Pass the Mustard - Lab Grown Meat Tasted In London

 In-Vitro Meat  

At a televised event in London, two volunteers took part in the first public preparation and eating of hamburger grown in a lab. Mark Post, whose team at Maastricht University in the Netherlands developed the burger, hopes that making meat in labs could eventually help feed the world and fight climate change.

F or the first time, a lab-grown burger has been cooked and eaten at a news conference in London.

The reason behind the burger is to find new ways to increase food production while reducing pressure on the environment and increasing animal welfare.

According to the United Nations, there will be some nine billion people on Earth by the middle of this century. Globally, people are becoming more wealthy with a correspondingly greater appetite for meat and it’s projected that there will be a 130 percent increase in demand in East Asia and Pacific regions alone.

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“What we are trying today is important because I hope it will show cultured beef has the answers to major problems that the world faces,” says Professor Mark Post of Maastricht University.

“Our burger is made from muscle cells taken from a cow. We haven’t altered them in any way. For it to succeed it has to look, feel and hopefully taste like the real thing.”

The scientists took stem cells from a cow and, at an institute in the Netherlands, turned them into strips of muscle that they combined to make a patty.

One food expert said it was "close to meat, but not that juicy" and another said it tasted like a real burger.

The burger was cooked by chef Richard McGeown, and tasted by food critics Hanni Ruetzler and Josh Schonwald.

Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, has been revealed as the project's mystery backer. He funded the £215,000 ($330,000) research.

Presently ,scientists can only make small pieces of meat; larger ones would require artificial circulatory systems to distribute nutrients and oxygen.

In a statement, animal welfare campaigners People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) said: "[Lab-grown meat] will spell the end of lorries full of cows and chickens, abattoirs and factory farming. It will reduce carbon emissions, conserve water and make the food supply safer."

SOURCE  BBC

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