Could we all be buying lab-grown meat soon?

In November 2022, the FDA made a surprise announcement: It had no further questions about the safety of a lab-grown chicken product from Upside Foods, one of the largest startups attempting to produce marketable lab-grown meat. When compared to conventional meat products, best-case-scenario lab meat production could avoid many of the ethical and environmental issues that come with conventional meat production. These products aren't completely free of animal inputs, since cell cultures, hormones and some other inputs originate from animal samples, but growing meat without livestock would largely sidestep the immense cruelty of factory farming. It certainly could score well in the animal welfare department; because the cells used in cultured meats do come from live or slaughtered animals, a cultured meat product may not wholly eliminate animal slaughter or suffering in a way that satisfies everyone who avoids meat for ethical reasons, but cultivated meat production at scale would functionally produce meat without animal deaths. There are also still a number of unanswered questions around energy and water usage, though early studies indicate cultivated meats would outperform conventional meat in both categories.