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We Won’t Be the Only Ones Eating Lab-Grown Meat—Our Pets Will Too - Smithsonian
Pet food companies are looking to the future with cell-cultured meat
There are a lot of pets that need feeding in the United States. Around 67 percent of households own at least one. Companion animals lead the pack, as 63.4 million households have dogs and 42.7 million own cats, with some overlap for those that have both.
While people continue to rescue and adopt cats and dogs, many farmed animals face a different fate as a result. Pets aren’t included as consumers in the calculations for overall U.S. meat consumption, but animal-derived products make up a significant portion of their diet. If cats and dogs made up their own country, they would rank fifth in terms of meat consumption, according to a 2017 study published in the scientific journal PLOS One. That translates to the creation of roughly 64 tons of carbon dioxide a year.
Pet food companies are looking to the future with cell-cultured meat
There are a lot of pets that need feeding in the United States. Around 67 percent of households own at least one. Companion animals lead the pack, as 63.4 million households have dogs and 42.7 million own cats, with some overlap for those that have both.
While people continue to rescue and adopt cats and dogs, many farmed animals face a different fate as a result. Pets aren’t included as consumers in the calculations for overall U.S. meat consumption, but animal-derived products make up a significant portion of their diet. If cats and dogs made up their own country, they would rank fifth in terms of meat consumption, according to a 2017 study published in the scientific journal PLOS One. That translates to the creation of roughly 64 tons of carbon dioxide a year.