Scientist to eat $332,125 hamburger assembled from lab-grown proteins

[wtmusic]

"On Monday, just after lunchtime, Dr Mark Post will make culinary (and scientific) history by cooking a beefburger and eating it. Which sounds mundane except that this burger cost €250,000 to make and has been painstakingly assembled from meat grown in his laboratory at Maastricht University.

Post's burger will be constructed this weekend from tens of thousands of strands of protein grown, in petri dishes, from cattle stem cells. These cultured muscle fibres will be taken out of deep freeze and carefully knitted together to make Monday's culinary milestone.

The event will be the culmination of years of research to demonstrate that meat grown in culture dishes in the lab can one day be a viable alternative to meat from livestock. If it can be made to work, cultured meat holds the potential to feed the world's growing human population without the devastating environmental impacts of farming ever more animals."

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/aug/02/scientist-stem-cell-lab-grown-beefburger

[darkangel218]

1. He better be close to a toilet.

[wtmusic]

2. Ironically it will be much purer than anything you buy in a market

with all of the "meat byproducts" the beef industry is permitted to include in so-called 100% beef.

They must have a way to incorporate fat into the texture - there wouldn't be much flavor with pure protein. But if they can actually make it taste good it would be much more environmentally-friendly and humane.

[darkangel218]

3. You are more than welcomed to consume that lab produced meat then.

[wtmusic]

5. I don't eat much meat anymore

but if this tastes good, is healthier, and they can get the price down I wouldn't hesitate. It's probably just a matter of time.

And once they figure out bacon...

[agent46]

4. If it's edible and safe

If it's edible and safe, it will bring hope to end the pernicious violence of corporate farming and the horrendous suffering of billions of animals every year. Growing meat tissue as a crop. Good karma. I'm all for it.

[darkangel218]

6. Just as edible and safe as Monsanto ptoducts.

[NoOneMan]

7. Except its probably not doused in Roundup

[darkangel218]

8. I would rather turn vegan than eat lab grown meat.

[NoOneMan]

9. The world could of become vegetarian yesterday

Apparently they wont. So, I don't know, what are you going to do? In the land of idiots, this might be less-stupid environmentally and for your health

[darkangel218]

10. less stupid enviromently, absolutely correct

I'm not sure it will be the same for the consumers health though.

[NickB79]

11. "If it can be made to work"

It's already been made to work; there's little doubt that the meat will be edible, even if the flavor and texture leave something to be desired.

The REAL question is, can it be made scalable to a point where the price can compete with conventionally raised beef? That is the only way this will ever be viable for anything other than, say, a space station or Mars colony.

At $300K per burger, I'd say that day is very, very, very far off.