Reduced environmental impact, more sustainable and efficient production and improved animal welfare are some of the advantages of cultured meat. But what if I told you that it is also a guarantee of greater food safety?
The list of diseases with the potential to be transmitted from animals to humans through consumption is not only long, but has also been a challenge throughout history. Proof of this are epidemics such as avian or swine flu that have put the scientific community on alert. Also bovine spongiform encephalopathy (better known as “mad cow disease”), or the recent Covid-19 pandemic, which is now five years old. According to one of the reports of the World Health Organization (WHO), 60% of human infectious diseases are of animal origin, and 75% of emerging diseases come from animals.
In this context, the production of cultured meat is developed in a safe and virus-free biological environment. A biotechnological advance that, according to The Good Food Institute Europe, contributes to limiting the risk of animal diseases, preventing food-borne infections with bacteria such as Salmonella, E. coli or Listeria, and thus drastically reducing the possibility of new pandemics or health crises.
Sterile and controlled environments
At Biotech Foods, meat is produced through a culturing process using muscle cells from cattle. These cells are supplied with the necessary nutrients to stimulate and multiply their growth. Thus, it recreates what happens in the organism of a live animal with the same temperature and gas distribution for its reproduction, but in a highly regulated environment.
This type of meat is key to achieving a pathogen-free environment. This translates not only into eliminating the need to raise and slaughter animals but also into a significant reduction of zoonotic diseases, infections that are transmitted from animals to humans.
Antibiotic-free meat
Another benefit of cultured meat in terms of food safety is that it does not require the use of antibiotics and consequently minimizes the risk of superbugs. In industrial livestock farming, it is common to resort to this type of medication to prevent disease and promote growth in food animals. However, excessive consumption of these antibiotics can have worrying consequences such as antimicrobial resistance.
To give you an idea, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has warned that antibiotic-resistant infections could become one of the main causes of death in the world in the coming decades. This is supported by a study published in the British journal The Lancet that points out that more than 1.2 million deaths that occurred already in 2019, were directly related to antibiotic resistance. It is true that in Spain we are working from the National Plan against Antibiotic Resistance (PRAN) to reduce the use of these drugs. A sign of this is that in our country a historical decrease of veterinary antibiotics has been achieved with 69.5% less since 2014. Even so, it is estimated that in 35 years the number of annual deaths attributable to multidrug-resistant infections will be close to 390,000. The cultured meat alternative eliminates the need for the use of antibiotics in its production, thus helping to curb the spread of superbugs resistant to current medical treatments.
In short, Biotech Foods believes that health, food and technology go hand in hand. That is why it is committed to innovation in food production as an essential way to meet current and future health and environmental challenges. We are committed to cultured meat as an alternative that protects public health and contributes to the sustainability of our planet.
Do you believe in safer, healthier and more sustainable food? We invite you to join us on this path!
