Date published: 2005/08/13
The BBC says:
An international research team has proposed new techniques that may lead to the mass production of meat reared not on the farm, but in the laboratory.
Developments in tissue engineering mean that cells taken from animals could be grown directly into meat in a laboratory, the researchers say.
Scientists believe the technology already exists to directly grow processed meat like a chicken nugget.
The technology could benefit both humans and the environment.
"With a single cell, you could theoretically produce the world's annual meat supply. And you could do it in a way that's better for the environment and human health.
"In the long term, this is a very feasible idea," said Jason Matheny of the University of Maryland, part of the team whose research has been published in the Tissue Engineering journal.
Growing the meat without the animal could reduce the need to keep millions of animals in cramped conditions and would lessen the damage caused by the meat production to the environment.
Laboratory-grown meat could also be healthier, proponents say.
Tissue engineering techniques were first developed for medical use and small amounts of edible fish tissue have been grown in research conducted by Nasa.
To industrialise the process, researchers suggest the cells could be grown on large sheets that would need to be stretched to provide the 'exercise' for the growing muscles.
"If you didn't stretch them, it would be like eating mush," said Mr Methany.
Whilst the technology to produce processed meat is here now, producing a steak or chicken breast is still quite a way off, the researchers say.
This reads like an April Fool's joke. It's hard to believe this food will not taste horrible, certainly for the forseeable future, but given all the pre-cooked rubbish already available in supermarkets probably most people will never notice the difference. And presumably they will manage to get it to taste good eventually. Whether it really is "better for the environment" remains to be seen.
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