There are two firms (at least) planning to invade our supermarkets with lab grown meat.

That’s different from the folks who are creating hamburgers and the like from vegetable sources.  These firms are starting from animal stem cells, growing them in the lab with a synthetic bovine fetal serum, and wait until the tissue is formed.  (One firm is using real bovine fetal serum- but the synthetic version has some special advantages- at least for Jewish folks.)

Don’t get too excited yet, though.  Because as of now, the steak that has been produced is the size of a business card.

I had brought up this sort of business with my rabbi about two years ago.  (And discussed it here.)  Because the question will arise… How can shechita be effected?

Shechita is the Jewish ritual where a very, very, very sharp blade is used to slice the neck of the animal in one swift motion- and then have the blood drained from the animal.

What amazed me wasn’t that my rabbi was contemplating how to effect shechita- rather,  if this would actually be called meat under Jewish law.  He’s not alone- there are several rabbis contemplating the same scenario in Israel right now.  (Tyson Farms has invested in a Jerusalem, Israel firm called Future Meat; that’s different from Tyson’s veggie option that it’s offering through it’s ‘Raised and Rooted’ brand.  Cargill has an investment in Aleph Farms , as well as in Memphis Meats (the latter of which will not be kosher- at least not as of now.  But, both Cargill and Tyson’s plan to offer this cultured, kosher, meat.)

Which brings up another fact about these firms.  Creating kosher meat (or whatever we will call this) means they cannot slice away a part of the animal to recover the cells.  That would make the product firmly non-kosher.  Basically, one has to take starter cells from a non-edible portion of the animal and induce those cells to produce muscle.  (This is akin to the concept of producing pluripotent stem cells.)

That’s also why these folks are using synthetic fetal bovine serum. Because it is illegal for a Jewish person to consume blood.  (That’s why the blood must be drained from the animal after shechita.) I should add that the OU, the Orthodox Union koshering authority, has stated that they could accept fetal bovine serum to be used to grow the meat- because there is no blood left in the serum that is used to grow the stem cells.  They also decided that the starter cells must be taken from a (dead) animal that had undergone Jewish ritual slaughter.  The head of the OU has also changed his opinion that such products could be considered pareve (neither meat nor vegetable)- because cells are being used- not just the DNA from the cells.  (Other OU authorities are not quite so sure that the product won’t be considered pareve. But, we Jews always go with the most stringent opinion, so expect the ruling to be that the product is meat.)

There are other considerations.  Almost 2/3 of a cow can never be kosher.  And, of the remainder, only about 20% is considered usable.   But, 100% of this produced material will be able to be considered kosher.  A big increase in yield.

But, we still need a lot more than just a business card size piece of meat.

(By the way, my family indulged in a slew of  Impossible Meat Philly Cheesesteak heroes this past weekend.  Yes, of course, this offering was at the Philadelphia Phillies stadium.)

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