episodes

Bioengineered, Lab-Grown & 3D-Printed Food • Ep 77

Friends, I’ve become a VERY picky eater, and you might want to become one too. Not like a little kid who will only eat milk and peanut-butter jelly sandwiches, but picky in the sense that I’m trying to be 90% in control of my food.

We now live in a world where 3D-printed meat and cells grown in a lab can end up on your plate as food. Yes, I’m serious!

Episode #77

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I’ve been paying attention in the last decade to what’s been happening to our food… and most of you have NO IDEA. Very recently, the food situation in America has become quietly very scary to me. To the point that some things that used to be very occasional treats for me… I’m now viewing as poison. Yes Poison. No, these foods are not technically poison, but that’s how my brain looks at them, to drive home the mental image that certain things aren’t good for me.

I’ve done this with fast food restaurants for the past probably 10 years or so. Places I used to visit weekly and thought were a treat for my kids I now consider so dangerous I won’t ever eat them again. I think most people understand fast food and soda isn’t healthy, but I don’t think people realize what it’s actually MADE of now.  

And there are some things changing with so-called “treats” that lots of people will be handing out to kids on Halloween, and giving as goodies for nearly every holiday. Do you know or care what’s in your M&Ms, Snickers bars, and candy? These things are a no-brainer for me to pass up now, and I’m not even tempted. This goes WAY beyond just avoiding high fructose corn syrup and spiking my blood sugar. Seriously. I know some of you don’t want to know what’s in there because, yes, these things taste really good, symbolize fun and feel like you’re treating yourself.

I read the fine print and ingredients on packaged goods, avoid things with too many ingredients, and eat organic non-GMO foods as much as possible. I’m even leery of restaurant food now, and I’ll explain why in a bit.

And sadly, I find myself saying ‘no’ to even homemade food from other people’s homes, because I don’t know if the ingredients are whole, natural, organic, non-GMO, and what I’d like them to be. Some of you may be rolling your eyes and thinking I’m extreme, and that’s OK. We all have the right to choose what we put into our bodies, and I’m choosing to protect my body as much as possible, even if family and friends don’t understand.

I’m calling this a food crisis because finding real, healthy food now takes detective work, and I’m tired of it. I’m also personally concerned that many people I know aren’t aware of the things we’re going to talk about today– so they don’t realize what they have already been eating.

In my mind, many of the things we’re going to talk about are fake foods. But I’ll use the words manufacturers use, like “made without chickens.” (Yes, that’s a real phrase!)

I’ve watched this unfold for decades: the lack of transparency in how our food is grown, processed, and labeled, and the way companies and trade groups shape the laws, the subsidies, and even what we’re told to eat.

In the US, dietary guidelines normally come from the USDA and sound like settled science. But did you know that the USDA’s job includes promoting agricultural product? Scholars like Marion Nestle have documented how industry pressure shaped these recommendations. Whatever the intentions, it was never simply “what’s best for your health.”

I’m picky about what I put in my body because of all this. Food in the 1960s and 70s was very different from what’s on the shelf now, even for the same brand. And lately I’m especially frustrated, because some of my top choices for packaged foods, brands my family has bought for years now have bioengineered ingredients. Yuck. I’m so infuriated by this whole thing.

This episode is going to be a brief overview with some examples. I encourage you to do a deeper dive on the internet on your own as well. 

Then versus now

Before we get too far into this, I’ve heard some people say “well, I ate this since I was a kid, it’s fine” but I’m here to tell you, a lot of the packaged food you may have eaten as a kid may have the same familiar package, but the ingredients are cheaper, less natural, and much worse for your health.

Do you remember the old commercials for Breyers Natural vanilla Ice Cream? I do, and I used to buy it when my kids were little, because back then, it was the best choice at my grocery store. The commercials used to show a little kid reading a box of another brand of ice cream, struggling to pronounce things like “mono- and diglycerides” in the ingredients list. And then the commercial touted how Breyers only contained cream, milk, sugar, and vanilla. That’s how I want my food lists to read now with the addition of Organic and nonGMO!  But today that same carton can’t even legally be labeled as “ice cream” anymore. It’s now called a “frozen dairy dessert,” with a much longer ingredient list of long words, including the mono- and diglycerides it used to make fun of. And this brand is just an example. Take a peek at some of the boxes in the “ice cream” or “frozen dessert” section the next time you’re in the grocery store!

Imposter food on the shelf

Food fraud is well documented, and researchers have built whole databases of it. Here are a few foods you may think you’re buying, but actually aren’t.

Olive oil: A 2010 UC Davis Olive Center study found that many imported “extra virgin” oils on US shelves failed the extra virgin standard. Finding oil that’s been diluted with cheaper oils is well documented.

Honey: It’s one of the most commonly adulterated foods, with cheap syrups blended in. You can’t tell by looking.

Cinnamon: Most “cinnamon” in the spice aisle is cassia, a cheaper relative of true Ceylon cinnamon. Cassia has much more coumarin, which can be a concern at high intake. Some imported cinnamon has also tested high for lead.

