“Shojinmeat” and personal thoughts on cultured meat
(This entry describes the representative’s personal opinion and does not equal the official finalized position of Shojinmeat Project / Integriculture Inc. )
<Fundamental questions about what we eat>
In many parts of the world, prayer before meals is a common custom.
Christians say grace before meals, and so do Muslims. K-drama and anime fans may have noticed “jal meoggessseubnida” and “itadakimasu!” said before meals.
The prayer may be religious or non-religious and exact wordings differ, but they all convey gratitude to the food and the supreme or mortal being that provides food. What is more interesting is that such custom is common to many different religions and cultures worldwide, many of them unrelated to each other.
We clearly see that there is certain fundamental and universal value in our gratitude for food.
My (and my collaborators’) effort to develop in vitro meat has that universal value as the core. The name of this in vitro meat project, “Shojinmeat” represents that value.
<What is in vitro meat?>
An “In vitro meat” is a food product made by multiplying animal muscle cells.
Wikipedia serves as a quick introduction
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In vitro meat (also called “lab-grown meat” or “cultured meat”) is an animal-flesh product that has never been part of a developed, living animal. Production of in vitro meat involves taking muscle cells and applying a protein that promotes tissue growth. Once this process has been started, it would be theoretically possible to continue producing meat indefinitely without introducing new cells from a living organism.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_vitro_meat , as of April 17, 2016)
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Preparation of in vitro meat is conceptually simple.
We first take few muscle cells from a living cow or sheep in routine health check. If taking muscle cells is too painful for animals, in the future we may be able to obtain muscle cells via induced pluripotent cells made from hair or skin cells.
Then we multiply the muscle cells in “nutritional soup” called “medium”. This methodology is called cell culture. Conceptually, it is very similar to yogurt or beer brewery — we grow and multiply cells in large tanks.
At the end of a day, we get a chunk of muscle cells called meat.
There are no cows or pigs killed for production of in vitro meat. The risks of zoonosis such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and avian influenza can be eliminated too.
There is no need for expansive land or enormous amount of water required to raise cows. It may be even possible to culture meat in big cities and remove the need for long-distance supply chain and distribution.
In vitro meat is said to be ecological and potentially economical, as it would consume much less resource to produce.
Several key technologies, such as sterilization of production facility, sanitation, and cooking method must be developed, but above all, there is one critical shortcoming.
In vitro meat is prohibitively expensive! $30,000 per 200g (about half a pound) is the rough quote.
To bring this down, significant improvement must be made, especially to the culture medium.
Common culture medium used in research labs today includes a very expensive ingredient called “Foetal bovine serum (FBS)”, for which cows are killed. I have to admit that as long as FBS is used, “cultured meat” is a nonsense.
In response to this, we have developed a prototype of a ultra low-cost culture medium that does not include FBS and succeeded in muscle cell culture experiments. Our culture medium prototype won us the top prize in a pitch event, and subsequent research and development results were featured in a nationwide magazine (articles in Japanese)
<What is “Shojin”?>
The name “Shojinmeat” comes from “shojin ryori” — Japanese Buddhist cuisine. It is commonly said that Buddhists are vegetarians. However, there are Buddhist cuisines that contain meat, and yet there are no recognizable criticisms from within Buddhist community. This is because Buddhist cuisine is not the same as vegetarianism, but goes deeper.
Originally, Buddhist cuisine is prepared as an integral part of the daily lives of ascetics practicing “Sadhana”, the pursuit of Nirvana. Accordingly, the ingredients are selected to reflect Buddhist teachings and the ascetics’ spiritual commitment to Sadhana.
The key here is “commitment”. Being committed to Buddhist teachings does not mean blindly following a certain fixed dogma or “holy text”, but continuously engaging in intellectual, philosophical and spiritual endeavor through everyday life.
