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Matt Katz: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Welcome back, everybody. I'm Matt Katz, keeping the seat warm for Brian, who has a very well-deserved Friday off. Now we turn to some food-related news you may have missed. Last week, cultivated meat, also known as lab-grown meat, cleared its final regulatory hurdle. Two companies, Good Meat and Upside have received approval to sell their lab-grown chicken from the USDA. The FDA similarly approved the companies a few months ago, and while it might not sound appetizing to think that your chicken was grown in a lab, proponents are very excited about how the product can be a way to eat meat that's cruelty-free.
Agriculture is among the top contributors to greenhouse gas emissions, making up 10% of emissions in 2021, according to the EPA, and supporters think lab-grown meat could help bring that number down, but if you adhere to religious dietary practices, this may not be the product for you. Neither company has yet applied for approval of kosher or halal labeling, and that might be because of how cultivated meat is cultivated. Joining me now to explain how meat is grown in a lab and its far-reaching implications is Danielle Wiener-Bronner, CNN Business writer covering the food sector, who first alerted us to this whole issue. Danielle, welcome to WNYC.
Danielle Wiener-Bronner: Thanks so much, Matt. It's good to be here.
Matt Katz: First, can you explain how lab-grown meat is made? What are we talking about here?
Danielle Wiener-Bronner: Essentially, like you said, this has been described as a cruelty-free product because the animal cells are taken from the animal, but it could be from a biopsy or a feather. It could be removed from the animal in a way that doesn't hurt the animal. It's then fed with nutrients and amino acids and everything that you and I would need to eat and grow. That is all put together in a massive bioreactor that looks like a vat that you would find in a brewery, so not really a lab in the way that you might imagine it. It grows in there and then it's harvested by the company. It's just collected and processed, and eventually, it's ready for us to eat.
Matt Katz: 2023, man, amazing. [chuckles] Listeners, we'll open up the phones for you right away on this one. Anyone listening who adheres to Jewish or Islamic dietary laws. If you keep halal or kosher, what would it take for you to eat cultivated meat? Are there Hindus who might want to weigh in on this? Or if you're an ethical vegetarian, would you consider eating meat without slaughter as one company markets its product?
Any chefs listening who are considering using this product or anyone else with an opinion, text or call us 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. Danielle, you write that the nascent cultivated meat sector is being overseen by both the USDA and the FDA. Can you talk briefly about how the approval process has gone so far for the companies? Is it normal to have to clear both regulatory bodies? What does this mean? Are we going to see this on our supermarket shelves tomorrow?
Danielle Wiener-Bronner: Those are great questions. These companies, I should say there are two companies, like you mentioned, Upside Foods and Good Meat, which have been approved to sell their cultivated chicken product in the US. They've been around for several years, but the regulatory approval started rolling in last November, November '22. Upside Foods at that time got something called a no questions letter from the FDA.
That basically means that the FDA didn't have any questions after conducting a review about the safety of the product to eat. In March, Good Meat got their no questions letter, and then in June, just this month, that was from the FDA. This month, both companies got two more essential approvals from the USDA, one was for labels for the products, so these products will be labeled as cell cultivated.
Then the most recent and the final approval was [unintelligible 00:04:32] inspection from the USDA, which basically said that the department was comfortable with the safety of the production facilities. I should note that just because these two companies and these two products have been approved, doesn't necessarily mean that now every cultivated meat product will, moving forward, be approved. They would all have to go through similar approvals.
Matt Katz: Got it. Want to get into some of the religious elements here, and adhering to dietary restrictions. You write that neither company involved in this has yet had its US-approved cultivated chicken product certified as halal or kosher, and the problem was that both certifications rely on the animal being slaughtered according to Jewish or Islamic rules, which makes this complicated. I want to go to the phone lines. We have a caller who I believe keeps kosher. Josh in Midtown. Welcome to The Brian Lehrer Show.
Josh: Hi. How do you do? I think that the kosher consumer has no problem with cultivated meat at all. I really think it's that they tend to rely on the certifying agencies, so as long as there's a kosher label on the product, they would have no problem buying it if quality is the same as traditionally prepared meat. I think rarely do kosher consumers make their own calculations as to what product is kosher without the guidance of those agencies.
Matt Katz: Thanks, Josh. Danielle, where do those certification agencies, the people who stamp that kosher mark on the food, where are they on this?
Danielle Wiener-Bronner: OU Kosher, which is a major kosher certifier in the US, is certainly open to certifying the cultivated chicken product as kosher. Again, I think you mentioned this, there is some concern about where exactly those cells are coming from. If it comes from a chicken, that chicken would have to be kosher, it would have to be slaughtered in a kosher way.
As we discussed earlier, these companies want to be able to make meat without slaughter. There are other ways to get cell. If it comes from an unfertilized egg, that would be considered a kosher way to gather chicken cells. The companies also may decide that they would be willing to slaughter one chicken, which could then produce cells for years for people interested in kosher products, so I don't know if they've weighed that calculation yet. They might be open to it.
