What is cultivated meat?

Cultivated meat is real meat, farmed from cells instead of entire animals.

Why is cultivated meat important?

Encompassed in our slogan, For the People, for the Animals, for the World, cultivated meat poses solutions to three main categories of problems caused by intensive animal agriculture:

People often get sick from contaminated animal products and a growing world population in the coming decades will require a higher demand for animal products than humanity can produce.

Animals primarily live in crowded, unnatural conditions which can cause them harm. Because they need to be killed in large quantities to supply the world with animal products, compromises are often made in modern farming which sacrifices their welfare.

The World does not have enough environmental resources to produce animal products as demand continues to rise; there isn’t enough food, water, and land to sustainably continue intensive animal agriculture.

To learn more about cultivated meat's potential to change the world, check out 90 Reasons to Consider Cultivated Meat

Who is involved in cultivated meat?

Cultivated meat is currently being driven by investors, who fund startups working on cultivated meat; companies, who work towards releasing products commercially; and nonprofits, who help educate the world on the concept, helping future consumers make educated choices that are right for them.

Where does From Fauna stand on conventional animal farming?

From Fauna is generally against conventional animal farming, otherwise known as factory farming.

However, we are not necessarily against traditional animal farming (e.g. large, open pastures for farm animals). These types of farms, unfortunately, are not very common anymore as factory farming became the popular option after the 20th century to produce large quantities of inexpensive meat; traditional farming was unable to feed the world's increasing demand for meat. For this reason, we're more focused on how to address the issues of conventional animal farming/factory farming which today, produces most of the world's meat supply.

**It's important to note that traditional animal farming could reside alongside a cultivated meat system. In the future, we believe it's possible for traditional animal farming to experience a 21st century renaissance, alongside cultivated meat, as in combination, large quantities of safe, sustainable meat could become an option to global populations.

This vision for the future of meat production (cultivated meat + traditional animal agriculture) is one we believe could be superior to the current one.

Where is cultivated meat's development taking place?

Cultivated meat companies, nonprofits, and advocates can be found all over the world, but most of Cultivated Meat's current development has taken place in the United States.

When will cultivated meat products be commercially available, how is cultivated meat similar to GMOs, what will cell-ag need to do in order to displace traditional meat products, how should cultivated meat products be labeled, what might the next hundred years hold for cultivated meat?

We’ve answered all of these questions and more in our interview with FeedStuffs

What is the purpose of From Fauna?

From Fauna is an international, independent 501c3 public charity, founded to advance understanding of cultivated meat.

Is From Fauna available for speaking engagements? What fees are incumbent for setting up such events?

Yes, please email hello@fromfauna.org to share details on the nature of your event.

Why is a system of cultivated meat more viable than society shifting towards plant-based foods or faux materials?

For thousands of years, vegetarianism & veganism have stood as diets that address most of the issues intensive animal agriculture presents. While a small percentage of global society consciously decides to abstain from animal products, the majority has yet to find this lifestyle compelling enough to change. We would suspect this is primarily due to the difficulty in its practical application, and so, changing the method of production for animal products rather than the products themselves can give humanity the animal foods and materials that they’ve enjoyed for millennia without the current issues that come along with it.

Furthermore, while plant-based, mock meats and other pseudo animal products have loyal consumer bases, they are indeed small, and we at From Fauna do not envision plant-based meats, for instance, being able to mimic animal-based meat identically due to fundamental cellular differences in the biological kingdoms they represent.

What problems may cultivated meat bring about?

At From Fauna, we think it’s important to speak honestly about the potential benefits and drawbacks of cultivated meat. Some issues with cell-ag may be in its eventual capacity to perfectly recreate any type of animal product, negatively impact the farming industry, and sustainability inefficiencies with regards to its environmental impact. All of these must be taken with a grain of salt, just as much as the benefits we often refer to in 90 Reasons to Consider Cultivated Meat.

Ultimately, while we do see potential problems that could arise with cultivated meat, we must remain honest, vigilant, and unblinded by our support for the concept today. While we do indeed foresee far more benefits than drawbacks, which serves as the impetus for our support, if cultivated meat fails in properly producing animal products that properly deliver to the public, we will be the staunchest critics.

For additional perspective on the potential drawbacks of Cultivated Meat, please refer to our continued discussion of the topic here.

Is cultivated meat the same or similar to cloning?

Cultivated meat products are made by mimicking the processes that occur naturally in an animal’s body. When the muscle cells within a cow's body, for instance, duplicate through the process of mitosis, this is not considered "cloning" so we extend the same logic. "Cloning" in relation to Cultivated Meat is also used as a sensationalist term, often used to try to smear the concept by antagonistic parties. Further, cloning is the process of creating a whole new living organism, while cultivated meat isn’t doing that, but instead, ultimately producing non-living animal products from cells.

Are cultivated meat products natural?

It depends upon the frame of reference — if referring to its naturalness in comparison to conventional animal products, we find cultivated meat products to be equally natural/unnatural compared to what the norm is currently from intensive animal agriculture, primarily CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations). These CAFOs place animals in environments that are far from "natural", by definition, where animals existences used to be, in nature.

A simple Google Search of a term more often used by the public, “factory farming”, can give you an insight into the unnatural practices that are commonplace today. It is also important to note that food products that are “unnatural” by the definition of “not occurring normally throughout nature” are eaten daily by cultures/people around the world like cheese and protein powder.

We think a better concern is for the safety of cultivated meat products. For instance, most people are aware that medicine and certain foods are not completely natural, but because these products are generally accepted to be safe, society consumes them at high rates. The same goes for our philosophy at From Fauna towards cultivated meat products: we only advocate for products that hold the promise to have exceptional safety, and upon commercialization, we will only stand by cell-ag products that are proven safe through rigorous testing.

Does From Fauna conduct cultivated meat research?

Our mission at From Fauna is to engage with projects that we think will help bring awareness to cultivated meat. At this point, we believe that design & video, instead of natural science research, are the optimal project areas for us to focus on.

There exist a multitude of research challenges for cultivated meat, many being tackled by the growing industry and Cultivated Meat academics around the world. While we have supported efforts in social science research and small-scale natural science research in the past, we believe the serious R&D developments that are necessary to scale up cultivated meat commercialization in the next couple of decades are efforts that for-profit companies are best suited for.

With their resources and talent, it can be difficult to match what the for-profit side is doing in the private sector so this, as well as the fact that we're not equipped, expertise or human resource-wise, to help notably with such efforts means we, as a member of a collective community, need to advance Cultivated Meat forward in ways that a nonprofit like From Fauna is more suited for than for-profit companies. This is how we focus our attention, as well as prioritizing neglected, fertile areas of cultivated meat over natural science research.

What is Project CMF, 90 Reasons, and Modern Meat?

Project CMF, 90 Reasons, and Modern Meat represent three of our most well-known efforts at From Fauna. CMF is the world's first design of a future meat production using cultivated meat, 90 Reasons is a comprehensive list of Cultivated Meat's potential benefits, and Modern Meat is the world's first textbook on cultivated meat, as well as the largest collaboration of players in the history of the space.

Learn more about Project CMF

Learn more about 90 Reasons

Learn more about Modern Meat

How will future cultivated meat facilities like 'CMF' address food safety?

We and our Industry Partners understand that cultivated meat-produced foods needs to be made with the highest of safety standards. While the sterile production process itself should prevent food contamination in a facility like Project CMF, efforts are being made to ensure security and safety measures are built into every layer of the production line, ensuring Cultivated Meat foods reach their superior safety potential.