We’ll never swallow the test-tube burger

Started by Holly101, February 21, 2012, 05:19:15 AM

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Holly101

It's a tale straight from the pages of the weirder realms of science fiction. A mysterious millionaire and a brilliant professor join forces, with a single aim. To create Frankenburger: the world's first test-tube beefburger.
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Peculiar as it may sound, it's the future for our food, according to the academic in question, Professor Mark Post of Maastricht University in the Netherlands. He plans to serve up the first burger this October after growing beef muscle in his lab, which will eventually become a juicy quarterpounder. Post has grown small strips of beef muscle tissue using a cow's stem calls and serum taken from a horse foetus (are you hungry yet?). Just like all growing muscles, they are currently flexing away in order to become bigger and healthier – only, in true sci-fi style, they are doing so in a Dutch lab, held in place by Velcro and stimulated by electricity. When fully grown, 3,000 of these muscles will be needed for one burger – and will cost an estimated £200,000.
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Professor Post has big plans for his stem-cell-cum-foetus version of fast food. "Eventually my vision is that you have a limited herd of donor animals in the world that you keep in stock and that you get your cells from," he says.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/9093552/Well-never-swallow-the-test-tube-burger.html
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Elfie

Oh no,,,, I will go complete vegetarian,,,, nope,,,not happening....
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arpad

I'm pretty surprised how far this technology's come in a short amount of time. One story I read is that for publicity purposes Maastricht University plans to serve the first lab-grown hamburger in about six months.

Be interesting to see how fast the technology's commercialized. When - if - it's commercialized the implications for food production, and politics, are profound. Lefties are terribly concerned about a rising standard of living driving the demand for beef, as it already has, with a resultant large-scale clearing of forests to make way for pasture or feed agriculture. Naturally, as lefties, the only solution they see is regulate the amount of beef produced the problem being that getting that sort of regulation in one country doesn't do the lefties much good. The country next door will simply tell the lefties to get stuffed, raise beef and sell it at a high price to the country that's restricted beef production.

This technology just renders lefty complaints moot.

For agriculture the advantage is that the only part of the cow you're growing is the part you want. Everything that's less valuable simply doesn't happen and incurs no cost. So, just like agriculture in general the production of beef will get much more efficient and cheaper.

As to whether I'll eat the stuff, yeah, I'll at least give it a try when the price is right.

Solar

I have no issue with lab grown meat, as long as its lean, I'm happy.
I've read a couple of discussions about this and it appears most find the idea repulsive, as long as the price is competitive, I'll probably buy it over real beef.

I used to cowboy on a big ranch and some of the cattle that were sick and dying were given massive amounts of antibiotics prior to shipping off to the butcher.
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arpad

Elfie, there's another factor to consider - you might not be able to afford the traditional stuff.

If this process is commercialized, which means the product's good enough at a good enough price, it'll reduce the market for the traditional product. Less market means suppliers will tend to concentrate on the high-price, high-profit end of the spectrum leaving the low-price end to the factory-derived stuff. As the factory-derived meat gets better it'll drive animal-derived meat even further up in price.

I don't know how far a process like that is likely to go but maybe there's a clue from the "boutique" meat market that already exists. As I recall there was one of these outfits that was selling bacon at $24/pound.

Another point of reference is kosher meat.

The local supermarket, which has a kosher meat section, was selling kosher hamburger for $6/pound so maybe that's an indication of the price of animal-derived meat when factory-derived meat becomes widely available.