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Seung Yeon Choi

Professor Lynda Haas
Writing 39C
20 August 2015
In-Vitro Meat: Reliable and Renewable Replacement to Factory Farm Meat
Amongst the less-desirable anticipations for the approaching years, such as global climate
change and the exhaustion of energy sources, lies the theme of unsustainability. As human
population grows, each person competes for their share of the planets ever-diminishing
resources, including energy, shelter, proper nutrition, and clean water and air. Supporting a
healthy human population therefore requires that common resources of the environment be
properly maintained and efficiently harvested. Unfortunately, one global phenomenon remains as
an insurmountable barrier to achieving this efficiency: the global meat-consumption.
Of the 7 billion people in the world, over 2 billion sustain a meat-based diet, a
consumption demand which in United States is met through factory farming, or industrial
operations that raises large number of animals for food (Pimentel, 660S; ASPCA, 1). As noted
by Cornell Professors David and Marcia Pimentel, the United States industrialized food
production uses about 50% of total US area, 80% of fresh water supply, and 17% of all fossil
fuels, an unsustainable resource consumption made worse by the meat-based diets more
expensive demands (662S). In fact, the United States support livestock population of more than 9
billion to meet its national meat consumption, outnumbering US citizens by 30-to-one (661S).
Supporting this animal population has severe environmental consequences. The US
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates about 10% of total U.S. greenhouse gas
emissions to originate from the livestock, a majority of which consists of methane: a flammable

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greenhouse gas 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Furthermore, management of
livestock and their excretions often cause sewage runoff. In a joint study between John Hopkins
University and University of North Carolina, the researchers found freshwater samples from near
pig factory farms have levels of fecal coliforms, E. coli, and Enterococcus [exceeding] state and
federal recreational water quality guidelines (Heaney, 682). Livestock also require enormous
amounts of land not only for the animals themselves but also for their fodder. As described by
Raymond Lindemans Ten-percent Law, a fundamental principle of Ecology, consumers of
biomass only acquire about ten percent of energy produced by photosynthetic autotrophs
(plants), which means livestock only acquire 10% of their fodders energy and humans
consequently acquire only 1% of it. Therefore, meat consumption wastes potential calories 9
times greater than it can provide, adding to a huge waste of natural resources through agricultural
processes (10% from direct consumption - 1% through meat consumption = additional 9% lost).
A more comprehensive summary of the environmental consequences can be found in this
diagram by nationally-famous dietitian Julieanna Hever:

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Beside the environmental impacts of maintaining livestock, many procedures central to

mass meat-production profoundly conflict against various contemporary ethical conclusions. In
the book Animal Liberation, Princetons Bioethics Professor Peter Singer considers various
historical justifi[cations] in overriding the interests of other animals, such as autonomy,
language, and self-consciousness seemingly unique to human beings (3). Singer alludes to the
renown British philosopher Jeremy Bentham, whose philosophical discourse concluded that
ethical considerations must extend to all beings that can suffer; Singer then notes that since
animals have the physical necessities to feel pain (nervous system), their ability to feel pain must
be assumed similarly to how suffering among humans are also assumed (10). Hence, the logic
deduces that regardless of their undetermined cognitive status, all animals suffering must be
considered in ethical light. Singers proclamation is further supported by various livestock
animals demonstrations of high-level cognitive abilities such as autonomy and selfconsciousness observed since his publication.
Through various forms of behavior, wild boars and domesticated pigs have displayed
sophisticated cognitive traits such as personality and emotion. In a 2011 study by Switzerlands
Animal Behavior and Welfare Group and Institute of Agricultural Sciences, cognitive scientists
observed pigs expressing their positive and negative anticipations through specific cues. They
conditioned 16 domestic pigs to distinguish between an auditory tone that signaled to a room
with a bowl of popcorn and another tone that signaled to a dark ramp which triggers a pitfall
response (Imfeld-Mueller, 87 - 88). When the pigs emotional responses were measured for each
tone, the experimenters found pigs turning away [from the door], increase[ing] latency, and
uttering high-frequency vocalizations for the negatively associated tone, while no such
responses were present for the positively associated tone (Imfeld-Mueller, 89 - 90). These results

