Nutritional considerations to inform nutritional safety assessments of foods derived from cellular agriculture: A scoping review protocol

TL;DR

This paper outlines a review protocol to assess the nutritional quality of cell-cultured foods and identify research gaps.

Contribution

The study introduces a structured approach to evaluate nutritional aspects of cellular agriculture foods for regulatory purposes.

Findings

The review will compile existing knowledge on nutritional quality of cell-cultured food products.

It will identify gaps in understanding nutritional implications of cellular agriculture.

Findings will support Health Canada's assessments of novel foods from cellular agriculture.

Abstract

Cellular agriculture is the production of meat, milk, eggs, seafood, and other products and ingredients from cell cultures rather than from farmed animals. It is an emerging field in food innovation that has gained attention of the scientific community, food industry, and regulators around the world. This scoping review aims to summarize existing knowledge on cell-cultured food products, focusing on key aspects that impact their nutritional quality and identifying knowledge gaps in this area. Relevant publications will be identified from electronic databases and the grey literature. This review will include scientific publications (peer-reviewed journal articles; reports from regulatory, scientific, or non-governmental bodies) that report or discuss nutritional considerations concerning cell-cultured food products derived from plant or animal cells. Based on pre-determined inclusion and exclusion criteria, records from scientific databases will be screened and selected by two independent reviewers, while records from grey literature will be screened by one reviewer. Data from the included references will be extracted by one reviewer using pre-piloted extraction templates, and verified by a second reviewer. The findings will inform and strengthen Health Canada’s nutritional assessments of novel foods derived from cellular agriculture. Identified research gaps will provide opportunities for future research in this area.

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