Biden’s Pentagon Funds Search for Ways to Jam Troops Full of Lab-Grown ‘Meat’

Even in a country that was swimming in excess cash, I’d question the “national security” virtues of spending massive amounts of taxpayer money on lab-grown meat for the military.

That country, however, just happens to be the United States.

I’m sorry to break it to you in case you haven’t been paying attention to the news since, oh, the New Deal was passed, but we have a bit of an issue with spending more than we take in. Like, a lot more.

This year, according to the Treasury Department, we surpassed $34 trillion in public debt, and that number is only going to keep getting higher. And we’re paying more on interest than ever before — more than any single line item in the budget for 2024, according to data from the Peter G. Petersen Foundation.

So, we don’t have money. We have a lot of cattle. Why the heck do we need an expensive project for lab-grown “meat” for our troops?

According to the Washington Free Beacon, BioMADE, which has received over $500 million in funding from the Biden administration’s Pentagon, announced in June that it was accepting proposals for “innovations in food production that reduce the CO2 footprint of food production at … DoD operational environments.”

“These could include, but are not limited to, production of nutrient-dense military rations via fermentation processes, utilizing one carbon molecule (C1) feedstocks for food production, and novel cell culture methods suitable for the production of cultivated meat/protein.”

It’s the last line item that’s a cause of concern, since “novel cell culture methods suitable for the production of cultivated meat/protein” is essentially a word-dense way to say lab-grown meat.

These products, critics of the proposal have noted, are still in their developmental phase, making the men and women of our military potential “guinea pigs” for technology that hasn’t been rigorously tested.

“Taxpayer dollars should not be used to fund the lab-grown meat sector,” said Jack Hubbard, executive director for the Center for the Environment and Welfare. It’s a consumer group that’s been critical of many “environmentally friendly” or “animal rights” groups and causes.

“Our troops deserve better than to be served lab-grown meat, produced in bioreactors with immortalized cells and chemicals,” he said.

“Unfortunately,” Hubbard added, “this effort is being driven by an agenda that is political and anti-farmer. Our soldiers should never be used as guinea pigs.”

Last week a DoD-funded consortium called BioMADE put out a request for proposals. They are looking to fund “innovations in food production that reduce the CO2 footprint of food production at … DoD operational environments” (2/6)

— Center for Environment and Welfare (@EnviroWelfare) June 10, 2024

BioMADE has received more than $500 million in funding from DoD. (4/6) pic.twitter.com/4gqlQnfO7U

— Center for Environment and Welfare (@EnviroWelfare) June 10, 2024

It’s unclear how much of the $500 million allocated to BioMADE had been spent on lab-grown “meat” proposals, it’s worth noting.

However, the Free Beacon noted that the Pentagon and its contractors had allocated up to $2 million for “alt-protein projects.”

The Free Beacon also noted that lab-grown “meat” may not actually do what its proponents are looking to achieve, with one recent study by the University of California at Davis noting that “lab-grown meat’s carbon footprint [is] potentially worse than retail beef.”

“If companies are having to purify growth media to pharmaceutical levels, it uses more resources, which then increases global warming potential,” wrote, Derrick Risner, a member of UC Davis’s Department of Food Science and Technology and the study’s lead author.

“If this product continues to be produced using the ‘pharma’ approach, it’s going to be worse for the environment and more expensive than conventional beef production.”

Now, granted, spending money on lab-grown “meat” isn’t going to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back when it comes to the federal budget. It’s still worth noting that we throw straws on there with such regularity nowadays that we’ve pretty much buried the camel — and that’s not even counting the giant I-beams of steel, each stamped with the words “Social Security,” “Medicare” and “Medicaid” on the side of them, that have already practically crushed the poor dromedary.

However, when something is so thoroughly unnecessary, the question practically asks itself: Why is money being spent on this? We have cows. We have a dead camel somewhere under those I-beams and straws, if you want to serve our troops that.

We don’t need novel forms of meat to feed our troops in order to reduce the carbon dioxide footprint. This is money that’s being thrown into the wind to make environmentalist politicians and Pentagon wokeistas feel good about themselves. A small amount of money, relatively? Perhaps — but money all the same, and money we don’t have, and money that even a nation that had it shouldn’t be spending.