Is lab-grown meat actually approved and available to eat?

The answer

In June 2023, the US Department of Agriculture approved cultivated (lab-grown) chicken from two companies - Upside Foods and Good Meat - for commercial sale in the United States, following Singapore's pioneering 2020 approval. The process involves taking stem cells from a living animal, culturing them in steel bioreactors with nutrient media, and growing them into muscle and fat tissue over 2–8 weeks - producing real meat without animal slaughter. Lab-grown meat uses approximately 90% less land and 78-96% less water than conventional livestock farming, and generates up to 92% fewer greenhouse gas emissions. Taste testers have described the products as genuinely comparable to conventionally raised meat. Israel's Aleph Farms produces cultivated beef steaks, while multiple companies are developing cultivated seafood to address overfishing. The main challenge remains cost: prices have fallen from $330,000 per pound in 2013 to roughly $20-50 per pound in 2024, but still far exceed conventional meat. As production scales up, costs are expected to reach parity with traditional meat by the early 2030s.