We are now opening another potentially dangerous can of worms regarding what we decide to eat. When Beyond Meat and the Impossible Burger burst upon the scene, I knew they would both be a hit.
Beyond Meat’s IPO was very successful, one of the best in history in the last 20 years. But, I was always leery. From everyone who has told me about it, it tastes just like the real thing. However, when I looked at the ingredient list, all I saw was a bunch of chemicals and bastardized plants. How will they affect you in the long-term? That has yet to be seen, but I’m infected by skepticism regarding any fake meat product.
Now I’m predicting another player will take the world by storm very soon: GOOD Meat Cultured Chicken. Produced by the California start-up, Eat Just (https://www.ju.st/), GOOD Meat Cultured Chicken is grown from animal cells in a lab, outside of the animal. Purportedly it contains no antibiotics, and it is non-GMO. Singapore is the first country in the world to approve the sale of cell-based cultured meat, and it premiered in a fine dining restaurant this month, in Singapore, to great reviews.
The FDA and USDA have not approved it yet.
Another product from Eat Just is JUST Egg that is available for sale in the U.S. It’s made from mung beans and it touts being cholesterol-free, antibiotic-free and non-GMO. JUST Egg sounds like the perfect product, but I had to take a peek at the ingredient list:
Water, mung bean protein isolate, expeller-pressed canola oil, contains less than 2% of calcium citrate, enzyme, gellan gum, natural carrot extractives (color), natural flavors, natural turmeric extractives (color), onion puree, salt, soy lecithin, sugar, tetrasodium pyrophosphate, preservative (nisin, potassium sorbate).
Not to be a killjoy, but both products are very unappealing to me. How do you make lab-grown meat grow? Aside from animal stem cells, what else is in the petri dish? I don’t know the answer to those questions, but something scary may be going on there. Just reading the JUST Egg ingredient list, I’m nauseated. It’s one chemical after another that could have serious long-term consequences.
I’m not saying that we should not eat fake meat products or lab-grown meat products, but I am saying that we must limit them. I’m positive they are going to dominate food markets in the decades to come because someone has to make a profit.
But, keep in mind, the more chemicals and altered food products that enter your body, the more your body must work to adapt and/or detoxify them. These products have not endured long-term testing, so there’s no telling what may happen if you consume them. Your body is already being bombarded with natural viruses and bacteria it must fight off, so why exacerbate the situation.
My advice is to stay as close to natural as possible and eat a lot of veggies. That’s been proven to be highly effective over millions of years.