The other thing to consider is that we're still pretty far away from seeing these products in grocery stores. The launch plans include one restaurant in California that's Upside Foods and one in Washington, D.C. that's Good Meat. People who might avoid those specific restaurants if they're not certified kosher, if they don't meet their own personal standards, they might be waiting a little bit longer until this product rolls out into either restaurants that they're comfortable eating at or supermarkets.
Matt Katz: Got it. All right. From kosher to halal, let's go to Sophia in Leonia in New Jersey. Hi, Sophia.
Sophia: Hi. I think halal is similar to kosher, but in my own experience, Muslims tend to make more individualized decisions over what would constitute halal and what's not, and there's actually different categories. There's halal versus [unintelligible 00:08:10] which [unintelligible 00:08:11] is a little bit more technical. To me, it seems like it should be fine, but I would probably feel more comfortable having a scholar weigh in. Not necessarily having it certified by an official organization, although they do exist in the US, but having a scholar weigh in, that would probably be reassuring for myself.
Matt Katz: Thanks, Sophia. Danielle, have you been in touch with any scholars or heard any opinions regarding the halal part of this?
Danielle Wiener-Bronner: I spoke with someone from the American Halal Foundation, and he made it pretty clear that he is concerned with the technical part of it, so not the scholarly opinion, so that would be a little bit outside the purview of my story. In terms of that certification, it is very similar to the rules of kosher. You would want the animal from which the cells are sourced to have been handled in a halal way and to have been halal in the first place, so not a pig product.
It's a very similar process in terms of the technical considerations. Like I said, I can't speak much to the scholarly implications, but I think that as there is much discussion among religious authorities about this, it seems that there would be opinions in favor of considering this product halal, there might be some opposed.
Matt Katz: We'll reset to explain to people what we're talking about here. People who just turned in might be a little bit confused. We're talking about meat grown in a lab, and we're talking with Danielle Wiener-Bronner, CNN Business writer who covers the food sector. If there are any callers who are interested in chiming in here, whether you keep halal or kosher or maybe you're Hindu and you want to weigh in on this, our number is 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. Let's go back to the phones. Mitchell in Sunset Park. Hi, Mitchell, thanks for calling in.
Mitchell: Yes, thanks very much. It's a great topic. The concept of lab-grown meat might freak a lot of people out. I think clean meat is a term I've heard. There's an organization called The Good Food Institute, which I donate modest amount of money to. They help to stimulate this development. The whole idea of unnatural, things can seem unnatural. I guess the question is, compared to what? The factory farms and slaughterhouses that we currently rely on are hardly natural, and they're, I would imagine, breeding grounds for all sorts of pathogens that can be controlled in a controlled environment.
Lastly, I don't want to offend any religious sensitivities, but I'm not a religious person. I don't know what the imams or the rabbis will say, I wish we could ask an all-benevolent God if it's okay that we not force animals to endure incredible suffering. If we can find a way to circumvent that, I don't think-- I said a loving God, would have a problem with that. Thank you.
Matt Katz: Thank you very much for calling in. I appreciate that. That's interesting. Caller was suggesting changing the term for this from lab-grown meat to clean meat. Is there a term that this nascent industry has settled on for describing what this is, Danielle?
Danielle Wiener-Bronner: They prefer cultivated meat. I think that they don't love some of the implications of lab-grown, they think that it calls certain images to mind of this sci-fi food. They would prefer the term cultivated. I think also because they think it's the most accurate.
Matt Katz: Yes. Piper in Brooklyn is calling. Hi, Piper. Good morning.
Piper: Good morning, how are you doing?
Matt Katz: Good.
Piper: I grew up kosher and kept kosher until I went vegan. It's very hard to eat something that isn't kosher when you're a vegan. I'm also an animal lawyer, and I'm very familiar with the laws of kashrut as well as congressional statutes and the USDA regulations. I work for an organization that does undercover investigation, so I have seen what happens in slaughterhouses much more than I'd like.
My conclusion is that the slaughter requirements of the kosher laws were originally intended to avoid animal cruelty. The requirement is that you have an extremely sharp blade that can sever both carotid, I don't know if I'm using the right name for the arteries, but both of the major arteries in the neck, simultaneously, resulting in hypoxia or lack of oxygen to the brain so that the animal dies immediately and there is no suffering. The way that it intersects with USDA regulations, however, can sometimes actually lead to more suffering, and even when it doesn't.
What happens to animals in slaughterhouses is essentially unwatchable. Our videos are horrific. For those who are actually concerned about the reasons for kashrut and the Jewish concern with, sorry I'm forgetting the word, but with avoiding animal cruelty, I would think that cultured meat or whatever we're calling it now, cultivated meat-
Matt Katz: Yes, cultivated meat.
Piper: -would be a welcome option.
Matt Katz: Thank you very much. One clarification before I let you go, Piper, you said you're an animal lawyer. What does that mean?
Piper: It can mean a whole lot of things, but for me, it means that I find legal advocacy projects, including litigation that I can use to help protect farmed animals and to challenge the animal agriculture industry, which treats them as unfeeling widgets.
Matt Katz: You are cautiously viewing this as progress, this new product, I guess.
