#stem cell meat

[robthepensioner]

Over Wyre.

Sometimes, cattle look as if they are posing for the camera.

The sooner we have stem cell meat grown in factories, the better I will feel about eating beef.

[plantyherbivore]

My biggest problem with the stem cell meat is that it's fucking ridiculous. Are you desperate for a fucking hamburger that you just have to make it out of meat, YOU CAN NOT JUST EAT A FUCKING VEGGIE BURGER? Is it so goddamn important to you that it's made out of dead animals that you think it's better that scientists spend a ridiculous amount of money on growing stem cells than just STOP EATING MEAT it's not that fucking hard.

[americanlivewire-blog]

New Post has been published on American Live Wire

New Post has been published on http://americanlivewire.com/stem-cell-burger/

Stem Cell Burger

LONDON (AP) — For hamburgers that cost more than $300,000 to produce, you might expect fries and a shake too.

Image by iledefrancecheese

But this is no ordinary burger being served to two volunteer taste-testers in London on Monday. This meat was grown in a laboratory from stem cells of cattle.

Mark Post, whose team at Maastricht University in the Netherlands developed the burger after five years of research, hopes that making meat in labs could eventually help solve the food crisis and fight climate change.

But Post says success doesn’t hinge on science. “For the burger to succeed it has to look, feel and taste like the real thing,” he said.

The meat was made from cow muscle cells from two organic cows. The resulting patties will be seasoned with salt, egg powder, breadcrumbs, red beet juice and saffron.

Post and colleagues took muscle cells from a cow and put them into a nutrient solution to help them develop into muscle tissue. The muscle cells grew into small strands of meat, and it takes nearly 20,000 strands to make one 140-gram (5-ounce) burger.

The project cost 250,000 euros ($332,000).

“I’m a vegetarian but I would be first in line to try this,” said Jonathan Garlick, a stem cell researcher at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine in Boston. He has used similar techniques to make human skin but wasn’t involved in the burger research.

Experts say new ways of producing meat are needed to satisfy growing carnivorous appetites without exhausting resources. By 2050, the Food and Agriculture Organization predicts global meat consumption will double as more people in developing countries can afford it. Breeding animals destined for the dinner table takes up about 70 percent of all agricultural land.

The animal rights group PETA has thrown its support behind the lab-meat initiative.

“As long as there’s anybody who’s willing to kill a chicken, a cow or a pig to make their meal, we are all for this,” said Ingrid Newkirk, PETA’s president and co-founder. “Instead of the millions and billions (of animals) being slaughtered now, we could just clone a few cells to make burgers or chops.”

Mark Post, developer of the stem cell burger. (AP Photo/Bogdan Maran)

If the burger doesn’t taste right, some scientists said the flavor can easily be tweaked.

“Taste is the least (important) problem since this could be controlled by letting some of the stem cells develop into fat cells,” said Stig Omholt, director of biotechnology at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. Adding fat to the burgers this way would probably be healthier than getting it from naturally chunky cows, Omholt said.

Post and his colleagues have tasted the meat in the lab, and he said they cooked a test burger on Sunday.

Even if Monday’s public taste test is positive, it would be years before such burgers hit the market.

“The first (lab-made) meat products are going to be very exclusive,” said Isha Datar, director of New Harvest, an international non-profit that promotes meat alternatives. “These burgers won’t be in Happy Meals before someone rich and famous is eating it.”

Some questions and answers about the science behind the revolutionary patty.

Q: What are stem cells?

A: Stem cells are an organism’s master cells and can be turned into any other cell type in the body, i.e. blood, tissue, muscle, etc.

Q: Why is the meat so expensive to produce?

A: The technology is new and scientists are making very small quantities of meat. There are no economies of scale to offset the initial high costs. If more scientists or companies start using the technology to produce more meat products, that could drop the price substantially.

Q: When could this meat be in stores?

A: Probably not for another 10 to 20 years. It would take years to refine the technology, encourage other producers and scientists to get involved, and overcome any regulatory issues.

Q: How is this better for the environment?

A: It could reduce the number of animals needed for the meat industry. Raising cows, pigs, chickens, etc. contributes substantially to climate change through the production of methane gas. Growing meat in the laboratory could reduce the impact on agricultural land, water and resources.

Q: How long does it take to grow a burger?

A: At the moment, a long time. It has taken two years for scientists to grow enough meat for two hamburgers. The research into the process started in 2006. Once there are enough strands of meat (about 20,000 small strands), scientists can form a five-ounce (140-gram) hamburger patty in about two hours.

Q: What are the implications for vegetarians?

A: PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, supports attempts to grow meat in labs because they say that will greatly diminish the amount of animal suffering. Donor animals are needed for the muscle cells, but taking those samples doesn’t hurt the animal. One sample can theoretically provide up to 20,000 tons of lab-made meat. But lab-grown meat is still meat, and not an option for vegetarians.

Q: Is it possible to make other kinds of meat in the laboratory?

A: Yes. The science is theoretically the same, so the same techniques should also allow researchers to make chicken, fish, lamb, etc. Dutch researcher Mark Post, who led the research on the lab-made hamburger, started working with pig cells. He had intended to make a sausage, but his American funder suggested a hamburger instead.

Q: Can they make other meat products?

A: At the moment, scientists are only working on making processed or minced meat, because that is the easiest kind to replicate. Processed meat accounts for about half of the meat market. Post said it should be possible to make more complicated cuts like steaks or chops in the future, but that involves using more advanced tissue engineering techniques. He estimates that it might be possible to make a steak in about 20 years.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.