Stem Cell Burgers !?!

[Knuckles 904]

Happened across this story......

 

Not sure what I think about it yet...link with video

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57596978/burger-grown-from-cow-stem-cells-in-laboratory-put-to-taste-test-in-london/

 

Text only...

For $332,000, you might expect a burger to come with fries and a shake.

But it's no ordinary hamburger that two volunteer taste-testers tucked into in London on Monday. The meat was grown in a laboratory, from cattle stem cells.

The perfectly round patty was pan fried in sunflower oil and butter and then sampled by Josh Schonwald, author of The Taste of Tomorrow, and food scientist Hanni Rutzler.

It was "close to meat," according to Rutzler, but she said she expected it to be softer and as the petri-dish beef contains no fat, it wasn't very juicy.

Schonwald also noted the absence of fat, which translated into a lesser flavor, "but the bite feels like a conventional hamburger"

Mark Post, whose team at Maastricht University in the Netherlands developed the burger, hopes that making meat in labs could eventually help feed the world and fight climate change.

Monday's taste test, coming after five years of research, is a key step toward making lab meat a culinary phenomenon.

"For the burger to succeed it has to look, feel and taste like the real thing," Post said.

Post and colleagues made the meat from the muscle cells of two organic cows. The cells were put into a nutrient solution to help them develop into muscle tissue, growing into small strands of meat.

It took nearly 20,000 strands to make one 5-ounce patty, which for Monday's taste test was seasoned with salt, egg powder, breadcrumbs, red beet juice and saffron. The project cost $332,000.

"I'm a vegetarian, but I would be first in line to try this," said Jonathan Garlick, a stem cell researcher at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine in Boston. He has used similar techniques to make human skin but wasn't involved in the burger research.

Experts say new ways of producing meat are needed to satisfy growing carnivorous appetites without exhausting resources. By 2050, the Food and Agriculture Organization predicts global meat consumption will double as more people in developing countries can afford it. Raising animals destined for the dinner table takes up about 70 percent of all agricultural land.

The animal rights group PETA has thrown its support behind the lab-meat initiative.

"As long as there's anybody who's willing to kill a chicken, a cow or a pig to make their meal, we are all for this," said Ingrid Newkirk, PETA's president and co-founder. "Instead of the millions and billions (of animals) being slaughtered now, we could just clone a few cells to make burgers or chops."

If the burger doesn't taste right, some scientists say the flavor can easily be tweaked.

"Taste is the least (important) problem since this could be controlled by letting some of the stem cells develop into fat cells," said Stig Omholt, director of biotechnology at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. Adding fat to the burgers this way would probably be healthier than getting it from naturally chunky cows, said Omholt, who was not involved in the project.

Post and his colleagues have tasted the meat in the lab, and he said they cooked a test burger on Sunday.

Even if tweaks improved the taste of the lab-grown meat, it would be years before such burgers hit the market.

"The first (lab-made) meat products are going to be very exclusive," said Isha Datar, director of New Harvest, an international nonprofit that promotes meat alternatives. "These burgers won't be in Happy Meals before someone rich and famous is eating them."

 

[wolfie2kX 528]

Yeah.. I've heard of this research before. Figures PETA would be all for it. GODS... I've got a couple of veg heads I've come across on Facebook - and they annoy me to no end.

 

Bottom line - I don't care if you don't eat meat. I would really rather you just don't try to shove your philosophy down my throat. That goes for anything, really. I'm 50 years old now, and fairly set in my ways as to what I like - and bloody hell, none of your vegan propaganda is gonna get in the way of me eating a burger, pork chops, Teriyaki chicken, or gods forbid, BACON!

 

Ok.. Enough of that..

 

I wouldn't be opposed to this stuff - as long as it was as good as the real thing AND it was cheap. We can now make test tube babies - why not test tube meat? I really don't think $332,000 for a lousy burger is in my budget...

[podgie_bear 184]

Besides which even the makers admit they can't make it taste like, smell like or have the same texture as a real beefburger and that is just with a burger! They have no chance at making steaks, roasts or any proper cut of meat!

[chattius 2,535]

And with no cows, only artificial leather in future, artificial gelatine, artificial milk,...

If cows are kept for milk it would be economical stupid and bad for the environment not to eat them when they get old and produce way less milk but feed the same and produce the same amount of methane.

 

And I believe in epigenetics. Cells need certain molecules to trigger. If these molecules are not in the food the trigger is not activated.

"Moreover, the children of the women who were pregnant during the famine were smaller, as expected. However, surprisingly, when these children grew up and had children those children were also smaller than average.^[7] These data suggested that the famine experienced by the mothers caused some kind of epigenetic changes that were passed down to the next generation."

from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_famine_of_1944

 

So as long as I don't know how food triggers epigenetics we will stick to the food which our families ate for centuries and we know it worked.

[wolfie2kX 528]

Yeah.. You must be doing something right in that department, Chattius... You got 1 daughter who is extremely tall and another one threatening to do the same.

 

And you're right about old cows.. They should be eaten. It's not economical to keep an animal if it's not producing anything useful. Besides.. If the Global Warming Wonks have it right - we SHOULD put them down - because Methane is a green house gas..! It's not good for the environment.

[gogoblender 3,072]

It's interesting with how this kind of food production is going. Podgie, I hear ya on the limits on "taste" thing, but ultimately, the polaric will shrink until either we can tolerate the stuff, or the taste gets that much better.

When the anti milk lobby started doing soy milk as regular fare, it took years and years, now look...the milk in my "dairy" is almost as large as the animal milk section.

With burgers, will probably take longer, but we know this is coming, I guess, while meats from true-animals will begin to skyrocket.

I'm scared of connections, I'm kinda on the same road as Chattius...noonw knows anything about life on the planet. Everyone has small tiny pieces of what could be many many puzzles, and noone really knows yet how most of it connects...hence the almost normalized word in our lives...

 

side effects

 

 

gogo

[podgie_bear 184]

Unfortunately we as a society are on a slippery downward spiral. We have become a society that is in too big of a rush and are not prepared to wait and see through the consequences of our actions. Look at genetically modified foods. We are told that it is necessary and safe, but the research doesn't support those conclusions as it has been rushed and doesn't take into consideration the effects it has on our environment, and the natural chain, insects for pollination etc, and what effects it might have further down the line. For example, genetically modified food may be safe for us to eat, but what effect will it have on our children, or their children? Thalidomide was safe to use, remember they told us that their research said so! Pesticides were safe to use because they had been researched, and see the harm they have done to the environment and how they have negatively affected wildlife! I personally will be prepared to eat meat grown at a cellular level after I see how it affects the makers' children. In the meantime I will eat real meat that tastes like meat thank you very much.

 

Signed,

A grumpy old grouch who has learned not to trust the assurances of people with a vested interest in selling me things!

Edited August 6, 2013 by podgie_bear

[chattius 2,535]

Thalidomide,called contergan in germany. My mother was awaiting my older sister when this scandal popped up. She said 5 month of fear till my sister was born okay.

She became a big fan of Kneipp therapy after this: whole corn breads, water walking, .... And took druhs only when really neded: infections.

We kinda followed this. We have below surface path with knee deep water and pebbles below in the garden. Dogs like it alot.