Piper: I am. There's absolutely potential. I also would encourage people who keep kosher to consider it, and I do take the point of the earlier caller that generally speaking, people who keep kosher will eat something that has been certified kosher, they will not make up their own minds because they don't know the circumstances.
Matt Katz: Thank you very much, Piper, appreciate you calling in. Danielle, Piper's call made me think of Hinduism because the practice of not eating meat comes from the principle of not doing harm. Is there a way in which Hindus could eat this meat?
Danielle Wiener-Bronner: Yes, I think there certainly is, especially if you are coming at it from the perspective of wanting to reduce harm of wanting to reduce animal cruelty. I think in that tradition, if that's your approach, then there's certainly room to eat this product because many of the products are coming from an animal but not hurting the animal. If your ultimate goal is to avoid meat because you don't want to hurt the animal, this is a way to do that. I think it might be embraced by ethical vegetarians, and to the caller's point, perhaps by the people who are more concerned with the spirit of the law of kashrut, and maybe others, rather than necessarily the letter of [unintelligible 00:15:59] although that could also come through as an approval.
Matt Katz: Let's go back to the phone lines. Hailey in the Bronx. Hey, Hailey, thanks for calling in.
Hailey: Good morning. Thank you for taking my call. Just to follow up on the last point, I would appreciate some clarification regarding the utilization of animal sourced materials to grow these cells. Typically, cells in the lab require fetal bovine serum. Is that being utilized, or are recombinant proteins being used? Can you first clarify that? The second point is categorization of this product. Is it considered ultra-processed? I stick to that, with respect to my child who declared herself vegetarian at a very young age, and we've become much more aware that most of the products currently marketed for that group of [unintelligible 00:16:57] are heavily processed and actually really unhealthy, and relative to the European Union, there's very little regulation by the FDA or USDA. Thank you.
Matt Katz: Thank you, Hailey. Danielle, can you answer either of those questions?
Danielle Wiener-Bronner: I could try. That's a little deeper than I've gotten, but I can say in terms of the first question, my understanding is that the cells used, so there's the animal cell, and that's coming from if it's a cultivated chicken product, it would come from a chicken. I know in the context of dietary restrictions, one of the considerations for kosher and halal rules would be that the other inputs or those other nutrients are also considered to be kosher, or they might be plant-based if the ultimate product in kashrut is considered to be pareve, which is non-dairy and non-meat.
The inputs, I believe there's some flexibility there, I'm not 100% sure what the process is for each company, but I think that if those products are plant-based, then from a religious perspective, there might be a different consideration, which leads me to believe that there is some wiggle room in what those are.
Matt Katz: Got it.
Danielle Wiener-Bronner: The second question, my understanding is that this product is processed. I don't know if it's ultra-processed, highly processed, I'm not sure what the distinction is there, but I think that similar to an animal product, apart from the differences we've discussed, is the fact that this is a processed product.
Matt Katz: Lauren is calling in the Bronx. Hi, Lauren.
Lauren: Hi. Hi, guys. Thanks for bringing up this interesting topic. I keep kosher. I'm a modern Orthodox Jew. I wanted to raise the point that it's not only whether the authorities will certify this cultivated meat as kosher, but if they do, can we then mix this cultivated meat with dairy? The Book of Leviticus says that the reason we can't mix meat and dairy is because you cannot cook a kid in its mother's milk, but if you are not using real meat that comes from an animal that was born of an adult animal, can it be mixed with dairy, and will cheeseburgers be a viable option?
Matt Katz: Right. Lauren wants to eat a cheeseburger. Danielle, have you spoken to any rabbinical scholars about this interesting question, mixing meat and milk and how that relates to kashrut?
Danielle Wiener-Bronner: Yes, it's a really interesting question. From the OU's perspective in the US, I believe that they are not going to certify the product as part of which would allow you to mix it with milk. They, I think, see this as a meat product, and if they were to certify it kosher, it would be as kosher meat.
Matt Katz: Got it.
Danielle Wiener-Bronner: That said, there are a variety of opinions, and in Israel, the Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi said that-- and I should say that there is at least one company in Israel, the one I spoke to, it's called Aleph Farms that is also working on cultivated meat and is pursuing halal and kosher certification. Once they are approved for sale, they would like to be certified in those ways. The rabbi in Israel said that that product could be considered kosher pareve, which would let you have a cheeseburger. They're still figuring things out.
I think they see it as a little bit more of a conversation with the rabbinate. I believe some other rabbis in Israel have said that this would be considered pareve because of the provenance of the cells. If it's coming from a chicken egg, it would be considered pareve in the way that a chicken egg is. It's complicated and it's an ongoing conversation, and it could be that the decisions are different here compared to Israel or elsewhere, but I don't think that that has been decided yet.
Matt Katz: Ongoing conversation and I'm sure ongoing disagreements. Such an interesting realm, and such an interesting topic. My guest has been Danielle Wiener-Bronner, CNN Business writer covering the food sector. Danielle, thanks for bringing us this story and talking to us about it. Really appreciate it.
Danielle Wiener-Bronner: Thank you so much.
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