Lab-grown meat can be labeled kosher and halal as long as its cells are derived in methods compliant with religious standards, two panels of experts commissioned by the nascent industry said.
The opinions are a win for cell-cultivated meat companies, because it means observant followers of Judaism and Islam could one day consume their products, executives said.
“It’s another marker around making cultivated meat a real solution,” GOOD Meat chief executive Josh Tetrick said.
Photo: Reuters
Cultivated meat is only sold in tiny quantities in the US and Singapore, but companies hope private and public investors would infuse the sector with enough cash to scale production and alter diets around the world.
Cultivated meat is derived from a sample of animal cells that are fed a nutrient mix and grown in steel vats, avoiding the need for land-intensive industrial farming operations and slaughterhouses.
Companies in the fledgling industry hope their product would appeal to vegans and vegetarians, as well as climate-conscious meat eaters.
GOOD convened a panel of three Shariah experts who reviewed the company’s production and on Sunday said cultivated meat can be halal if, among other factors, the cells from which the meat is made come from an animal slaughtered according to Islamic law.
Although GOOD’s chicken does not currently meet that standard, the opinion provides a roadmap for the industry to make halal products, Tetrick said in an interview.
The Orthodox Union (OU), the largest kosher certification agency, on Wednesday last week said that said cultivated chicken produced by Israeli company SuperMeat met its standards, because the chicken cells were not fed any animal ingredients and were extracted from a fertilized egg before any blood spots appeared.
SuperMeat and the OU are working on broader guidelines for the industry, company CEO Ido Savir said.
More than 12 million people in the US eat kosher products and 8 million eat halal products, according to the OU and Islamic Services of America, a halal certification agency.
Regulators cleared cultivated chicken for US consumption earlier this year and it has since been served at some high-end restaurants.
Yemen’s separatist leader has vowed to keep working for an independent state in the country’s south, in his first social media post since he disappeared earlier this month after his group briefly seized swathes of territory. Aidarous al-Zubaidi’s United Arab Emirates (UAE)-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) forces last month captured two Yemeni provinces in an offensive that was rolled back by Saudi strikes and Riyadh’s allied forces on the ground. Al-Zubaidi then disappeared after he failed to board a flight to Riyadh for talks earlier this month, with Saudi Arabia accusing him of fleeing to Abu Dhabi, while supporters insisted he was
The Chinese Embassy in Manila yesterday said it has filed a diplomatic protest against a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman over a social media post that included cartoonish images of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela and an embassy official had been trading barbs since last week over issues concerning the disputed South China Sea. The crucial waterway, which Beijing claims historic rights to despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis, has been the site of repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels. Tarriela’s Facebook post on Wednesday included a photo of him giving a
‘MOBILIZED’: While protesters countered ICE agents, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz activated the state’s National Guard to ‘support the rights of Minnesotans’ to assemble Hundreds of counterprotesters drowned out a far-right activist’s attempt to hold a small rally in support of US President Donald Trump’s latest immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Saturday, as the governor’s office announced that National Guard troops were mobilized and ready to assist law enforcement, although not yet deployed to city streets. There have been protests every day since the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ramped up immigration enforcement in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul by bringing in more than 2,000 federal officers. Conservative influencer Jake Lang organized an anti-Islam, anti-Somali and pro-US Immigration and Customs Enforcement
NASA on Saturday rolled out its towering Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft as it began preparations for its first crewed mission to the Moon in more than 50 years. The maneuver, which takes up to 12 hours, would allow the US space agency to begin a string of tests for the Artemis 2 mission, which could blast off as early as Feb. 6. The immense orange and white SLS rocket, and the Orion vessel were slowly wheeled out of the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and painstakingly moved 6.5km to Launch Pad 39B. If the
RSS