Your cat may one day eat cultured mouse-meat food
Ponder this: If our canine and feline friends made up their own country, they’d be the world’s fifth-largest consumer of meat among the league of nations. That’s so much kibble that boutique pet food makers are starting to consider alternative sources for pet food. One maker, Because Animals, is extracting cells from mice and rabbits—close to what dogs and cats might enjoy in the wild—and growing them in a machine called a bioreactor, which “functions as a sort of womb,” writes Modern Farmer. The company’s mouse meat cat food is scheduled to hit a pet store near you next year (bet it will be on the premium aisle, with grain-free kangaroo-meat formulas, bison stew, and the like). There will be more on the menu/market in 2023; another maker will introduce food that got its start from the DNA in a chicken’s blood. “The challenge wasn’t to create a chicken breast or a steak or a pork chop for consumption,” said a representative of Bond Pet Food, but to provide more protein for the four-legged members of the family.
