Calling it an obscure corner of research, Technology Review looks at the work of Paul Mozdziak, an expert in growing bird muscle cells in a lab, in the hopes that one day turkey meat will be grown artificially, rather than through animals. Reportedly, "one cell could turn into enough muscle to manufacture over 20 trillion turkey nugget." The only problem right now is that meat grown this way costs $34,000.
Yet it will not be easy to compete with factory farms, known as concentrated animal-feeding operations. At peak efficiency, turkeys raised in such facilities are able to turn two pounds of feed into one pound of weight. This figure explains why a 16-pound frozen Butterball turkey costs just $15.84 at Target, only 99 cents a pound.
Despite this, Mozdziak believes the price of cultured meat will eventually be competitive. One reason is that you’d be creating only the white meat you will eat, not the rest of the bird. “You’re not giving nutrients to bone, you’re not giving nutrients to the alimentary tract, all body systems,” he says.
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