The first test-tube hamburger - already consumed - Gazeta Wyborcza

Hamburger from stem cells in person scramble boss Richard McGeown, and the tasting was performed by Hanni Rützler – a scientist dedicated to food and Josh Schonwald – journalist, author of a book about food future.

View hamburger from the lab and his taste in pictures BIG frame >>>

Rützler native of Austria, said that although the meat could be softer and it would not hurt to add to the him a little more salt and pepper, then consistency burger is excellent and for her – no doubt – this is the meat. Schonwald asked for this attention to the fact that the meat is very lean, but biting them, it felt like a bit of a real hamburger. – The other is for the taste – claimed Schonwald.

Our evolution is marked by mi?so?erno?ci?. If not eating meat, we would not be who we are.

– hunting, especially for large animals require cooperation, produce social ties, promote the development of language – says Katharine Milton of the University of California. It compares herbivores orangutans and gorillas, chimpanzees with partly carnivorous. – The latter stand on a higher degree of social development – believes.

Some researchers also believe that merely eating meat could lead to the development of such a l arge brain, which is still a man.

– The construction of the nervous tissue is needed only fatty acids present in the animal feed – argue. – If we ate only plants, our brains would not be able so to develop.

Evolution of evolution, but then we are no longer cave men – are responsible for the vegetarians. We are civilized, economy and agriculture have evolved so much that we had to deal with, not killing animals and not augmenting their suffering. In our diet we can climb up the evolutionary rung up without injury.

This undoubtedly will help in the work of prof. Mark Post, bioin?yniera from the Dutch University of Maastricht. Specialist, who a few years ago he was in reconstructive surgery and now devises ways to culture in vitro meat.

Artificial meat

In the medicine was able to multiply in the laboratory selected tissues, especially muscle. Completed the missing pieces of their own patients’ body cells propagated in a special medium.

Then, Post switched to the production of meat, considering that due to their medical knowledge and experience can bring more benefits to the world and to contribute to solving the problems of hunger, lack of energy, water, and even global warming.

– I want to grow a solid ham and present it to the world in the presence of the living and a healthy pig – donatorki cells – has pledged a year ago prof. Post when he visited Poland at the invitation of the Centre of Science “Copernicus” in Warsaw.

Then it sounded futuristic. Meanwhile, in London today przyrz?dzono publicly hamburger meat, whose production never has caused suffering to any animal – has grown as a laboratory tissue culture dish.

20 thousand. cow muscle fibers grown from stem cells during a biopsy of the donor painless. It lasted three months. Then formed one hamburger at a cost of 250 thousand. euro. Hamburger usma?ono in London during a special press conference.

taste in vitro

– Conventional meat production is ineffective – make a comment on your prof. Post. – And by 2050, the world’s meat consumption is expected to double. Just imagine that a cow needs 100 grams of vegetable protein to produce only 15 grams of animal protein. The cost of feeding and maintaining it is huge. For this large farm animals contribute to the increase of the greenhouse effect, responsible for producing nearly 40 percent. methane and 5 percent. Carbon dioxide contained in our atmosphere. Doliczmy greenhouse gas emissions associated with the processing and transport of meat, and the high price burger grown in vitro to stop us so frightening. Especially since the price “lab meat” fall, when it starts to be produced on a mass scale.

For this purpose, however, have a different technology. For now, the muscle fibers can be grown only as a small sample of tissue, because to keep them alive, you have to each cell to provide oxygen and nutrients. Scientists are able to do so only on a small scale.

Experts criticize the professor. Fasting that instead of doing his work happening, but rather should describe the results in respected scientific journals.

– I did not use any method that is not already described in them – is responsible prof. Post. – And, I want to be with my idea to break into the public consciousness. To meat grown in vitro have tried ordinary people and they decide whether these tests are going in the right direction.

The work of Professor. Post funded Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google.

Dutch scientist idea is not the first such in history. Previous were, however, of a more artistic than scientific. Dinner happening during which eaten steak in vitro cultured frog muscle cells (while the “donor” dinner was swimming in an aquarium on a table), arranged in 2003 bioarty?ci, members Symbiotiki – an unusual laboratory established at the Univer sity of Western Australia.

– The meat was quite nasty taste – recounts the head Symbiotiki Oron Catts. – Were growing muscle tissue on biodegradable polymer scaffold that did not degraded to an end and crunched between his teeth. Furthermore, today there is still a way to grow a bloody steak, you can not grow blood vessels outstripping muscle tissue. The meat was so pale, hideous, gelatinous. Several people who were invited to the dinner, flushed them with disgust.

Is hamburger prof. Post will be tastier? Certainly a very humane. And perhaps our eyes rise thanks to him another variation of vegetarianism – invitrotarianizm.

Maybe 10-15 years shelves with meat in supermarkets labeled “in vitro” will become for us our daily bread.