World’s Very First Lab-Grown Mouse Meat Pet Food Launches
World’s Very First Lab-Grown Mouse Meat Pet Food Launches
Pet nutrition startup Because Animals Inc. is set to launch the world’s very first lab-grown mouse meat pet food for a more cruelty-free way to feed pets.
Because Animals announced a breakthrough in how people feed their pets: the world’s very first truly sustainable and humane clean meat pet food made from meat grown without the animal.
It is the mission of Because Animals and the company co-founders, Shannon Falconer and Joshua Errett, to replace the unsavory ingredients found in today’s pet food – which often comes from cruel and environmentally damaging factory farms – with nutritious and sustainable ingredients from cultured protein and clean meat.
Clean or cell-based meat, which has the same composition and nutritional value as animal-based meat, is grown in a lab using biotechnology without raising and slaughtering animals.
“What makes this clean meat extra special is that we’ve grown it without any animal ingredients,” Dr. Shannon Falconer, Chief Executive Officer of Because Animals, said in a statement sent to Vegan News.
“At the moment, the standard in the clean meat industry is to grow tissue using serum from another animal – usually fetal bovine serum.”
“Because Animals is changing that by creating ultra-nutritious foods that provide all the nutritional benefits of traditional animal protein but with animal-free ingredients that protect pets, people and our planet.”
Because Animals is the first company to use the pioneering clean or cell-meat technology in pet food without using the controversial Fetal Bovine Serum (FBS).
FBS is controversial as it involves the inhumane practice of extracting blood from pregnant cows at slaughter. It is also difficult to scale.
Startups growing clean meat for consumption are struggling to culture tissue – such as chicken, beef, and pork – that completely omits FBS.
However, Because Animals has developed a proprietary media that provides the nutrients and growth factors needed for mouse tissue to grow — all without the requirement of FBS.
While clean meat is more humane than farmed animals, the best part about Because Animals’ new clean meat is the advantage it will have for cats and dogs.
Every year, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issues pet food recalls due to chemical and bacterial contamination — many associated with factory farming and the use of meat from dead, dying, disabled, or diseased (4D) animals. Clean meat provides a safe and nutritious alternative to this.
Because Animals is the only pet nutrition company making products with 100% human-grade, zero factory-farmed animal ingredients. It also promises to be more environmentally sustainable than current commercial pet foods.
Because Animals will debut its clean meat line of pet foods in early 2020 with a cat treat made from mice, the ancestral diet of the cat.