Such intellectual, philosophical and spiritual commitment is called “Viriya”, which translates as diligence or devotion. “Shojin” (精進、“spiritual advancement”) is the Japanese word for “Viriya”, and hence Buddhist cuisine in Japan is called “shojin ryori” (ryori = cuisine).
When it comes to food, the Dharmic-Buddhist teaching of “Ahimsa” (nonviolence) becomes very relevant for obvious reasons.
Throughout history, ascetics, monks and chefs of different times and countries took various approaches on staying committed to Ahimsa while facing the need to “kill” for consumption.
Some concluded that eating meat does not go against Ahimsa under certain conditions. Therefore, some cuisine contains meat, but still accepted as Buddhist.
Some concluded that killing plants too goes against Ahimsa. This view is most pronounced among Jainists today.
Other variations of Buddhist cuisine is commonly found in many South, South East and East Asian countries.
After all, the core value of Buddhist cuisine is Viriya, the relentless spiritual and intellectual quest, and the apparent vegetarianism is actually a derived peripheral matter.
<The “Viriya Way” worldwide>
Viriya is a Dharmic and Buddhist terminology, there is something universal about the words’ underlying thought. Isn’t that, “gratitude for food” found in prayers and greetings all over the world?
In an interview about Buddhist cuisine, Taikou Matsuyama, the deputy master of Myoshinji-Taizoin Temple in Kyoto commented that “Respect and gratefulness to food — the teaching of Zen is at the root of shojin ryori”.
In the same interview, Takuji Takahashi, a shojin ryori chef from Kyoto commented “at the end of a shojin ryori course, we make sure that nothing is stuck on dishes and bowls. Not wasting food is one thing, but the other message is to be considerate about the one who would wash the bowls and dishes afterward. Someone has cooked for you, and someone is washing for you; think to that extent, and do your best in your role.” in the same interview.
The latter opinion mentions “Viriya” (self-perfection, diligence) and includes certain element of “Metta” (benevolence, good will) and “Dana” (generosity). And in both opinions, they expressly mention gratefulness and respect to food as the core value of shojin ryori Buddhist cuisine.
The “gratefulness and respect for food” is not limited to Buddhism, as evidenced by saying of certain set word or phrase before meal happening in many cultures worldwide.This includes Christians and Muslims prayers before meals. In that sense, there is nothing special or surprising about the Buddhist version of “gratefulness and respect for food” expressed in shojin ryori. It’s just the Buddhist way of saying the same universal thing.
The value proposition of “Shojinmeat” is just that — the gratefulness and respect for food.
<Is food today respecting food?>
Here comes the very important part.
We hear about over-harvesting, food commodity price manipulation and climate change endangering our future food supply increasingly more often. A report by World Food Program on 2013 saying “eating insects can help tackle food insecurity” catching media attention has put many to think more about future of food. http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=44886#.VxLdYzCLQ2w
So, is our current food production method respecting life, the people involved, and the world as a whole? Here, we would like to focus on meat.
First, many probably want to say something about animals suffering and being killed. Luckily, we already have many active organizations worldwide talking about animal suffering, and we would like to leave that front to them.
To raise livestock, an enormous amount of feed and water. It is said that eating beef is 40 times more resource intensive than eating corn. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/8395287.stm) When it comes to water, production of 1kg of beef is said to require 15,000 litres.（http://greatecology.com/food-thought-thoughts-food/）
And this enormous amout of resource is currently procured often by forest destruction and groundwater overuse. (http://ourfoodprint.com/blog/global-land-challenges-and-livestock)
It’s not….very respectful to life and the world.
We already see big problems, but meat produced enters the global supply chain. Then bumps into another problem.
As developing countries move into middle-income zone (GDP per capita of ~$6,000) and urbanize, demand for meat usually outpaces domestic production. China recently came through this situation and turned to importing beef. The same is expected to happen soon for South and South East Asian countries and African countries. This will further push the supply-demand curve of beef to more expensive direction.
