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Harvard Prof Developing Lab-Grown Meat for Human Consumption

Harvard Prof Developing Lab-Grown Meat for Human Consumption

“fat is where the flavor is”

Something about the very concept of this just seems gross. I’m not sure I would even try it.

WGBH reports:

Slaughter-Free Steak Served Up At Harvard Laboratory

Kit Parker, bioengineering and applied physics professor at Harvard University, joined Boston Public Radio on Thursday to speak about the meat he’s developing at an on-campus lab for human consumption which is made completely of animal cells.

“All meat that we eat is muscle cells,” Parker said. “You can take stem cells and grow them up into muscles, and then take stem cells and grow them up into fat, which is really important because fat is where the flavor is.”

Parker added that making sure the taste and texture of lab grown meat is consistent with meat from a living animal is essential to consumer satisfaction.

“We’re working on live meat, or animal meat… so you can grow a steak in the lab,” Parker said. “Taste and texture are the two big parameters that we’re concerned with and I think we’re the first to crack the nut on texture, and I think we’ll be a reporting a breakthrough later this year on the fat engineering, so we can put the muscle and fat together.”

Parker said he thinks the tissue-engineered meat could be available for public consumerism in a few years.

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Comments

Only at Harvard could some moron invent a steak without a cow.

Free State Paul | January 4, 2020 at 9:08 pm

This is pretty cool. You could clone any kind of meat. Think of the possibilities:

– Tiger Tacos
– Giant Panda Patties
– Kentucky Fried Cheetah
– Silver Back Gorilla Goulash
– Kashmir Stag Steak
– Beyoncé Burgers (“because everyone deserves a taste of fame.”)

This is wonderful. And it’s our future. If you think it’s gross you’re just a luddite. In a few generations all meat will come from such processes and our descendants will think eating meat from living animals is gross.

    Free State Paul in reply to Milhouse. | January 4, 2020 at 11:32 pm

    I’m afraid that in a few generations, all our meat will come from hunting, and our descendants will think that eating meat from farming is fantastical.

Most afflicted will be vegans and animal rights groups.