Isha Dattar

Yeah, there is so much we could potentially unlock by creating a world where we can farm cells for food.

So I started as an undergrad student at the University of Alberta.

Yes.

I really got into steak tartare.

This is like 2008.

I mean, I thought that was a bit precocious for someone in like undergrad.

Yeah.

So in this class, we learn all about what meat is, how muscle transforms into meat, the meat industry.

And I just remember feeling like, oh, my God, we all have to become vegetarian tomorrow or vegan.

And that lasted for a couple of weeks, that idea.

And then a few classes later, we were just packing up our bags and our professor just mentions very casually, he's like, oh, maybe one day we'll grow food for ourselves.

Yeah.

And I just, that was my real epiphany, which was, oh my gosh, yes, absolutely, that is going to happen.

And so I wrote this paper really pulling from medical journals that were looking at, you know, growing skin tissue for burn victims, like growing cell culture, but for medical purposes.

And I wrote about the idea of applying that to food.

Lab-grown meat is on the rise.

To me, this chicken nugget, this hamburger, this sausage, all made from cells instead of animals, aren't just fast food products.

They're our ticket to a new food system.

Here's how it works.

Rather than raise a whole chicken with beaks, feathers, sentience, we grow the meat directly from muscle cells.