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A research team based at Eindhoven University in the Netherlands has created artificial meat from the cell tissues of a pig.
The creation has yet to be tasted, but the scientists are referring to it as “soggy pork”. Physiology professor Mark Post told a UK newspaper: “What we have at the moment is rather like wasted muscle tissue. We need to find ways of improving it by training it and stretching it, but we will get there.”
The project has the joint backing of the Dutch government and a sausage manufacturer and it is hoped that artificial meat might go on sale within the next five years. As well as reducing methane emissions from livestock, the product could help meet the Earth’s consumption levels of meat and dairy, which are estimated by the UN to double by 2050.
“This product will be good for the environment and will reduce animal suffering,” said Post. “If it feels and tastes like meat, people will buy it. You could take the meat from one animal and create the volume of meat previously provided by a million animals.”
Although the product is unlikely to win anyone over to the pro-GM argument, animal rights groups have come out in support of soggy pork. <span style="font-weight: bold">A Peta spokesperson said: “As far as we’re concerned, if meat is no longer a piece of a dead animal there’s no ethical objection</span>.” Last year, the group offered a $1m prize for anyone who could grow meat in laboratory conditions.
The creation has yet to be tasted, but the scientists are referring to it as “soggy pork”. Physiology professor Mark Post told a UK newspaper: “What we have at the moment is rather like wasted muscle tissue. We need to find ways of improving it by training it and stretching it, but we will get there.”
The project has the joint backing of the Dutch government and a sausage manufacturer and it is hoped that artificial meat might go on sale within the next five years. As well as reducing methane emissions from livestock, the product could help meet the Earth’s consumption levels of meat and dairy, which are estimated by the UN to double by 2050.
“This product will be good for the environment and will reduce animal suffering,” said Post. “If it feels and tastes like meat, people will buy it. You could take the meat from one animal and create the volume of meat previously provided by a million animals.”
Although the product is unlikely to win anyone over to the pro-GM argument, animal rights groups have come out in support of soggy pork. <span style="font-weight: bold">A Peta spokesperson said: “As far as we’re concerned, if meat is no longer a piece of a dead animal there’s no ethical objection</span>.” Last year, the group offered a $1m prize for anyone who could grow meat in laboratory conditions.
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