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Ear to the Ground

Test-Tube Meat May Be En Route to Dinner Table

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Posted on Jul 6, 2006
Engineered Muscle
From Wired News / Tissue Genesis

Above, muscle tissue engineered from single muscle cells harvested from rats. Tissue engineers Paul Kosnik and Robert Dennis used a scaffold-free method to engineer muscle tissue that has the same basic form as a muscle from an animal grown for meat.

Dutch scientists are working on growing artificial pork out of pig stem cells. Efforts to mass-produce it are underway.
This use of stem cells may have the unintended effect of uniting militant vegans and evangelical right-to-life’ers.


Wired News:

What if the next burger you ate was created in a warm, nutrient-enriched soup swirling within a bioreactor?

Edible, lab-grown ground chuck that smells and tastes just like the real thing might take a place next to Quorn at supermarkets in just a few years, thanks to some determined meat researchers. Scientists routinely grow small quantities of muscle cells in petri dishes for experiments, but now for the first time a concentrated effort is under way to mass-produce meat in this manner.

Henk Haagsman, a professor of meat sciences at Utrecht University, and his Dutch colleagues are working on growing artificial pork meat out of pig stem cells. They hope to grow a form of minced meat suitable for burgers, sausages and pizza toppings within the next few years.

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By Alex, November 30, 2007 at 1:51 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

The future is now, you can’t just put your head in the sand hope this technology goes away. There was a fear in the early 20th century that if a human goes beyond 60mph that it would adversely affect their health.  Do you believe this to be the case now?  I believe this technology is how the human species will be able to survive and sustain population in the 30 Billion range.

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By Frankster, July 7, 2006 at 2:03 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

OMG, WTF.  I am an unrepentant carnivore, but the thought of eating ‘cultured meat’ makes my stomach turn. I would go vegan before eating this frankenmeat.

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By Farakon, July 7, 2006 at 9:33 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Well good.  You guys can eat the vat grown mystery meat and I’ll go right on ahead eating real food.  I don’t have any idea where this idea is coming from that we are “running out of food.”  There is loads of food.  We pay farmers not to grow food in this country.

You can brew all the vat meat you want but the poor of the world will still not be able to afford it.  It’s economic injustice we are up against.  Not a food shortage.

http://faculty.plattsburgh.edu/richard.robbins/legacy/hunger_readings.htm

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By Msa, July 7, 2006 at 8:18 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Once again, science fiction becomes reality.  “Attack of the Clones” is not far off.

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By Brandon, July 6, 2006 at 7:23 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Your claim is absurd: “This use of stem cells may have the unintended effect of uniting militant vegans and evangelical right-to-life’ers.”  Right to lifers care about *human* stem cells from embryos and are otherwise okay with stem cell research.  Vegans might be a little offended, as taking a pig’s stem cells is animal exploitation, but the resulting product would be far superior to them than killing millions of animals for meat. 

You guys seem really intelligent, but that was one hell of stretch.

Also, when the product comes out, assuming the stuff is safe, I’ll go out of my way for it.  I try not to think of dead animals when I eat meat now; why would it be so difficult to force out of my head thoughts of an emotionless, unthinking, inanimate petri dishes?

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By paperorplastic, July 6, 2006 at 6:46 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Ever eaten an MRE?  This can’t be any worse than they are.  Cloned pork - the other cloned white meat.

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By Patrick, July 6, 2006 at 5:40 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Well, look at it this way. What’s more disgusting, muscle tissue grown in clean controlled conditions that is both edible and nutritious, or muscle tissue that was next to organs and skin and the digestive tract? I would think a petri dish is a bit cleaner then a cow’s insides..

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By Ezra Logo, July 6, 2006 at 3:45 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

With the population of this planet increasing rapidly, we need to find more sources of protein. The fish stocks are being depleted. It takes 9 gallons of water for every pound of beef that is grown. Bird flu is decimating populations of chickens. So what’s wrong with this method. If produced on a large scale, It would mean less slaughtering of animals (which would please the animal activists), More protein could be produce on less land. Perhaps they would grow tenderloins pre-marinaded.

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By Farakon, July 6, 2006 at 12:54 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

That is about the nastiest thing I’ve ever heard of.  I will never, ever, consume this product.  Not that I think it will be unhealthy it’s just… yuck.

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