http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/69085000/jpg/_69085558_burg.jpg

The world's first lab-grown burger is to be unveiled and eaten at a news conference in London on Monday.

Scientists took cells from a cow and, at an institute in the Netherlands, turned them into strips of muscle which they combined to make a patty.

Researchers say the technology could be a sustainable way of meeting what they say is a growing demand for meat.

Critics say that eating less meat would be an easier way to tackle predicted food shortages.

BBC News has been granted exclusive access to the laboratory where the meat was grown in a project costing £215,000.

Prof Mark Post of Maastricht University, the scientist behind the burger, said: "Later today we are going to present the world's first hamburger made in a lab from cells. We are doing that because livestock production is not good for the environment, it is not going to meet demand for the world and it is not good for animals".

But Prof Tara Garnett, head of the Food Policy Research Network at Oxford University, said decision-makers needed to look beyond technological solutions.

"We have a situation where 1.4 billion people in the world are overweight and obese, and at the same time one billion people worldwide go to bed hungry," she said.

"That's just weird and unacceptable. The solutions don't just lie with producing more food but changing the systems of supply and access and affordability so not just more food but better food gets to the people who need it."

Full report

I have mixed feelings about this... on one hand, it is a good thing to create things like this, and it is things like this along with synthesizing other types of foods and nutrients (especially dairy product foods, certain vitamins and Omega 3 fatty acids) and making large-scale horticulture for vegetables & grains more sustainable, that agrascience companies like DuPont and Monsanto should be focusing on instead of the seed and agrachemical businesses, on the other hand I can see this technology being used to introduce foods with very poor overall or nutritional quality disfavored over quantity and market saturation.

That said, this is still an exciting breakthrough in science.

I might try it.

IT'S ALIVE!

http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2010/289/2/e/franken_burger_by_mitakashika-d30uv66.jpg

I would eat it if it had lab grown fries to go on the side.

I would eat it if it had lab grown fries to go on the side.


Hehe ;D  What are we going to do with you Howard.




I'm thinking the burger is going to taste funny, lol. I don't know, I wouldn't eat it.

SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!!!

:o :o :o :o :o

SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!!!

:o :o :o :o :o


Beat me to it  ;D

SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!!!

:o :o :o :o :o
Oh yes, I forgotten all about that film, it must be watched again!

Hehe ;D  What are we going to do with you Howard.




I'm thinking the burger is going to taste funny, lol. I don't know, I wouldn't eat it.


What do they put into the burger? ???

What do they put into the burg er? ???


Great green gobs of greasy grimy gopher guts...

What do they put into the burger? ???


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkExpbnjsX8

Great green gobs of greasy grimy gopher guts...


no they don't!  ::)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkExpbnjsX8


;D

SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!!!

:o :o :o :o :o


Skipping vegetarians/vegans who avoid meat because they believe it's unhealthy, and speaking only in the context of vegetarians/vegans who avoid meat because they don't want to be partially responsible for the death of a cow:

If it's ethical for a vegetarian to eat vat-grown meat, is it no longer cannibalism if I were to culture a few of my own muscle cells, just so I could taste long pig without having to kill a human being (and, as a bonus, even if it died of natural causes, not have to worry about pathogens the human may have carried?)

All kidding aside, the only thing wrong with the vat-grown burger is that there isn't enough fat in it to make for good burger meat.  It sounds like it could make great filet mignon (a lean musicle that's tender because it's not used heavily during the cow's life).  Even if ground into burger, the fact that it's grown in a sterile environment means that you wouldn't have to cook such a burger to well-done.  The lack of a cow means the lack of e. coli and makes it safe to eat rare.  (Irradiation is a cheaper and safer way of making ground beef safe for medium-rare consumption, but still involves cows, and doesn't solve the problem for those who are vegetarian-for-ethical-reasons.)

Disclaimer: Carnivore for ethical reasons -- it tastes good, and while that's sufficient, if anyone demands another excuse, I point out that most of the cows on the planet would never have been born if they weren't so damn tasty.  My only concern is that if we can make vatburgers but not vatsteaks, the "burger" part of of a real live cow will drop to $0.20/lb from $1.00/lb, farmers will stop growing cows, and although you'll still be able to get a Big Mac for $1.00, the "steak" part of a real live cow will cost $50/lb because there will be fewer cows out of which to make steak.  (That's not an ethical argument, but I'd rather see a billion complete strangers starve to death than to see steak rise in price beyond my ability to afford it :)

Cattle Decapitation is on tour!

http://www.cattledecapitation.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/cattle-monolith-cvr-300px.jpg

Update:

The burger has been cooked and eaten. According to those that ate it, the texture was right, but it lacked taste (as Foo Bar already pointed out: no fat).
The good news is: it's lab-grown, so we can continue experimenting as much as we like, until we get it right, without any cattle getting hurt. We could even make it healthier.

(And when I say "we", I mean "them" - scientists, that is.)

:P
Why would anybody want to eat something as horrid as as that?  All you have to do is buy a cheap cut of meat,  cut it up, and grind it yourself. ::)

:P
Why would anybody want to eat something as horrid as as that?  All you have to do is buy a cheap cut of meat,  cut it up, and grind it yourself. ::)


why would anyone eat lab grown food? :P

Maybe this guy was onto something back then.  :o :o :o

http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s78/AL-B_photos/frabz-deranged-creep-who-got-off-on-grossing-children-out-or-misunders-ebc11a_zpsa30598b7.jpg

Maybe this guy was onto something back then.  :o :o :o

http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s78/AL-B_photos/frabz-deranged-creep-who-got-off-on-grossing-children-out-or-misunders-ebc11a_zpsa30598b7.jpg


LOLOLOLOL!!!!!

Does the lab grown burger come with lab grown Coke?

:P
Why would anybody want to eat something as horrid as as that?  All you have to do is buy a cheap cut of meat,  cut it up, and grind it yourself. ::)


If I can grow meat in a vat for half the cost of growing it in a cow, the definition of "cheap" changes radically.  It's not horrid, it's food.  (Unless you're talking about taste, in which case the only thing horrid about it is that it doesn't have enough fat, and maybe it'd be good as a steak.  The filet mignon/tenderloin/backstrap is the most tender chunk of meat on any quadruped, and among the leanest, because it comes from a muscle that is hardly ever used in the animal's lifespan.)  Burgers are made from cheap tough meat from hard-working leg and arm muscles whose toughness is alleviated by grinding the nearby stores of fat into the meat.  Steaks are made from less-heavily worked muscle around the spine, and although they're leaner than burger-destined cuts, the fattier the animal, the better the marbling, and the higher the grade of the steak.