You’ll want to sit down for this one.
It appears that Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) have some real competition coming down the pike.
Artificial lab meat is now being “grown” from pig stem cells fed with fetal horse serum.
Scientists in the Netherlands are indeed on the cusp of developing “slaughter-free” meat produced solely in a lab environment. One expert went so far as to predict that the first stem cell sausage could be available within 6 months.
Dr. Mark Post of Maastricht University said, “I’m hopeful we can have a hamburger in a year.”
The biggest problem scientists are dealing with right now is that lab meat is white due to the lack of myoglobin, the iron carrying blood protein that gives meat its color.
Dr. Post said that scientists are working on ways to build up the myoglobin in the synthetic meat to give it more color and hence be more appetizing to consumers. In short, the vegan alternative to gassing meat in supermarkets to keep it perpetually red!
Farmers do not appear threatened by this new development – at least not yet.
A spokesperson for the Cattle Council of Australia said the large amount of FrankenMeat that would need to be produced and the difficulty in doing so on a mass scale precludes any competition for the foreseeable future.
You can be sure when mass production of lab meat does become financially viable, fast food chains will be all over it. They’ve already shown themselves to be more than willing to partially substitute cheap, MSG laced soy protein as a filler for conventional beef to cut costs.
The real question, however, seems to be:Â will vegetarians eat it? Since they already gobble up edamame misguidedly thinking it’s a vegetable, the chances are probably pretty good.
I am guessing that, as the Earth gets its 7 billionth person this autumn, this will be marketed as a way to feed the world. As developing countries are starting to eat more and more meat in their diets, the demand may outstrip the supply, because as more and more housing and such goes up, less and less land will be available for grazing and agriculture. Real meat will be reserved for more high end cuts like steaks which will be VERY hard to grow in a lab (and become extremely expensive), but anything with ground meat as one ingredient amongst many is going to have this nasty stuff. Because, as Taco Bell has proven recently, most people can’t tell the difference anymore anyway. I am also afraid about the gradual incorporation of it into most people’s diets by mixing it with real meat until we just don’t care when they tell us we have been eating it already for a few years…
I agree … it will be likely be marketed as environmentally good and humane because it will help “feed the world” with no slaughtering of animals – the same arguments used to promote GMO soy and now soy protein is practically in everything that is processed.
Frankenmeat! Get your frankenmeat here! Move Over Soy Protein: Lab Meat on the Horizon – The Healthy Home Economist http://t.co/w2Vw0Ee
OMG.
another country was making poo meat, which is too gross for words. this is almost as bad..
gross
ew.
No, no no a thousand times NO.
gross
It really has gotten to the point that scientists will do something just because they can and never consider whether or not they should like they use to.
Move Over Soy Protein: Lab Meat on the Horizon – The Healthy Home Economist http://t.co/T5uG1vh