Mad science? Growing meat without animals..

Winston Churchill once predicted that it would be possible to grow chicken breasts and wings more efficiently without having to keep an actual chicken. And in fact scientists have since figured out how to grow tiny nuggets of lab meat and say it will one day be possible to produce steaks in vats, sans any livestock.

Pork chops or burgers cultivated in labs could eliminate contamination problems that regularly generate headlines these days, as well as address environmental concerns that come with industrial livestock farms.

However, such research opens up strange and perhaps even disturbing possibilities once considered only the realm of science fiction. After all, who knows what kind of meat people might want to grow to eat?

Advantages touted
Increasingly, bioengineers are growing nerve, heart and other tissues in labs. Recently, scientists even reported developing artificial penis tissue in rabbits. Although such research is meant to help treat patients, biomedical engineer Mark Post at Maastricht University in the Netherlands and his colleagues suggest it could also help feed the rising demand for meat worldwide.
The researchers noted that growing skeletal muscle in labs — the kind people typically think of as the meat they eat — could help tackle a number of problems:

Avoiding animal suffering by reducing the farming and killing of livestock.

Dramatically cutting down on food-borne ailments such as mad cow disease and salmonella or germs such as swine flu, by monitoring the growth of meat in labs.

Livestock currently take up 70 percent of all agricultural land, corresponding to 30 percent of the world's land surface, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. Labs would presumably require much less space.

Livestock generate 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, more than all of the vehicles on Earth, the FAO added. Since the animals themselves are mostly responsible for these gases, reducing livestock numbers could help alleviate global warming.
Need to scale up
Stem cells are considered the most promising source for such meat, retaining as they do the capacity to transform into the required tissues, and the scientists pointed to satellite cells, which are the natural muscle stem cells responsible for regeneration and repair in adults. Embryonic stem cells could also be used, but they are obviously plagued by ethical concerns, and they could grow into tissues besides the desired muscles.
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To grow meat in labs from satellite cells, the researchers suggested current tissue-engineering techniques, where stem cells are often embedded in synthetic three-dimensional biodegradable matrixes that can present the chemical and physical environments that cells need to develop properly. Other key factors would involve electrically stimulating and mechanically stretching the muscles to exercise them, helping them mature properly, and perhaps growing other cells alongside the satellite cells to provide necessary molecular cues.
So far past scientists have grown only small nuggets of skeletal muscle, about half the size of a thumbnail. Such tidbits could be used in sauces or pizzas, Post and colleagues explained recently in the online edition of the journal Trends in Food Science & Technology, but creating a steak would demand larger-scale production.

Dark thoughts

The expectation is that if such meat is ever made, scientists will opt for beef, pork, chicken or fish. However, science fiction has long toyed with the darker possibilities that cloned meat presents.
In Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson's epic sci-fi satire "Transmetropolitan," supermarkets and fast food joints sell dolphin, manatee, whale, baby seal, monkey and reindeer, while the Long Pig franchise sells "cloned human meat at prices you like."

"In principle, we could harvest the meat progenitor cells from fresh human cadavers and grow meat from them," Post said. "Once taken out of its disease and animalistic, cannibalistic context — you are not killing fellow citizens for it, they are already dead — there is no reason why not."

Of course, there are many potential objections that people could have to growing beef, chicken or pork in the lab, much less more disturbing meats. Still, Post suggests that marketing could overcome such hurdles.

"If every package of naturally grown meat by law should have the text, 'Beware, animals have been killed for this product,' I can imagine a gradual cultural shift," Post said. "Of course, we still have a long way to go to make a product that is even remotely competitive with current products."


http://www.nbcnews.com/id/34042394/ns/technology_and_science-innovation/t/mad-science-growing-meat-without-animals/#.Uf7wMpI3uSo

'Meat' factory can make vegan substitute by the mile

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/46646228/ns/technology_and_science-innovation/t/meat-factory-can-make-vegan-substitute-mile/#.Uf7wqZI3uSo


With all of this technology to create fake meat, or clone real meat in the lab or print meat with 3-D printers..... how long before the movie "Soylent Green" becomes reality?


If an evil empire is in charge and over-population becomes a problem, there may be no way to tell what we might be eating........

Imagine... "Oh its just another fake meat product."

.... and it could be a Soylent Green food substance.

And for those of you who are too young to know what Soylent Green is.... its human.

