Lab-Grown Chicken Fingers Are Here, And They Cost $9,000 A Pound

Okay, let's cut right to the chase here: would you ever eat lab-grown meat? Because it's hard to see how factory farming could possibly be sustainable. It's plagued with problems, and fewer and fewer people are comfortable with the idea of killing animals for food. But humans are omnivores, and meat is difficult to replace in our diets. It's entirely possible that we'll all be eating lab-grown meat in the future. Are you okay with that?

Say what you want about Memphis Meats – they're committed to both eating meat and not killing animals. It's a tough line to toe, but they're getting closer to making it a reality.

In 2016, they announced that they had made a meatball entirely from lab-grown beef. Now, they've announced a new breakthrough in "clean meat," serving both chicken and duck breast without killing an animal.

So how do you just grow meat in a lab? At Memphis Meats, they start with living animal cells in bioreactor tanks, which they feed oxygen, sugar, and minerals.

Emily Byrd of the Good Food Institute got to try both the lab-grown chicken and the lab-grown duck. Her verdict? "I went back for seconds...Both dishes were remarkably flavorful." 

So apparently good-tasting meat that doesn't require raising animals just to kill them later is really possible. Which, okay, sure, that's a good goal. It's hard to fault someone for not wanting to kill. But isn't there something just odd about eating food that grew in a petri dish?

And then there's the matter of the cost. That meat that Memphis Meats served up will have a hard time finding a spot in grocery stores at $9,000 a pound.

So although there might be future for lab-grown meats, the future isn't exactly tomorrow. There's still considerable testing to be done and there's plenty of room for that price to come down.

Considering how many of America's dinner plates rely on chicken and ground beef, this is worth paying attention to.

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