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Transcript

The Future of Meat (Advanced Program) · Spotlight English: Advanced

• 0:03
  Welcome to Spotlight Advanced. I'm Bruce Gulland and I'm a Liar's Wade. Spotlight
• 0:10
  uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand
• 0:18
  no matter where in the world they live. Imagine the inside of a laboratory.
• 0:29
  Men and women in white lab coats bend over long tables. One woman
• 0:35
  is working over a small plastic dish. She takes a small container of liquid
• 0:41
  and empties it into the dish. Then she squeezes several drops of a different
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  liquid from a long tube. She seals the dish and places it in a
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  container with several more dishes. Six weeks pass The dishes sit in their container,
• 1:02
  but inside the dishes something is happening. Slowly, a red substance starts
• 1:08
  to grow. By the end of the six weeks, it fills the dish.
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  It looks like a hamburger, but does it taste like one. The
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  woman returns to the laboratory and chooses one dish. She brings it into a
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  kitchen and places the substance on a hot pan. Once it is brown,
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  she puts it between two pieces of bread. Then she takes a big bite.
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  This may seem like something from a futuristic film, but the woman has
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  just taken her first bite of lab grown or in vitro meat. Many people
• 1:49
  think this new technology can help solve many problems in the world of meat production,
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  but will people really eat it? Today? Spotlight is on in vitro
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  meat. Many people around the world love meat. People eat pigs, chicken,
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  cows, goats, and many other animals. Meat is an important part
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  of the world's diet. For some, meals with meat are important to who
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  they are. Many regional foods depend on meat for their uniqueness. But there
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  is also a big problem with meat. Raising animals takes up a lot of
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  space, food, and water, and the global population is increasing. As
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  more people come to live on the earth, they will demand more meat,
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  but the earth may not have enough space to keep these animals. Raising livestock
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  animals also has a serious effect on climate change. Some animals, like cows,
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  goats, and sheep, have special stomachs. These stomachs allow them to
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  eat foods that are very hard to digest, like grasses and leaves, But
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  digesting these foods produces a lot of methane gas. Methane is a very powerful
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  greenhouse gas. It traps twenty times more heat than carbon dioxide, and the
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  global meat industry is responsible for thirty percent of the world's methane production. If
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  the world continues to produce meat like this, it could be very bad for
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  the environment. For some people, growing meat in laboratories may be the solution
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  to this problem. Meat grown with this method is usually called cultured meat,
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  lap grown meat, or in vitro meat. To make in vitro meat,
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  all a scientist needs is a few cells from an animal's muscle. They these
• 4:00
  cells in a special environment, then they add nutrients and chemicals called hormones.
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  These chemicals cause the cells to grow. The process does require some things from
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  animals, but a few cells from a cow could grow thousands of pounds of
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  beef. It is much more efficient than raising livestock, and it does not
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  produce methane. Liz spect is the director of Science and Technology at the Good
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  Food Institute. She spoke to the website gen Cultured meat could address all of
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  the problems related to industrial meat production. It addresses environmental impacts and concerns about
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  treating animals well. It starts the risks of getting diseases from animals. It
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  can do all this while making sure there is a production system to meet the
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  growth in demand for animal protein. For people like spect in vitro meat could
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  solve many of our problems, but the technology for in vitro meat is still
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  very new and it is still very expensive. Mark Post is a Dutch scientist.
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  He was the first person to make a lab grown hamburger in twenty thirteen.
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  It was made from cow cells. The hamburger was very expensive to make.
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  It cost three hundred and twenty five thousand dollars and it took three months
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  to grow. Today, the process is much faster. Good Meats is a
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  company that has started growing in vitro chicken. Their chicken only takes two weeks
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  to produce, but a meal of this chicken will cost about seventeen dollars.
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  The process also may not be as environmentally friendly as people thought. Growing in
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  vitro meat uses a lot of energy. Some of this energy will come from
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  burning fossil fuels. This releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide traps
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  heat in the atmosphere and it lasts in the atmosphere longer than methane, so
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  many people say it is worse for the planet. In the long term growing
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  in vitro meat may also cause a lot of waste. This is because cell
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  cultures must be sterile. They must be free of any bacteria, otherwise other
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  things will grow and ruin the meat. These sterile containers also create a lot
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  of plastic waste, and there is already a problem of too much plastic waste
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  in the environment. But the biggest question about in vitro meat might be will
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  people eat it. Many people do not trust food grown in a lab.
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  In vitro meat may seem unnatural, or people might fear that it will somehow
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  affect their bodies in a bad way. And in vitro meat also does not
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  taste like meat from animals. It does not have fat, only muscle.
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  Fat must be added later, and the taste is still not quite the same.
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  Still, in vitro meat is coming today. It is available in very
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  few places, but dozens of companies are working on their meat growing methods.
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  Companies have invested billions of dollars in this research, and many people believe that
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  it is the protein of the future. Josh Tetric is the CEO of eat
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  Just which grows in vitro chicken. He told the website C net. I
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  want tens of thousands of restaurants to have cultured meat on their menu. Then
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  at some point I want them to ask their chefs why do we have conventional
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  chicken on the menu too? Would you eat in vitro meat? Why or
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  why not? You can leave a comment on our website at www dot Spotlight
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  English dot com. You can also find us on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram
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  and Twitter. The writer of this program was Dan Chrisman. The producer was
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  Mitio Ozaki. The voices you heard were from the United Kingdom and the United
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  States. All quotes were adapted for this program and voiced by Spotlight. This
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  program is called the Future of Meat. Visit our website to download our free
• 9:15
  official app for Android and Apple devices. We hope you can join us again
• 9:20
  for the next Spotlight program. Goodbye,