Meat of the Future Will Come from the Lab
Tuesday, 21 June 2011 13:43
Meat of the Future Will Come from the Lab
Raising meat on ranches and farms is expensive, hard on the environment, and takes up a lot of land. Many people feel badly about the poor treatment of animals when raising them for the slaughter.
Science will soon be at the point where we can cultivate meat in the laboratory. The process involves taking a muscle biopsy from a cow or pig, extracting satellite cells (growth structures), adding fuels and anabolic chemicals, and growing new muscle cells in the laboratory.
Laboratory-based meat products are in their infancy, but could be commonplace within a decade. They will make the cattle drives of the old West a distant memory. (Nature, 468: 752-753, 2010)
