[quote]LONDON (Jan. 15) --Dutch scientists have been growing pork in the laboratory since 2006, and while they admit they haven't gotten the texture quite right or even tasted the engineered meat, they say the technology promises to have widespread implications for our food supply.
"If we took the stem cells from one pig and multiplied it by a factor of a million, we would need one million fewer pigs to get the same amount of meat," said Mark Post, a biologist at Maastricht University involved in the In-vitro Meat Consortium, a network of publicly funded Dutch research institutions that is carrying out the experiments.
Post describes the texture of the meat as sort of like scallop, firm but a little squishy and moist. That's because the lab meat has less protein content than conventional meat.
In the U.S., similar research was funded by NASA, which hoped astronauts would be able to grow their own meat in space. But after growing disappointingly thin sheets of tissue, NASA gave up and decided it would be better for its astronauts to simply eat vegetarian.
To make pork in the lab, Post and colleagues isolate stem cells from pigs' muscle cells. They then put those cells into a nutrient-based soup that helps the cells replicate to the desired number.
So far the scientists have only succeeded in creating strips of meat about 1 centimeter (a half inch) long; to make a small pork chop, Post estimates it would take about 30 days of cell replication in the lab.
There are tantalizing health possibilities in the technology.
Fish stem cells could be used to produce healthy omega 3 fatty acids, which could be mixed with the lab-produced pork instead of the usual artery-clogging fats found in livestock meat.
"You could possibly design a hamburger that prevents heart attacks instead of causing them," Matheny said.
None of the researchers have actually eaten the lab-made meat yet, but Post said the lower protein content means it probably wouldn't taste anything like pork.
Some experts warn lab-made meats might have potential dangers for human health.
"With any new technology, there could be subtle impacts that need to be monitored," said Emma Hockridge, policy manager at Soil Association, Britain's leading organic organization.
As with genetically modified foods, Hockridge said it might take some time to prove the new technology doesn't harm humans. She also said organic farming relies on crop and livestock rotation, and that taking animals out of the equation could damage the ecosystem.
Hanna Tuomisto, who studies the environmental impact of food production at Oxford University said that switching to lab-produced meat could theoretically lower greenhouse gas emissions by up to 95 percent. Both land and water use would also drop by about 95 percent, she said.
"In theory, if all the meat was replaced by cultured meat, it would be huge for the environment," she said. "One animal could produce many thousands of kilograms of meat." In addition, lab meat can be nurtured with relatively few nutrients like amino acids, fats and natural sugars, whereas livestock must be fed huge amounts of traditional crops.
Tuomisto said the technology could potentially increase the world's meat supply and help fight global hunger, but that would depend on how many factories there are producing the lab-made meat.
Post and colleagues haven't worked out how much the meat would cost to produce commercially, but because there would be much less land, water and energy required, he guessed that once production reached an industrial level, the cost would be equivalent to or lower than that of conventionally produced meat.[/quote]
Source: [url]http://www.sphere.com/science/article/scientists-turn-stem-cells-into-pork/19319475[/url]
:science:
[sp]Article has been altered to prevent it from reaching 'tl;dr' status because everyone's too lazy to fucking read[/sp]:downs:
YAY now we can eat meat without killing animals.
Probably tastes like shit though.
[QUOTE=Eudoxia;19667903]YAY now we can eat meat without killing animals.[/QUOTE]
Overpopulation, ahoy!
Awesome
[QUOTE=Eudoxia;19667903]YAY now we can eat meat without killing animals.[/QUOTE]
That kind of takes the fun out of it.
[QUOTE=T2L_Goose;19667932]That kind of takes the fun out of it.[/QUOTE]
I need to know that my bacon suffered.
It makes it taste better.
[QUOTE=davidofmk771;19667956]I need to know that my bacon suffered.
It makes it taste better.[/QUOTE]
It does.
[QUOTE=davidofmk771;19667956]I need to know that my bacon suffered.
It makes it taste better.[/QUOTE]
people who work with animals like that are trained to make their death painless
Real pork will always taste better.
But we need to kill babies instead
[QUOTE=Kylel999;19667981]people who work with animals like that are trained to make their death painless[/QUOTE]
*Sigh*
Thanks for ruining bacon.
I wonder what the possible dangers of eating it would be like they say.
The more living things died to make my bacon the better.
[QUOTE=cheeseman52;19667988]Real pork will always taste better.[/QUOTE]
To be honest the only pork I like is Bacon. All other pork is fucking gross as hell.
[QUOTE=T2L_Goose;19668056]To be honest the only pork I like is Bacon. All other pork is fucking gross as hell.[/QUOTE]
Excuse me, but all pork is delicious.
[QUOTE=T2L_Goose;19668056]To be honest the only pork I like is Bacon. All other pork is fucking gross as hell.[/QUOTE]
No! It is delicious.
I made meatballs made of pork today (Danish dish called frikadeller)!
The only thing i don't eat on the pork is the bones and the rectum!
Bacon :buddy:
[QUOTE=reeferdk;19668595]
The only thing i don't eat on the pork is the bones and the rectum![/QUOTE]
That's good to know I guess.
yay lets abort fetuses, sculpt them into the shape of steaks and put a bit of grinded meat next to them and eat them! Personally I'm only gonna try this if they use synthetic stem cells.
NO NO NO NO! I need to know that my animals suffered a terrible death before I eat them. It wouldn't be the same!
[QUOTE=Zenreon117;19668722]yay lets abort fetuses, sculpt them into the shape of steaks and put a bit of grinded meat next to them and eat them! Personally I'm only gonna try this if they use synthetic stem cells.[/QUOTE]
There are different ways to get stem cells than aborted fetuses.
Synth-Meat? Well i'll be darned, it looks like vegetarians can't argue anymore.
[QUOTE=Zenreon117;19668722]yay lets abort fetuses, sculpt them into the shape of steaks and put a bit of grinded meat next to them and eat them! Personally I'm only gonna try this if they use synthetic stem cells.[/QUOTE]
the problem with people like you is that you assume that people kill fetuses just so that they can do that, but that isn't true, they just take fetuses that were going to be aborted anyway
That's some [B]fat[/B] news
that was a reeeaaaalllllyyyyyy bad joke
[QUOTE=Haxxer;19668924]That's some [B]fat[/B] news[/QUOTE]
:geno:
[QUOTE=Haxxer;19668924]That's some [B]fat[/B] news[/QUOTE]
That was an awful joke, your avatar suits you perfectly.
[QUOTE=T2L_Goose;19668809]There are different ways to get stem cells than aborted fetuses.[/QUOTE]
Well, yes, from bone marrow (in trace amounts) and shit, but you can get plenty more from embryos and whatnot.
They don't even have to go into a fetal stage in order to get stem cells.
[QUOTE=tankkiller;19670156]That was an awful joke, your avatar suits you perfectly.[/QUOTE]
i know rite
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