Q&A: Are Stem Cells Considered Meat?
Originally published:
This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.
Are Stem Cells Considered Meat?
Question
If a person wants to eat stem cells from an animal, would that be considered a meat food or not? In other words, is the prohibition only on eating meat with milk, while other parts of the animal’s body—such as skin, bones, and various cells that are not muscle tissue—are not prohibited?
Answer
I haven’t dealt with this issue, so I’m answering off the cuff. At the level of a single cell, many halakhic decisors say that it does not have the status of meat (and this has practical implications for growing artificial tissue from a cell taken from a living animal). Not because these are stem cells, but because this would apply to any cell.