To support the increasing demand for meat, the world needs to harvest more food, feed and water resource. This means, appreciation of meat causes appreciation of food and water as well, but food and water are so critical to human survival that they are considered “strategic resources”. Worryingly, we have seen so many cases in history of what would happen if supply of oil, which is also a strategic resource, is disrupted.
Pushing people into the risk of war is definitely not respectful.
<The respect for food reinstated>
People pray before meals in many cultures. The exact wordings may differ, but nearly all carry the principle of gratefulness and respect for food, life and the world (it would be “God”, for Christians).
So, does our meat align with the prayer? Unfortunately, we can’t respond with a proud “YES”, as long as meat put so much strain on our environment and supply line of our critical resources. Some may even end up feeling guilt and hypocrisy — “are we claiming our “gratefulness and respect for food”, while doing all this?”
Conversely, alleviating the environmental and economic strain of meat is very much in line with our universally found virtue of “gratefulness and respect for food, life and the world”.
“Shojin ryori”, a Buddhist cuisine is one representation of this universally found virtue. So I named the project “Shojinmeat”.
<Would “Shojinmeat” qualify for shojin ryori?>
As the research and development of in vitro meat progresses, a question may arise — “Would in vitro meat be accepted as shojin ryori (Buddhist cuisine) ingredient?”.
I think, “depending on the research and development progress, potentially yes.”
This is because I believe solving the problems of today’s meat aligns with the core values of Buddhist cuisine, “gratefulness and respect for food, life and the world”.
However, questions remain, especially in the details. Would people feel grateful to synthetically produced food? Is it really not killing animals, even indirectly? There is a lot of technological uncertainties and there is no definitive answers for now.
So, what is it like with currently available technology?
<Would in vitro meat qualify?>
“In vitro meat” made with currently available technology wouldn’t qualify.
To produce in vitro meat, we need culture medium, but today’s cell culture methods cannot exclude FBS from culture medium formula. We still need cows.
Therefore, almost every in vitro meat development team is exploring FBS alternative, especially the protein called “Albumin” found in FBS.
Another important question is, “would in vitro meat really environmentally friendly?”
To answer this question, the environmental costs through all stages of in vitro meat’s life cycle must be quantitatively assessed. This starts from raw material extraction, cultivation, manufacturing, packaging and all the way to disposal. This methodology is called “life cycle assessment (LCA)”.
A team from Oxford University has conducted an LCA of in vitro meat. (Tuomisto and Teixeira de Mattos, 2011) In this report, the researchers conclude that the environmental footprint of in vitro meat is very low.
However, another team of US researchers argues that although land use is significantly reduced, the energy use actually increases. (http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.5b01614?journalCode=esthag) The study points out that sterilizing a large-scale bioengineering facility would be energy intensive.
As we see in these examples, LCA is important in seeing the subject’s bigger picture, but cases of LCA actually applied on (speculative) in vitro meat production system is very scarce. Furthermore, the result of LCA dramatically changes every time a technological progress occurs. For this reason, the key metrics disagree by several times between reports.
To summarize, a lot needs to be done for in vitro meat — from development of culture medium to LCA. Only when we have reached certain technological maturity, we can then decide if our in vitro meat is actually worthy of being called “shojinmeat”.
<Where we are going to>
“Shojinmeat” is a biotechnology project, but it is highly inter-disciplinary and long-term in nature, and it involves significant philosophical and perhaps spiritual implications.
The core technology is “tissue engineering”, but that requires input from medicine and pharmacology.
Scaling production requires input from chemical engineering, systems engineering and automation.
Open debate and public engagement need writers and artists.
Economists are needed to conduct LCA’s.
Health and safety and legal issues must be addressed.
I would focus on development of ultra low-cost FBS-free medium and scalable tissue engineering system as well as public engagement of in vitro meat technology.
If you happen to share my vision — the messages of “shojin ryori”, “Viriya” and “Ahimsa”, I would be very happy to collaborate. Thank you very much, for bearing with me on this very edgy topic of “in vitro meat”.
