Is Lab Grown Meat Kosher?
As lab-grown meat continues to grow in popularity, people from different cultures and religious backgrounds are eager to receive answers on how ethical it would be to consume the laboratory-made product. From Jews to Muslims, Buddhists, and other religious communities, questions have been raised on whether cultured meat is permissible or not for consumption.
For some of these groups, eating meat is something to frown at all together. For others, it depends on how the meat is sourced and what animal the meat is. Such is the case with Jews across the world.
What is Kosher?
Kosher refers to food or beverages that are acceptable for consumption according to the Jewish dietary rules taken from the Torah, the Jewish Law. These rules are usually observed as a religious tradition. However, not all Jews observe these rules.
Kosher food is broadly grouped into 3:
- Kosher Meat: Animals that chew their cud and have split hooves e.g. cow and sheep
- Kosher Dairy: Dairy products like cheese, yoghurt, milk
- Pareve: Foods that are neither meat nor dairy, such as eggs, fish, vegetables
Foods that are not permitted are known as 'Treif' and they include animals that are non-ruminant and do not have split or cloven hooves. Examples are pigs, camels. Certain types of birds and fish are also not permitted by the Torah. It is also important to state that the line between permitted and prohibited is not always straight. Sometimes, further clarification and explanation is required by Jewish authorities and scholars.
Also, the kosher tradition frowns on the pairing of certain kinds of foods, such as having meat and dairy at once in a single meal
Kosher and Cultivated Meat
We are not in the best position to determine if lab-grown meat is kosher (permissible) or not since we are not a Jewish authority. However, as we know so far, many religious communities, including that of Jews are yet to make a unified stance that frowns at cultivated meat. We can also make deductions based on the tenets that have been outlined by Jewish authorities on Kosher meat.
Kosher and the Jewish culture
In the Jewish culture, one of the major determinants of the acceptance of meat for consumption is how the animal was slaughtered. Kosher meat must be slaughtered by a shochet, that is, a person trained to slaughter animals in accordance with Jewish laws. Kosher meat must also be well soaked before cooking to remove all traces of blood.
With cultivated meat requiring no animal slaughter, it would be straightforward for religious authorities to determine the eligibility of the product for consumption.
To this, no consensus has been reached. Some rabbinic authorities believe that the slaughter criteria must be met for meat to be considered kosher. Others believe that if the manufacturing process for cultivated meat does not contain blood in any form, it is indeed kosher. This later stance then brings up the argument of whether fetal bovine serum (FBS) is technically blood or not. However, certain cultured meat companies have avoided the use of fetal bovine serum in the manufacturing processes for a combination of ethical reasons. We believe the kosher stance could be part of those reasons too.
Other than the slaughter process, the Jewish religion also considers other factors such as the health state of the animal before it was slaughtered, the type of animal the meat was sourced from, and the part of the animal. For example, kosher meat can only come from the forequarters of ruminant animals with cloven or split hooves and certain domesticated birds. Other meats from pigs, rabbits, squirrels, and scavenger birds are strongly frowned upon. Would this rule out the consumption of lab-grown pork for the Jewish community? We are not sure.
So Is Cultivated Meat Kosher?
Yes, for the following reasons:
1. Kosher animals are the ruminants and cloven-hoofed. Cows, goats and sheep are all Kosher animals. Lab grown meat is made from Fetal Bovine Serum which is obtained from cows, a Kosher meat. Cultivated meat from pork can be avoided as there are several acceptable alternatives
2. The manufacturing process technically does not involve the use of blood
3. No Jewish organization has explicitly marked Cultivated meat as violating any of their requirements for Kosher meats.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Industry scientists believe that the slaughter-free core of lab-grown meat has a lot of good to offer planet earth and its inhabitants. However, despite the many positives and the eagerness of the world for what could be the future of meat, it would take more than just the prospects of a greener earth to encourage consumption among certain sects.
For these people, religion takes the highest pre-eminence. Until religious authorities, the rabbinic authorities, in this case, decide, arguments and reasons can be advanced. But they still have the final say on how well cultivated meat would be incorporated into religious diets.
