| English.news.cn 2011-11-14 12:03:32 |
Scientists at Oxford University's
Wildlife Conservation Research Unit are researching in-vitro
meat--burgers or sausages grown in laboratory Petri dishes rather than
made from livestock, according to a Reuters report last week.
They are nurturing stem cells got from
leftover livestock meat from slaughterhouses. To make them grow up to
meat, Mark Post, one of the researchers in the project, said they feed
the stem cells with sugars, amino acids, lipids, minerals and all other
necessary nutrients.
By now, pale muscle-like strips have
been produced. But each strip, 2.5 cm long and less than a centimeter
wide, is hardly seen with naked eyes.
Since there was no blood in the meat, it looked pale, a bit like the flesh of scallops, said Post.
As to how it tastes, Post said "it's not
very tasty yet," but with the right amounts and right types of fat,
perhaps a little lab-grown blood to give it color and iron, it would
taste as good as real meat.
The first good-taste hamburger made from
the "cultured" meat was expected to be produced by August or September
next year, according to Tuomisto, who led the research.
As the world population mounting, the
demand for meat is growing. According to the World Health Organization,
annual global meat production is projected to increase from 218 million
tons in 1997-1999 to 376 million tons by 2030
"Current livestock meat production is
just not sustainable," Post told the Reuters, the man-made meat could be
an alternative when meat from livestocks was not plenty enough to meet
human's demand.
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