Vegans may be happy to know these two pieces of news. First a new startup seeks to replace animals in food production by 2035. New startups such as this will be great for the ethical nutrition industry and in my opinion funding or working for these startups could be more effective ethically than simply avoiding eating meat. Avoidance of animal products takes money away from the "unethical" companies but funding startups puts money into ethical companies working toward popularizing ethical eating in the first place.
The company has raised about $200 million in venture funding and counts Khosla Ventures, Bill Gates, Google Ventures, UBS, Viking Ventures and Open Philanthropy among its early investors.
Meanwhile, government food regulators are studying the best way to regulate such lab-grown food. Other startups such as Memphis Meats, Mosa Meat, SuperMeat and Beyond Meat are also rushing to create fake flesh grown from cells, plant proteins or other vegetable substitutes.
Now to be fair these fake meat products are not FDA approved. We do not know at the moment what impact they will have on human health or how to regulate them. In my opinion depending on the process used it could be very safe or risky and we need more transparency on how this fake meat is produced. Fake meat grown from cells which come from animals is likely safe because it's actually cloned cells but then there are various plant proteins, vegetable substitutes, and not everything vegan is healthy.
In a surprise move China signed a $300 million dollar deal to buy lab grown meat from Israel. Demand for meat is likely to rise in China so this could be a good thing at least for the animals who will not have to suffer as much.