FIRST chicken or beef, now mouse. A biotech start-up is banking on lab-made meat for your favorite cat. This new snack comes in the form of a cookie and contains real rodent cells. It’s more of a treat than a full meal for now.
This is the first product from Chicago-based startup Because Animals. Called ‘Harmless Hunt Cultured Mouse Cookies for Cats,’ it is already available for pre-order on the website before a launch date planned in 2022.
Laboratory mice
Until now, most of the advances in the field of cultured meat have been for human consumption. We’re already familiar with chicken nuggets without chicken and alternative steaks. The concept is the same here. Mouse cells are fed with a nutrient-rich serum and kept at optimal temperature for several weeks. This meat grown without slaughtering any animals is mixed with pumpkin, tempeh, miso and yeast before being molded into a cookie.
When asked by Fast Company, the CEO and co-founder of Because Animals said the goal of the new product was to “take animals out of the food chain.” Shannon Falconer added that it made sense to focus on producing alternative proteins for humans first, given that they are “the largest consumers of traditional meat.”
However, animal food production is not without consequences. Our pets are the cause of 64 million tons of carbon emissions per year, according to Forbes. These emissions come, as in the case of their owners, from the egg, milk and meat production needed to feed them. In addition, pet food is generally of very average quality, and produced with leftover bones and blood.
According to Falconer, Because Animals’ feeds help support the animal agriculture industry and move it toward greater ethics and sustainability. That’s why the company is already thinking about its next challenge: growing rabbit meat for dog food. – ETX Daily Up, August 19, 2021