Chicken of the Labs Gets USDA Seal of Approval

“It tastes like chicken,” declared the NPR reporter on her visit to UPSIDE Foods facility in Emeryville, California. As well it should: UPSIDE’s “textured chicken product” is made almost entirely from chicken cells, but no chickens were harmed in the making.

Last week the USDA gave the green light to two companies – UPSIDE and GOOD meat (what is it with these companies and capital letters?) – to start selling their lab-grown meat.

Details are proprietary, but basically lab-grown meat is made by extracting cells from real live animals using a needle biopsy. Inside stainless steel vats, the cells are fed fats, sugar, amino acids, and vitamins – just what actual animals eat – which allows the cells to proliferate and grow into meat.

So the stuff is not really for vegetarians, though it might be deemed kosher or halal once the applicable theologians sort out those questions. The lab food is for people who like the taste of meat but don’t want slaughterhouse blood on their hands. Environmentalists will appreciate the reduced carbon footprint and other green benefits, especially when lab-grown beef gets cleared for consumption because it would reduce deforestation in the name of cattle farming.

The two companies are touting these benefits of course but they’re also concerned with flavor, as both have enlisted the services of big-time chefs for the cause. Dominique Crenn’s Atelier Crenn in San Francisco (three Michelin stars) will soon be serving UPSIDE's cultivated chicken, while GOOD Meat is partnering with celebrity-chef José Andrés, who joined the company’s board of directors and will be dishing out textured chicken product in one of his restaurants.

Soon enough, and probably in the same aisle that sells plant-based faux-meat products, chicken and other meats grown in the lab will be more widely available. The recent USDA ruling decreed that lab-grown chicken will be labeled as "cell-cultivated." Yum.

Photo credit: UPSIDE Foods