Scientists at Harvard Achieve ‘Breakthrough’ in Production of Fake Meat
“a formless blob of synthetic protein”
Does anyone else find the notion or ‘fake meat’ a little gross?
The College Fix reports:
Harvard scientists achieve ‘breakthrough’ in manufacturing fake meat
The Harvard Crimson reports that scientists at the Ivy League university have achieved a “breakthrough” in the production of lab-grown fake meat, reportedly creating a mock meat substance with a chewier, “realistic texture.”
The Harvard team behind the faux-meat substance had reportedly been growing what one researcher described as a “pile of cells,” a formless blob of synthetic protein. That deprived eaters of the familiar consistency offered by real meat.
Yet the scientists were able to “induce cow and rabbit muscle cells to grow on gelatin scaffolds,” after which the cells “crawl[ed] inside and organized into tissue that looks and feels a lot like meat:”
Postdoctoral research fellow Christophe O. Chantre, who co-authored the study, said that while alternative meat products like the Impossible Burger are currently “wildly popular,” he believes lab-grown meat is on the cusp of exploding in popularity.
“I think this is really going to become actually a big part of our market of meat as we move forward in the next couple decades,” he said. “And it has these added benefits that it uses a lot less resources and eliminates cruel animal treatments.”
MacQueen said such ethical implications motivated him throughout the project.
“I like meat a lot, and I like animals a lot, so if I got to have my meat without killing them, then I would,” he said. “I would be a consumer of this product.”
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
How much you wanna bet that this synthetic product that “uses far less resources” will still manage to cost 3 times as much?
Lab grown meat lacks fat cells so it’s going to be dry, nasty and tasteless.
I’m a goo man. I sell goo. South Park was WAY ahead of this story. 😉
Funny this should pop up, because on trip the weekend before last I was in a cafe that had the “Impossible Burger” on the menu. So I ordered that and a regular burger and took bites of each one, alternating between. Just for the hell of it.
Both were edible. The soy burger has 25% more calories in the “patty” than beef, and like a lot of vegan stuff is loaded with salt in hopes of making it taste like anything. Which it didn’t. “Impossible Burger” won’t make you throw up, but you’ll sit there not tasting the “burger” and chuckle, or at least I did.
Afterwards, I looked at the ingredients list. One of them is methylcellulose. It’s used to add bulk to the engineered soy. Elsewhere, it’s used as a laxative (“Citrical”) and is the sole ingredient in K-Y lubricant.
Honest, I’m lube-friendly as all get-out, but I have not been in the habit of eating it. I suppose I should look on the bright side: At least they didn’t put Vaseline in those things.
Beyond the snickering, I’d note that “Impossible Burger” is full of highly-processed stuff. Now, I’m not a food purist by any stretch, but I have to laugh because the same vegans who go for that crap typically lecture about highly processed food. Well, you can’t get more more processed than “Impossible Burger” or its cousin (based not on soy, but on engineered peas) “Beyond Burger.”
I think I’ll stick with the real thing. As for Harvard’s invention, well, those people haven’t accumulated a great track record lately, have they?