Burgers from a lab? US study says it's possible

[Knight-Dragon]

:crazy:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050707...1chANEA;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Laboratories using new tissue engineering technology might be able to produce meat that is healthier for consumers and cut down on pollution produced by factory farming, researchers said on Wednesday.

While NASA engineers have grown fish tissue in lab dishes, no one has seriously proposed a way to grow meat on commercial levels.

But a new study conducted by University of Maryland doctoral student Jason Matheny and his colleagues describe two possible ways to do it.

Writing in the journal Tissue Engineering, Matheny said scientists could grow cells from the muscle tissue of cattle, pigs, poultry or fish in large flat sheets on thin membranes. These sheets of cells would be grown and stretched, then removed from the membranes and stacked to increase thickness and resemble meat.

Using another method, scientists could grow muscle cells on small three-dimensional beads that stretch with small changes in temperature. The resulting tissue could be used to make processed meat such as chicken nuggets or hamburgers.

"There would be a lot of benefits from cultured meat," Matheny said in a statement. "For one thing, you could control the nutrients."

Meat is high in omega-6 fatty acid, which is desirable, but not in large amounts. Healthful omega-3 fatty acids, such as those found in walnuts and fish oils, could be substituted.

"Cultured meat could also reduce the pollution that results from raising livestock, and you wouldn't need the drugs that are used on animals raised for meat," Matheny said.

Raising livestock requires million of gallons of water and hundreds of acres of land. Meat grown from tissue would bypass those requirements.

The demand for meat is increasing worldwide, Matheny said. "China's meat demand is doubling every ten years," he said. "Poultry consumption in India has doubled in the last five years."

Writing in this month's Physics World, British physicist Alan Calvert calculated that the animals eaten by people produce 21 percent of the carbon dioxide that can be attributed to human activity. He recommends people switch to a vegetarian diet as a way to battle global warming.

"Worldwide reduction of meat production in the pursuit of the targets set in the Kyoto treaty seems to carry fewer political unknowns than cutting our consumption of fossil fuels," he said in a statement.

The Kyoto treaty is a global agreement aimed at reducing production of so-called greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide that help fuel global warming.

 

[FearlessLeader2]

Somewhere Larry Niven is preening.

PREENING, I say.

 

[Romanfe]

oh wow, now if we master making our own oxygen there will be nothing to stop our intergalactic conquest!

 

[FriendlyFire]

I wonder what this "syntetic" meat would taste like ?

This type of produce is possibly many many years away from being commercially viable venture.

 

[Perfection]

I wonder how vegatarians will take it.

 

[Fetus4188]

I would think that synthetic meat would have a very different texture/tenderness.

 

[Alvaro da Luna]

oh wow, now if we master making our own oxygen there will be nothing to stop our intergalactic conquest!

What about faster than light travel?

............
Doesn't this still carry political unknowns, I mean, literally putting thousands of meat farmers out of business?

 

[Wolfe Tone]

Sounds awful, but still better than a burger from McDonalds

 

[Bartleby]

Real Frankenfood!

 

[Brewster]

Mmmmmm... burgers. I'm off to set up an Burger Lab in my basement.

 

[Zardnaar]

Yum yum. Sign me up.

 

[Stile]

I like the idea. I just read a similar article here. I was going to tease someone who made a post the other day to the effect that we humans could not live without plants and animals.

I would definitely eat this (uh.. depending on price. I won't pay a dime more to reduce 0.0000000042% of carbon dioxide emissions.) Different meat texture doesn't bother me, such as liver or heart.

I'm a little concerned about dictating what nutrients/fats are in there. I don't trust our knowledge of it at this point. I just read the other day how an 'all-natural' pesticide used in organic farming has been linked with Parkinson's disease, while drinking coffee helps to prevent it. For example, I don't want my brain to start breaking down because I'm not getting enough so-called Omega 6 fats. (uh.. depending on taste. I won't risk a minute of pleasure to save a fraction of probably superfluous so-called neurons.)

 

[Sparta]

What about faster than light travel?

............
Doesn't this still carry political unknowns, I mean, literally putting thousands of meat farmers out of business?

Meh; if Romanfe can get me abundant oxygen and I already have burgers, I can spend my life in a colony hurtling through space, no problem (Civ will be there of course). Mmmmm, burgers...

As to the farmers, it'd be rough, but you can't impede progress for the sake of anachronistic jobs. Nobody's worried about the plight of the flint-lock pistol manufacturers anymore. (I don't doubt there'd be plenty of political hand-wringing though.)

 

[Romanfe]

yeah plus that stasis thing they did to those dogs using saline solution in their bloodstreams, superlight travel would be nice, but we dont necessarily NEED it.

 

[Leonel]

Well if it tastes and feels as good as real meat, it's good enough for me!

 

[Lozzy_Ozzy]

They should make the A-Team.

Terrorists would flee in terror.

.

 

[Elrohir]

When they make it so I can't taste the difference between Synth-a-meat and a juicy burger from real restraunt, then I'll buy into it. But not before, this smells of the Tofu Conspiracy come again.

 

[Romanfe]

Will this become another genetically modified battlefield? It certainly has all the ingredients,

 

[ummmm........]

Will this become another genetically modified battlefield? It certainly has all the ingredients,

I hate to admit it, but I couldn't help laughing . . .

 

[Damnyankee]

Sounds awful, but still better than a burger from McDonalds

Whats the matter with Micky D's burgers? Granted, Burger King burgers and everyother fastfood outlets burgers are better, but McDonalds burgers are all right. Concerning this lab brown meat, thiswould be a great product that could be distributed to impoverished nations in the future. Plus, if a Mad cow crisis arises in America, a lot of people in the future might eat this meat.