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mmmm meat in a vat.
Wierd, but provably waaay more efficient than the way we do it now, with a lot less industrial waste.
CHARLESTON, South Carolina (Reuters) – In a small laboratory on an upper floor of the basic science building at the Medical University of South Carolina, Vladimir Mironov, M.D., Ph.D., has been working for a decade to grow meat.
A developmental biologist and tissue engineer, Dr. Mironov, 56, is one of only a few scientists worldwide involved in bioengineering "cultured" meat.
It's a product he believes could help solve future global food crises resulting from shrinking amounts of land available for growing meat the old-fashioned way ... on the hoof.
Growth of "in-vitro" or cultured meat is also under way in the Netherlands, Mironov told Reuters in an interview, but in the United States, it is science in search of funding and demand.
The new National Ins ute of Food and Agriculture, part of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, won't fund it, the National Ins utes of Health won't fund it, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration funded it only briefly, Mironov said.
"It's classic disruptive technology," Mironov said. "Bringing any new technology on the market, average, costs $1 billion. We don't even have $1 million."
Director of the Advanced Tissue Biofabrication Center in the Department of Regenerative Medicine and Cell Biology at the medical university, Mironov now primarily conducts research on tissue engineering, or growing, of human organs.
"There's a yuck factor when people find out meat is grown in a lab. They don't like to associate technology with food," said Nicholas Genovese, 32, a visiting scholar in cancer cell biology working under a People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals three-year grant to run Dr. Mironov's meat-growing lab.
"But there are a lot of products that we eat today that are considered natural that are produced in a similar manner," Genovese said.
"There's yogurt, which is cultured yeast. You have wine production and beer production. These were not produced in laboratories. Society has accepted these products."
If wine is produced in winery, beer in a brewery and bread in a bakery, where are you going to grow cultured meat?
In a "carnery," if Mironov has his way. That is the name he has given future production facilities.
He envisions football field-sized buildings filled with large bioreactors, or bioreactors the size of a coffee machine in grocery stores, to manufacture what he calls "charlem" -- "Charleston engineered meat."
"It will be functional, natural, designed food," Mironov said. "How do you want it to taste? You want a little bit of fat, you want pork, you want lamb? We design exactly what you want. We can design texture.
"I believe we can do it without genes. But there is no evidence that if you add genes the quality of food will somehow suffer. Genetically modified food is already normal practice and nobody dies."
Dr. Mironov has taken myoblasts -- embryonic cells that develop into muscle tissue -- from turkey and bathed them in a nutrient bath of bovine serum on a scaffold made of chitosan (a common polymer found in nature) to grow animal skeletal muscle tissue. But how do you get that juicy, meaty quality?
Genovese said scientists want to add fat. And adding a vascular system so that interior cells can receive oxygen will enable the growth of steak, say, instead of just thin strips of muscle tissue.
Cultured meat could eventually become cheaper than what Genovese called the heavily subsidized production of farm meat, he said, and if the public accepts cultured meat, the future holds benefits.
"Thirty percent of the earth's land surface area is associated with producing animal protein on farms," Genovese said.
"Animals require between 3 and 8 pounds of nutrient to make 1 pound of meat. It's fairly inefficient. Animals consume food and produce waste. Cultured meat doesn't have a digestive system.
"Further out, if we have interplanetary exploration, people will need to produce food in space and you can't take a cow with you.
"We have to look to these ideas in order to progress. Otherwise, we stay static. I mean, 15 years ago who could have imagined the iPhone?"
(Editing by Jerry Norton)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110131/...ratory_feature
mmmm meat in a vat.
Wierd, but provably waaay more efficient than the way we do it now, with a lot less industrial waste.
Anyone remember when they did this on Better Off Ted? Tasted like despair.
Sorry Vladmir, Taco Bell perfected this years ago.
These assholes need to understand that because they can do it, doesn't mean they should do it.
If man invented it, don't put it in your mouth.
Btw, the USDA has approve genetically engineered alfalfa so damn near every industrial animal, aka "protein sinks", will be contaminated with Frankenfood, and then 1000s of tons of, eg RoundUp Ready, poison will be flowing into our ground water.
Soon the naturally grown food will be for the upper class and the working and lower class will be forced to eat the more economic, cultured meat/products. I'am torn on the subject. I can see the benefits of more efficient production of food that is more stable and not reliable on nature especially as world population grows. Another is, nothing happens without benefiting somones bank account and you shouldn't with mother nature, she has a way of correcting what needs to be corrected.
hormone meat gtfo, that is banned down here...
Taco bell is already 75% filler material how is this any worse
We are seriously almost to the point where they will just start selling cans of something called soylent green. Its true only difference between science fiction and reality is time.
You don't brush your teeth?
Is your problem with GMO or the Rup trait? You do realize that drought tolerant crops are helping third world countries grow enough to help them sustain, right?
Anti-GMO folks usually are along the same lines as those who deny any global warming. Sure, you can come up with a couple articles here and there to help your claim but in the big picture, you don't have enough to back your claim. Are you having a problem with individual traits or is your idea of all GMO a glow in the dark fish?
Suburban lawns are a much, much larger problem with water than any GMO crop digested by an animal.
Roundup ready alfalfa? Welcome to ten years ago.
You couldn't afford to eat if GMO crops were eliminated.
Sounds pretty cool. I support it, but the cheapest alternative and one that is most environmentally sustainable is for people to just stop eating mea.t I stopped 2 years ago and I've never felt better.
I believe that it can end up in us producing any kind of food and giving them flavors whatever we like.
We will be able to force cells to grow anything we like.
If yes - that we can create a human in laboratory.
Here is an ethical question.
Say we can create a clone of you without any real brain or consciousness and use that body for spare parts.
Is this ethical?
All one would have to do is figure out which genes control brain development, and simply shut them off in a developing fetus. Not altogether far-fetched, aside from the complexity involved.
LOL...
Like any lie/rumor, it gets worse as time goes by. 36% to 35%, now 25% beef...
Consider this:
I think it's safe to say they wouldn't say this if it wasn't true. The lawsuit would be unreal then.The print ad copy reads: "Thank you for suing us. Here's the truth about seasoned beef. The claims made against Taco Bell and our seasoned beef are absolutely false. The only reason we add anything to our beef is to give the meat flavor and quality. So here are the REAL percentages. 88% Beef and 12% Secret Recipe." The ad goes on to elaborate on that 12%, saying that the rest consists of water (about 3%), es (about 4%), and "oats, caramelized sugar, yeast, citric acid, and other ingredients that contribute to the flavor, moisture, consistency, and quality of our seasoned beef (5%)."
Taco Bell counters 'meat filling' charges
My wife's meat loaf is a percentage of ground beef, as all are. Its not like she or taco bell add sawdust.
Eventually they'll be able to completely replicate the biological process that goes into creating beef and other forms of meat perfectly. When that is the case there will be no difference between the two. Its just a matter of time.
But until then, Ewwwww.
As long as the scientists overseeing the 'carnery' are wearing cowboy hats I have no problem getting my beef this way. This is America after all, dammit.
Don't eat that sh*t.
What does ethical mean really?
You can be against it or not it does not matter because you can't stop the progress in science.
And btw gens do not control
We already have SPAM...
It's already done. Watch the Jesse ventura conspiracy theory episode on Water, they found uranium and other z in the water.
Genes do indeed control the on/off of various parts and systems of the body during fetal development. If you like, I can point you to various depictions of what happens when those genes are faulty.
Because, as we all know, former professional wrestlers (i.e. paid actors) with shows about conspiracy theories form the basis for all of modern science's search for knowable truth.
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