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demonstrate the pigs ability to anticipate different events and to express this anticipation through
various emotions. The pigs also demonstrated individualism amongst themselves when they
apparently exhibited various personalities. In one 1995 experiment by Swedish Agricultural
University, 110 piglets were each turned on their backs and arrested for one minute while the
researchers counted the number of escape attempts. The piglets were then also tested for
aggression by sending an intruder into its residence, the results of which would confirm a
correlation between the two procedures results and categorize pigs within a passive coper /
active coper dichotomy (Forkman, 33 - 35). The results, however, yielded no such correlation,
and the researchers instead concluded their inability to generalize the piglets behavior and
identified three possible personality traits, or individual behavioral tendencies throughout the
test: aggressiveness, sociability, and exploration (Forkman, 40 - 41). Together, results of these
two tests indicate that pigs can not only comprehend and predict past and future events, but also
have individual thoughts and information indicative of self-consciousness and identity. Copious
research have since yielded similar results, and pigs sophisticated cognitive abilities are wellacknowledged by the scientific community.
Similarly to the pigs, researchers have witnessed sophisticated cognitive abilities from
other major livestock animals such as cows and chickens. In a 2008 study by the University of
Paris Laboratory of Experimental Comparative Ethology, cognitive scientists conditioned 8
PrimHolstein heifer cattle to distinguish between 2-D images of cattle between two species,
associating food reward with one specie. The cows were then tested to distinguish between the
two species by being shown images of these cows from different angles, providing different
various distinct images of same individuals (2). To the researchers surprise, every cow
succeeded in distinguishing between two species, showing cows have complex discriminative

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abilities indicative of personalized identities (2 - 3). On the other hand, domesticated chicks
demonstrated lateralization of social cognition in University of Padovas 2009 research. In this
study, the cerebral hemispheric dominance was measured during various social cognition
procedures, such as perceiving human gaze and learning not to taste bitter food from other
chicks reactions (transitive inference) (967 974). Although the researchers interests lay with
the chicks hemispheric dominance, the experimental procedure implies the chicks abilities to
demonstrate social cognition, which the subjects did during each trial (967 974). Social
interactions among chicks such as transitive inference indicate that chickens comprehend
consciousness and individuality, as they recognize the different access to information amongst
different individuals. Observations from these researches consolidate the animals cognitive
status well-within the scope of Singers proclamation and consequently demand prohibition of
unnecessary animal cruelty and slaughter.
However, current livestock management practices do not reflect these considerations. As
noted by the nationally successful American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals,
over 99% of farm animals in the U.S. are raised in factory farms, which frequently produce
unclean air, unnatural lighting, unnatural growth, non-therapeutic medicating, unnatural
reproduction, [no] veterinary care, surgical mutilations, and shortened lives for the farm animals
within. Combined with its environmental costs, the inefficiency and immorality of factory
farming presents the practice as a serious problem of contemporary society and warrants its
complete eradication or replacement.
One proposed solution to this problem is the adoption of vegetarianism or veganism.

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-Nutrient-deficiency; significance of meat-nutrients to brain development / inefficient

plant nutrient conversion due to evolution
-Creatine, Carnosine, DHA
-Vitamin B12 / Vitamin D3 (supplement viables)
-The global chemical addiction to meat
Proposals for strict legal anti-cruelty enforcements have also been considered.
-Economical infeasibility
-The Environmental Rebound Effect
Contemporary developments of the In-Vitro Meat offer solutions to both the environmental
and ethical problems.
-Only requires pure energy and minimal biomass; potentially powered through renewable,
clean energy
-Biological engineered to develop without physical capacities to suffer
-Nutritionally versatile
-Expensive
Conclusion: catalyze efforts to streamline in-vitro meat production process

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Work Cited
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