It's (not) alive! Franken-meat lurches from the lab to the frying pan!


http://www.nbcnews.com/science/its-not-alive-franken-meat-lurches-lab-frying-pan-6C10835458


A hamburger that looks like one you'd get at any fast-food restaurant comes with a price tag of $330,000 — and it isn't even made out of natural meat. When volunteers taste it on Monday, in front of rows of VIPs and TV cameras, they'll be eating the first publicly available burger that comes from a laboratory instead of a dead animal.

To produce the patty, researchers will mix lab-grown beef muscle cells with salt, egg powder and bread crumbs. Beet juice and saffron will be added to give a more natural color to the bloodless burger. It'll be fried up in a pan, and seasoned with a dash of salt and pepper. With any luck, the burger should taste pretty much like your typical ground beef.

So why bother, when you can buy a burger made with real meat for no more than a couple of bucks?

The high-profile tasting in London is part of a years-long campaign to grow artificial meat without having to raise and kill billions of livestock animals — and as a result, head off a looming food crisis. Even the researchers behind the campaign acknowledge it could take a decade or more to turn lab-grown meat into a commercially viable alternative. But they see the effort as an environmental imperative.

Study after study has shown that the way farming is currently done will be simply unsustainable by 2050, due to rising population and a growing hunger for meat in countries such as China and Brazil. Plant-based protein substitutes could help head off the crisis — but so far, veggie burgers haven’t exactly taken hold in mass markets.

I dunno what the problem is... Tastes just like chicken

"We've got chicken tonight. Strangest damn things. They're man made. Little damn things. Smaller than my fist. But they're new."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqV41XH_dLI

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23529841

What does a stem cell burger taste like?





* Cultured Beef is created by harvesting muscle cells from a living cow
* Scientists then feed and nurture the cells so they multiply to create muscle tissue, which is the main component of meat
* The cells grow into strands and 20,000 small strands of meat are then combined to create one 140g burger
* It is biologically exactly the same as the meat tissue that comes from a cow
* No genetic modification is involved in this process

Source: Maastricht University, the Netherlands

actually Animal and Human Cells have been grown in small quantities since the Nineties!

Smeat, it's what's for dinner in 2050, every freakin day.

The texture looks much like like.... soylent green!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVpN312hYgU

Jeannie already made the Soylent Green reference. 2 points for trying.

Torgo, seriously... everyone knows I don't read OP's

I'll take the 2 points tho

The point is that if they start creating all kinds of fake meat products when they do come out with soylant green, we won't even blink.

I hope they don't just throw the entire body into a vat like they did in the movie though. Gross.

How do you know McDonald's aren't doing this already? This food made in science labs, doesn't appeal to me. If it doesn't LOOK like a burger, it probably won't TASTE like a burger. It puts me off.

soylent green was a sci fi movie about how they fed the future population... you just ruined the ending now...

ever notice that McRib keeps coming and going? the rib bones can only be grown in certain seasons...

and did you know the burger itself will outlast the box it comes in?
http://aht.seriouseats.com/archives/2008/09/12-year-old-mcdonalds-hamburger-still-looking-good.html

Ruined the ending? Well if you haven't seen the movie by now... you probably never will.

Besides, everyone already knows the ending and if they don't, then they don't get the reference anyway.

Huh. Wasn't aware there was an expiration date on watching movies. I just watched a movie for the first time from 1930.

Solyent Green is not really an appropriate comparison. It was made from dead human bodies to harvest their protein.

What the new technology is trying to do is grow mass quantities of protein using another method. The method discussed was cloning human or animal cells but that isn't really an efficient way to get to where they want to go.

What is more likely in the future is a giant genetically modified fungus that creates animal style complete protein. It would grow in some liquid bath, perhaps in a cage dipped into the ocean where it could absorb nutrients in addition to being fed. The giant mass would grow in a way that could be sliced off to harvest slabs of human eatable protein (complete protein).

With enough knowledge, the mass could be designed to taste like anything. Even the color and texture could be designed as well.

I want to grow my own KFC fungus.

Sounds real tasty.

Oh I think it is a good comparison.

The reason: In the movie the government was creating other kinds of food for the population and Soylent green was introduced as "just another government produced food." The people didn't ask what it was and they didn't care.

My point was when our government (corporations) start producing all kinds of lab produced protein substance.. and there will be several different kinds and methods....

then eventually the public will just accept any new thing that comes out.... they won't even question what it is or where it came from..

Just like the movie....

People are being trained to accept whatever the government tells them now. Anyone who asks questions... well they are called conspiracy nuts...