Guest The Pom Queen Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 I'm sorry but I don't think I would want to try it, I suppose the sausages can't taste any worse than they do already. A Maastricht Univeristy professor has spent the last six years trying to turn stem cells - ‘master cells’ with the power to turn into all other cell types - into meat. The new meat could be an ethical alternative to beef His first attempts involved mouse burgers. He then tried to grow pork in a dish, producing strips with the rubbery texture of squid or scallops, before settling on beef. A four-step technique is used to turn stem cells from animal flesh into a burger. First, the stem cells are stripped from the cow’s muscle. Next, they are incubated in a nutrient broth until they multiply many times over, creating a sticky tissue with the consistency of an undercooked egg. This ‘wasted muscle’ is then bulked up through the laboratory equivalent of exercise - it is anchored to Velcro and stretched. Finally, 3,000 strips of the lab-grown meat are minced, and, along with 200 pieces of lab-grown animal fat, formed into a burger. The process is still lengthy, as well as expensive, but optimised, it could take just six weeks from stem cell to supermarket shelf. Yesterday, Professor Post told the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s annual conference in Vancouver that he has so far made a strip of beef measuring 3cm by 1.5cm by 0.5cm. This beef is ‘pinkish to yellow’ in colour - but he is confident of having a full-sized and properly coloured burger by the autumn. The professor, who is funded by an anonymous but highly-successful benefactor, said: ‘It’s not quite ready, it’s going to be presented in October. ‘We are going to provide a proof of concept, showing that out of stem cells you can produce a product that looks like and feels like and hopefully tastes like meat. ‘Seeing and tasting is believing.’ Sausages and other processed meat products could swiftly follow, although pork chops and sirloin steaks will be much more problematic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freckleface Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 I knew I was a vegetarian for a reason. That sounds a bit off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest AKA63029 Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 Believe me Kate as a former 'sausage operative,:eek: this sounds one of the better ingredients. Fact of the day. Up till 12 years ago the UK used to import 7% of it;s pork meat from the far east. Cheap as chips it was UNTIL it was discovered that the vasty majority of this meat was reared by 'subsistence' farmers, no problem there, BUT. The vast majority of pig framers in the areas we bought the meat from used human waste to feed their animals.:chatterbox: Puts a whole new slant on the saying, 'Sxxx, that was a good burger'.:embarrassed: Cheers Tony. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supa Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 I don't see a problem with it in theory, though I'd have to know a bit more about it. The world will be reaching a real food crisis in the future and there won't be enough burgers to go around, so why not. When you think about all the ground up crp that goes into processed meat, is it really any worse? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RockDr Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 To be honest I don't have that much issue with the concept of "growing" meat. Would get rid of a lot of the ethical issues surrounding the meat industry. It's got a long long way to go though... so no, I won't be trying this particular burger... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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