Is Lab-Grown Meat Healthy and Safe?

You Should Know: Soon your supermarket may offer a third kind of meat alongside conventional and plant-based options: lab grown meat. The USDA and FDA have approved a small number of lab-grown products for commercial sale, but availability remains extremely limited. The bigger question is: will it taste like traditional meat — and will it actually be good for you?

Going Deeper: Also known as cultured or cultivated meat, it’s made from animal cells in controlled conditions, without needing to kill the animal. It offers potential upsides for animal welfare, environmental impact, and public health, and could increase food availability while reducing some risks linked to animal-bourne diseases and antibiotic use — depending on how it is produced at scale.

Is It Safe To Eat?: Technically, it’s an ultra-processed food — but that doesn’t automatically make it unhealthy. It’s nutritionally close, though not identical, to conventional meat, and early research suggests a similar protein and amino acid profile. One goal of lab-grown meat is the ability to tailor its nutritional composition during production, but it’s still very new, so there’s no solid data yet on long-term health effects.

Bottom Line: While some customers will be intrigued enough to try the new mystery meat for environmental or ethical reasons, plenty of others will be suspicious. And right now, the cost of production remains a major barrier.