Non-food additives in your food

Pre-shredded cheese is typically coated in cellulose (powdered plant fiber) or starch so it doesn’t clump. Roughly 20 years ago I took a nutrition class, and we were told to think of this as sawdust, and that it’s healthier to buy a block of pure cheese and take the time to shred it yourself. Ground coffee is another one to look into. Whole beans give you far fewer questions to ask.

Meat, eggs, and milk without an animal

This is the most recent quiet change that I’m hearing my friends and family have no idea is real. We’re talking about “lab-grown” and “3D-printed” food ingredients. I’m not sharing conspiracies here, this is all verifiable, real information you can easily google. I apologize in advance, that this section could likely make you sick to your stomach. Let’s break down what some of the words you might see on labels actually mean:

Plant-based means no animal at all, just plants engineered to imitate meat, eggs, or dairy. And this goes beyond normal vegetarian or vegan foods which some of us choose on purpose.

Cultivated (cell-based, “lab-grown”) meat is real animal cells grown in a tank. It was approved for sale in the US in 2023, but so far it’s limited mostly to select restaurants. It’s October 2026 when I’m recording this, and these US states have already banned the sale of lab grown meat: Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Montana, and Nebraska, with others passing different kinds of legislation about it.

Precision fermentation uses microbes, like yeast, to make animal proteins without the animal. Try googling “Precision-fermented chicken.”

Then there are the eggs and milk. The EVERY Company, based in San Francisco, makes egg proteins this way. They’re real egg proteins “made without chickens,” sold mainly as ingredients for bakery, beverage, and packaged foods, with a liquid egg aimed at the foodservice industry. The brand Eat Just, also in California, makes JUST Egg from mung beans, sold at major grocery chains and offered to restaurants. Perfect Day, in Berkeley, makes dairy whey protein by fermentation and supplies it to other brands. Meanwhile, the world’s largest meat company, JBS, is the majority owner of a cultivated meat company and has put a lot of money into plant-based brands too. And JBS supplies meat to many familiar US fast-food chains and restaurants.

3D-printed is a manufacturing method. Steakholder Foods now has 3D-printed plant-based steaks in some US stores in the Northeast under the Perfecta brand, built from layers of soy protein and fat to imitate marbling. They also make 3D-printed chicken breasts.

As far as I can tell, cultivated and 3D-printed meat aren’t in major US fast-food burgers yet, but the technology is moving fast. None of this is hidden, but you have to know what to look for: words like “plant-based,” “animal-free,” “cultivated,” and “cell-based.”

I strongly encourage you to research some of these terms on your own, even doing just a quick internet search: bioengineered milk, bioengineered & lab-grown chocolate, bioengineered eggs, 3d meat, bioengineered meat, and precision-fermented animal-free egg-white proteins. Search each one separately, because they describe different things.

One caution on approvals. Some of these products reached the market through the FDA’s “GRAS” pathway, where companies can have a large role in judging their own ingredient’s safety. Researchers have questioned conflicts of interest in that process (see Neltner et al. below). Whether any of these products is good or bad for you is yours to research.

What “bioengineered” on a label means

Since 2022, US rules require disclosure of some bioengineered ingredients, but with big loopholes. Highly refined ingredients like sugar and many oils can skip the label if modified DNA isn’t detectable, and meat and milk from animals fed GMO feed don’t need one. The disclosure can also be a QR code, which many people never scan.

GMOs: how far has it spread?

Over 90% of US corn, soybeans, and cotton are genetically engineered varieties. The USDA tracks the adoption data, and it’s the best count currently available. Corn and soy show up in processed food as sweeteners, oils, starches, and lecithin. So unless a product is labeled Organic or Non-GMO Project Verified, there’s a good chance it contains derivatives. GMO food is abundant in the US.

Why I don’t trust restaurant food anymore

Eating out used to be an occasional treat, but now it feels risky to me. Restaurants are buying from the same foods we’re finding available as consumers in the grocery store. A restaurant kitchen may not be as ruthless about ingredients on labels as I am. A restaurant is a business trying to earn a profit, which means they may be more likely motivated by prices than ingredients. When real butter gets expensive, plenty of kitchens switch to margarine, “butter blends,” or oil-based spreads, and the menu still says “buttered.” Some use a powdered multi-ingredient mystery mix instead of real eggs from a live chicken. Most restaurants aren’t required to tell you what’s in the food beyond major allergens, so you have no way to know unless you ask.

I have friends who love Dunkin’s here in New England. Try googling what their breakfast sandwich “eggs” are made out of. Spoiler alert- there’s no fresh cracked egg involved. In contrast, the Egg McMuffin from McDonalds still uses a real egg without fillers, although some of their other egg-based menu items use a processed, liquid egg ingredient. 

It’s worth paying attention to even the little things like coffee creamers and butter-like spread packets put on the table when you go out to eat. I challenge you to take a moment and READ them. I think you’ll be surprised what the ingredients actually are.

