AP Mark Post, whose team at Maastricht University in the Netherlands developed the burger after five years of research, hopes making meat in labs could eventually help solve the food crisis and fight climate change.
For a hamburger that costs more than $300,000, you might expect fries and a shake too.
But this is no ordinary burger. At a public tasting in London on Monday, scientists are prepared to serve up the first hamburger grown in a laboratory from stem cells of cattle.
Mark Post, whose team at Maastricht University in the Netherlands developed the burger after five years of research, hopes making meat in labs could eventually help solve the food crisis and fight climate change.
But Dr. Post says success doesn’t hinge on science. “For the burger to succeed it has to look, feel and taste like the real thing,” he said.
The burger, to be served to two volunteers, was made from cow muscle cells from two organic cows. The resulting patty will be seasoned with salt, egg powder, breadcrumbs, red beet juice and saffron.
Dr. Post and colleagues took muscle cells from a cow and put them into a nutrient solution to help them develop into muscle tissue. The muscle cells grew into small strands of meat. It takes nearly 20,000 strands to make one 140 gram (5 ounce) burger.
The project cost is 250,000 Euros ($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 other 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 will be able to afford it. Breeding animals destined for the dinner table takes up about 70 per cent 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 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 said the flavour 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, he said.
Even if Monday’s taste test is positive, it will probably 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 non-profit that promotes meat alternatives. “These burgers won’t be in Happy Meals before someone rich and famous is eating it.”
Q&A on the science of growing hamburger in the lab
Q: What are stem cells?
A: Stem cells are an organism's master cells and can be turned into any other cell type in the body, i.e. blood, tissue, muscle, etc. Adult stem cells are found in small numbers in most human tissues, including bone marrow, fat and muscle.
Q: Why is the meat so expensive to produce?
A: The technology is new and scientists are making very small quantities of meat. There are no economies of scale to offset the initial high costs. If more scientists or companies start using the technology to produce more meat products, that could drop the price substantially and speed up its production.
Q: When could this meat be in stores?
A: Probably not for another 10 to 20 years. It would take years to refine the technology, encourage other producers and scientists to get involved, and overcome any regulatory issues.
Q: Who paid for the research?
A: Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, underwrote the 250,000-euro ($330,000) project, which began in 2006. The Dutch government previously donated 2 million euros to the research.
Q: How is this better for the environment?
A: It could reduce the number of animals needed for the meat industry. Raising cows, pigs, chickens, etc., contributes substantially to climate change through the production of methane gas. Growing meat in the laboratory could reduce the impact on agricultural land, water and resources.
Q: How long does it take to grow a burger?
A: At the moment, a long time. It has taken two years for scientists to refine the process to grow enough meat. To actually grow enough meat for a couple of burgers would probably take about eight weeks. Actually forming the lab-made meat into a hamburger patty takes about two hours because scientists must put many separate strands together.
Q: What does the process involve?
A: Scientists first take a sample of muscles from a cow in a process they say is a painless biopsy. They then put those cells into a nutrient solution that helps them reproduce. After that, they are placed into a donut-shaped dish where the cells organize themselves into bits of muscle tissue. Electrical stimulation is sometimes used to exercise the muscle cells, which flex spontaneously. Once there are enough strands of meat (about 20,000 small strands), scientists can make a five-ounce (140-gram) hamburger.
Q: What are the implications for vegetarians?
A: PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, supports attempts to grow meat in labs because they say that will greatly diminish the amount of animal suffering. Donor animals are needed for the muscle cells, but taking those samples doesn't hurt the animal. One sample can theoretically provide up to 20,000 tons of lab-made meat. But lab-grown meat is still meat.
Q: Is it possible to make other kinds of meat in the laboratory?
A: Yes. The science is theoretically the same, so the same techniques should also allow researchers to make chicken, fish, lamb, etc. Dutch researcher Mark Post, who led the research on the lab-made hamburger, initially started working with pig cells before switching to cows. He said it would even be possible to make meat products from other animals like penguins, though he has no plans to start on that.
Q: Can they make other meat products?
A: At the moment, scientists are only working on making processed or minced meat, because that is the easiest kind to replicate. Processed meat accounts for about half of the meat market. Post said it should be possible to make more complicated cuts like steaks or chops in the future, but that involves using more advanced tissue engineering techniques. He estimates that it might be possible to make a steak in about 20 years.
Q: Perhaps most importantly, what does it taste like?
A: Apparently it's a little bland. At a public tasting on Monday in London, two food experts said the texture was convincing but that it lacked flavor; the lab-made burger does not contain any fat, but was cooked in oil and butter. Post said he wanted people to taste the burger without condiments, in its purest form.
Credits ; BBC, ABC 5 News
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