combatting Fusarium Basal Rot ​  in onions   ​

B-hive Innovations has also joined with the British onion sector to develop a pioneering research programme into preventing crop loss from Fusarium Basal Rot (FBR), a devastating infection caused by a soil-borne fungus.

Called ‘FUSED - Integrated fusarium early diagnostic and management’ is a 24-month, £1 million project aiming to define better ways of detecting and managing FBR infection, particularly at the earliest stages of onion production. FBR disease can attribute up to 40% of crop losses for growers, which currently costs the onion industry more than £10 million a year.

Dr. Mercedes Torres Torres, B-hive’s head of machine learning, said: “Our goal is to detect infected onions during growth and at the earliest possible stages, and we are excited by the challenge this brings. We’ll be drawing on our considerable expertise in remote sensing, including use of hyperspectral imaging in agriculture, and are confident that we can find better ways of detecting disease.”

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• Regulatory Education for Industry (REdI): Clinical Investigator Training Course (CITC) 2018 - 11/13/2018

Education | In Person

Event Title Regulatory Education for Industry (REdI): Clinical Investigator Training Course (CITC) 2018 November 13 - 15, 2018

View 2019 Clinical Investigator Training Course site

A collaborative training course hosted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Center for Drug Evaluation and Research’s (CDER’s) Office of Medical Policy (OMP), Small Business and Industry Assistance (SBIA) and University of Maryland’s Center of Excellence in Regulatory Science and Innovation (CERSI)

November 13-15, 2018

Agenda (PDF - 156 KB)

Experts from FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER), Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH), the University of Maryland and the University of Pennsylvania will provide a deep dive into the scientific background and practical methodology needed when conducting clinical trials.

In this intensive course, attendees will learn FDA regulations, ethical considerations, and the scientific principles to help them understand what is important when conducting clinical trials and preparing a submission for FDA review.  

About the Training Course

Topics include:

• Preclinical and clinical science
• Statistical structure of trials
• Safety and ethical requirements
• FDA regulatory requirements related to the performance and evaluation of clinical studies
• Non-clinical, early clinical, and phase 3 studies
• Issues in the design and analysis of trials

After this course, the participant will be able to:

• Explain the responsibilities of an investigator conducting a clinical trial
• Describe what to look for in medical products being studied in a clinical trial
• Describe the basic concepts of clinical trial design
• Review clinical data for sources of bias and error

Tommy Douglas Conference Center (TDCC) 10000 New Hampshire Avenue, Silver Spring, MD 20903

Who Should Attend?

Physicians, nurses, pharmacists and other healthcare professionals responsible for the conduct in clinical trials.

FDA medical officers, FDA senior scientists, FDA senior experts, and guest lecturers from academia and patient advocacy will provide presentations.

Contact us with questions at [email protected] or at 301-796-8946.

Continuing Education

This event is eligible for up to 12 credits towards a RAC recertification.

A collaborative partnership between the University of Maryland, College Park and the University of Maryland, Baltimore, with support from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the University of Maryland Center of Excellence in Regulatory Science and Innovation (M-CERSI) focuses on modernizing and improving the ways drugs and medical devices are reviewed and evaluated.

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