Research allegedly proves that synthetic meat grown in a laboratory can increase the load on Wednesday from beef because of its ingredients.

Researchers at the University of California, Davis studied the potential environmental impact of increasing synthetic meat production and found that that it can be up to 25 times worse for the environment than regular meat.

The researchers conducted a life cycle assessment of cultured meat, calculating the energy used at each stage of current production methods. The broth used to grow animal cells has a large carbon footprint because it contains ingredients such as sugars, growth factors, salts, amino acids and vitamins, all of which require energy, according to Davis scientists.

Pieter Sinke of consulting firm CE Delft in the Netherlands and colleagues published another life cycle assessment of cultured meat in January that showed it would have a lower carbon footprint than beef. However, their analysis was funded by the Good Food Institute, a Washington-based cultured meat advocacy group, and simulated a hypothetical future scenario for the ingredients.

However, scientists leave a “window of optimism” as animal cells can be produced in the future with less environmental impact, and the use of renewable energy sources in meat processing plants can accordingly help reduce environmental impact.

This issue seems to really worry people. Last October New Zealand proposed taxing greenhouse gas emissions produced by animals. The world’s first bill of its kind invites farmers to start pay tax for their…animal gases from 2025.

In 2019, the level of methane in the atmosphere “broke” the record, as it was 2.5 times higher than in the pre-industrial era.

Scientists are concerned that methane is indeed a powerful greenhouse gas. Individual methane molecules have stronger warming effect in the atmosphere from individual CO2 molecules.

With information from: New Scientist