(Video) News Report on the first test tube burger and How this Burger is Made Video.
It looks like a hamburger, feels like one and almost tastes like one.
Scientists from the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands unveiled the first lab-produced burger on Monday, suggesting that the burgers of the future could be grown in laboratories rather than on cattle ranches.
Professor Mark Post, a physiologist from Maastricht who masterminded the project, explained to a news conference in London that his team had developed the burger from stem cells taken from cow muscle, which were then encouraged to grow and expand in the lab with added nutrients to eventually become strips of muscle. They are turned into pellets of meat and given added flavor and the appearance of meat with breadcrumbs, saffron, caramel and beet juice, Post said.
“The few cells that we take from this cow can turn into 10 tons of meat,” he added.
Although still in its early stages, Post said the hope is that today’s costly experiment could turn into tomorrow’s cost-efficient food staple to help feed a burgeoning world population.
“Cows are inefficient, they require 100 grams of vegetable protein to produce only 15 grams of edible animal protein,” he told the Guardian newspaper, explaining how artificially grown meat was more efficient, “because we have all the variables under control. We don’t need to kill the cow and it doesn’t produce any methane.”