World's first lab-grown burger is eaten in London

 

The world's first lab-grown burger was cooked and eaten at a news conference in London on Monday.

 

Scientists took cells from a cow and, at an institute in the Netherlands, turned them into strips of muscle that they combined to make a patty. Researchers say the technology could be a sustainable way of meeting what they say is a growing demand for meat.

 

Critics say that eating less meat would be an easier way to tackle predicted food shortages. The burger was cooked by chef Richard McGeown, from Cornwall, and tasted by food critics Hanni Ruetzler and Josh Schonwald.

 

Upon tasting the burger, Austrian food researcher Ms Ruetzler said: "I was expecting the texture to be more soft... there is quite some intense taste; it's close to meat, but it's not that juicy. The consistency is perfect, but I miss salt and pepper."

 

She added: "This is meat to me. It's not falling apart."

 

Food writer Mr Schonwald said: "The mouthfeel is like meat. I miss the fat, there's a leanness to it, but the general bite feels like a hamburger. "What was consistently different was flavour."

 

Prof Mark Post, of Maastricht University, the scientist behind the burger, remarked: "It's a very good start."

 

The professor said the meat was made up of tens of billions of lab-grown cells. Asked when lab-grown burgers would reach the market, he said: "I think it will take a while. This is just to show we can do it."

 

Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, has been revealed as the project's mystery backer. Prof Tara Garnett, head of the Food Policy Research Network at Oxford University, said decision-makers needed to look beyond technological solutions.

 

"We have a situation where 1.4 billion people in the world are overweight and obese, and at the same time one billion people worldwide go to bed hungry," she said. "That's just weird and unacceptable. The solutions don't just lie with producing more food but changing the systems of supply and access and affordability, so not just more food but better food gets to the people who need it."

 

Stem cells are the body's "master cells", the templates from which specialised tissue such as nerve or skin cells develop. Most institutes working in this area are trying to grow human tissue for transplantation to replace worn-out or diseased muscle, nerve cells or cartilage. Prof Post is using similar techniques to grow muscle and fat for food.

 

He starts with stem cells extracted from cow muscle tissue. In the laboratory, these are cultured with nutrients and growth-promoting chemicals to help them develop and multiply. Three weeks later, there are more than a million stem cells, which are put into smaller dishes where they coalesce into small strips of muscle about a centimetre long and a few millimetres thick.

 

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23576143

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6jj24rrp84]Test Tube Burger Tasted By Food Experts - YouTube[/ame]

Did Heston have anything to do with it?

^Uh, no, it looks like he didn't. It would be somewhat plausible he could've been (Maybe not deeply on the scientific side but pushing through the idea it could be done, maybe for funding it or something), though I'm sure it would've been mentioned.

 

Was that like a joke? Just add a rolleye smiley and that was Mark-esque.

To be honest I wouldn't put anything passed Heston, he is quite a cookery genius.

 

His popcorn icecream is glorious

I hope we get to a stage where meat can be made this way and tastes like the meat we know now. They'll get closer and closer I imagine. I'm able to detach myself from the whole eating an animal side of thing easily. I'll never give up meat. I once went a whole week only eating meat and I also like fois gras so er yeah. But if I had the option of eating something that tasted like meat but wasn't then I'd choose that over meat every time. It would seriously have to taste like meat though.

^ :nod:

 

Maybe in the future we can grow ourselves some kind of meat plants :wacky:

And implants made of meat!

Until they find out it is bad for you somehow.

But did you stop eating meat when you found out it was bad for you?

Everything is bad for you.

Everything is bad for you.

I was about to say that haha. From the day we're thrown into this world everything is trying to kill us.

I think this is great although if all meat is produced like this i can't help but wonder what would happen to all the farmers

I think this is great although if all meat is produced like this i can't help but wonder what would happen to all the farmers

Mmh yeah :uhoh: Maybe they'll try to get new jobs as meat plant farmers :wacky:

But did you stop eating meat when you found out it was bad for you?

Everything is bad for you.

 

I only eat lean meats which aren't really bad for me, unless I missed the memo.

 

I think this is great although if all meat is produced like this i can't help but wonder what would happen to all the farmers

 

They'd get a job at a fast food burger joint serving them?

I only eat lean meats which aren't really bad for me, unless I missed the memo.

 

Better for you, but there's increases in chance of heart disease in most food. Just depends how much.

 

And it isn't good for the animal, that's for sure.

 

 

I fucking love meat though.

I'll wait to try this until they come out with lab-created beef wellington... *raises pinky finger*

I really can't see all the old farmers working in a fast food place especially in the rural communities, i imagine there would be protests though.

I have no idea, but perhaps it would free up farming to concentrate on other areas such as different crops and making money through promoting other sustainable foods? Hopefully some GM stuff.

 

Of course it might just make things more crippling for them. Just trying to think of alternatives.

Free up farming? In any way? Farmers right now, and for the past decade, are living on acres of land, using machinery that costs tens of thousands of pounds, and making the equivalent of minimum wage.

 

Nearly any farmer has had to adapt to doing basically anything to survive financially. If this burger works nutritionally then as soon as it becomes viable, roll it out to people who are desperate for it, but that won't happen for a long time.

Can that land be used to grow something? My uncle is making a lot of money growing corn. I don't know enough about the farmland in England to know if something like wheat or corn could be produced instead.

land can be used to grow crops, but with unpredictable weather and global warming making things worse so much of the crops die and what's left has less nutritional value so more must be spent on fertiliser which is ridiculously expensive and the supermarkets/corporations constantly cut prices paid to the farmers while they are sitting on millions and farmers are lucky if they aren't in thousands of pounds of debt.

Well that's how i've seen things i know there are farmers who are a bit better off i think they tend to diversify in some ways and it's so much tougher for farmers who have to rent land and farm buildings.

I think going forward, commodities are going to be much more expensive and farming will be good business. But the problem is corporate farms in bed with the government screwing over the smaller farmers. My family has been pressured by the big corporate farms forever. But I agree with Jim Rogers as being very bullish on farming in the next 50 years. The question will be, will smaller farmers enjoy the better market or be cut out by governments/corporations?

where's the beef horses