Mark Post – Meet the new meat
What do you think about laboratory-made meat? “Yuck” is likely your
first reaction. Terms like ‘Frankenburger’ and ‘Lab chops’ might
spring to mind. So why would we want to create artificial meat?
Because breeding cows and pigs for their meat is inefficient. Only
parts of the animal are consumed and meat consumption is outstripping
supply.
Post explains that it is relatively simple to take stem cells from an
animal and grow them to produce new muscle tissue. Simply add sugar,
proteins and fat and get it into shape with a bit of exercise and you
have created edible meat. The only problem then is to find a new role
for our livestock…