I follow a vegetarian eating plan, so I’m extra careful. Even food items that you’d think would be“vegetarian”safe can hide animal ingredients. And this goes beyond french fries cooked in shared fryers with meat, or things like rice seasoned with beef or chicken broth. When eating at a Texas Roadhouse restaurant a few years ago, my server noticed I didn’t order any meat, and asked if I was a vegetarian.  She said to me “Oh, you’re not going to like this, but that baked potato you ordered with just butter is made with bacon fat. It’s rubbed on the outside of the potato for flavor.” And now that I know, I choose not to eat it. But that’s a personal preference, not a food safety issue.  Still, I don’t think people are aware that stuff like that isn’t listed on restaurant menus. 

Plastic packaging

  • Can linings: Many cans are lined with epoxy resins, historically made with BPA, a known endocrine disruptor (see the Vandenberg et al. review). "BPA-free" often means a substitute that's less studied.
  • Grease-resistant wrappers and fast-food packaging: A 2017 study found fluorinated PFAS "forever chemicals" in a large share of US fast-food packaging of things like butter. We recently found out that the brand we’ve been buying as a healthy Irish stick butter choice for years, Kerrygold, falls in that category of having PFAS in the wrapper that can get into the food. We had to switch brands again.
  • Heat and fat make it more likely for chemicals to migrate into food, which is why I avoid hot or oily food in plastic.

Labels decoded

  • "Natural": It means almost nothing for most foods, it’s basically a marketing buzz word.
  • USDA Organic: Restricts synthetic pesticides and GMOs, with some exceptions.
  • Non-GMO Project Verified: A third-party program that tests and audits for GMOs.
  • "Natural flavors": A legal category covering flavorings derived from plant or animal sources, which can be heavily processed and include solvents and carriers. Companies don't have to say what's in them. Critics argue the line between "natural" and "artificial" is about where a molecule came from, not what it is. I avoid all artificial and natural flavors where I can, and have for years. But sometimes you have to compromise, and if the only healthy option has natural flavors and an otherwise decent ingredient list, I’ll reluctantly buy it if it’s something I really feel I need in my kitchen.

Hormones in meat and milk

Several hormone implants are used in US beef cattle, and a synthetic growth hormone (rBST) is used in some dairy. The EU bans hormone-treated beef. Researchers have raised concerns about exogenous estrogens in food and human development (Andersson & Skakkebaek, 1999), but the effect of dietary exposure on human fertility and growth is genuinely debated. This is a good one to read for yourself.

Processing that never makes the label

  • Produce washes: Fresh-cut produce like packaged carrots is often washed in chlorinated water, and the label doesn't mention it.
  • Lye peeling: Many canned tomatoes are peeled with hot lye solutions and rinsed.
  • Bone char: Some cane sugar refiners filter white sugar through bone char. It doesn't end up in the sugar, but it's why some people avoid it. Beet sugar and most organic sugar don't use it.

How this affects our bodies

A 2019 NIH study (Hall et al.) put people on ultra-processed or minimally processed diets. On the ultra-processed diet, they ate about 500 more calories per day and gained weight. A 2024 umbrella review in the BMJ linked high ultra-processed intake with worse outcomes across a range of conditions, including mental health. Most of this is association, not proof, and researchers are still sorting out which part is to blame: the sugar, the additives, or what's missing. But the direction of the evidence is hard to ignore, and I pay attention to how my own brain, mood, and energy feel after what I eat.

Some good news

People are starting to pay more attention to this. More people are baking sourdough bread from scratch– not me yet, but hopefully soon! Farmers markets and CSAs are growing, and more people are cooking at home from scratch with actual, real, whole foods. 

If you’re going to buy food from a farm, get to know your local farmers, how they care for their animals, and how they raise their crops.  At our house, we have organic gardens and hens for eggs, but not all farm-stands are chemical-free, so evaluate farm food with the same care you use when reading an ingredient list at the grocery store.

So what can you do?

  1. Read the ingredient list, not the front of the package. Shorter is usually better.
  2. Cook from single-ingredient foods.
  3. Buy cheese by the block, spices whole, and coffee as beans.
  4. Buy honey and olive oil from sources you can trace, like local beekeepers and producers who print a harvest date.
  5. Look for the new vocabulary: "plant-based," "animal-free," "cultivated," "cell-based" and “bioengineered.”
  6. Ask restaurants what they cook with. "Is this real butter?" is a fair question.
  7. Choose glass or stainless steel over plastic, especially for hot or fatty foods.
  8. Look for third-party certifications on labels, not just brand marketing claims.
  9. Change one thing at a time. Bake bread, make your own salad dressing, or cook one more meal at home each week.
  10.  (And this is the most important, I believe) Do your own deeper research from multiple sources. Check out the ones I’ve listed below, find others that disagree, and then decide for yourself!

My goal today was to empower you with information for your personal health and wellness, so that you can make informed decisions about what you CHOOSE to put into your body.

And let’s not forget that your physical body affects your emotional body and mind, too. I pay attention to this in my own life. If you’re feeling bloated, tired, and sluggish from something you ate, what does that do to your mood? Maybe this week, pay attention to how you feel after eating.

Until next time, have a fabulous week, my friends.

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