DailyDirt: Test Tube Meat Fresh From The Lab
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
Some folks just don’t like the idea of killing animals for food, but clearly there are plenty of people who don’t have a problem with eating meat. Technology might have an answer — if meat grown in a lab can be considered a humane way to treat living tissues. Here are just a few attempts at making fake meat.
- Modern Meadow is a biotech startup growing meat and leather in a lab. The company can grow a 1-square-foot, flawless (no scratches or stretch marks) piece of leather in about 6 weeks, and it’s made some “steak chips” that will probably need to pass some complex regulatory hurdles before being ready for general human consumption. [url]
- Impossible Foods is a company that has made a veggie burger that almost bleeds because it contains iron-containing heme compounds similar to those in real red meat. The fake burger apparently tastes like a cross between beef and turkey, with a texture that is nearly like animal tissue (or at least not much like tofu). Still, it costs about $20 per burger patty, so there’s a bit more work to be done. [url]
- Hampton Creek Foods is creating a vegan egg that could replace factory-farmed eggs. Beyond Eggs (and its fellow meat substitute competitors) need to find just the right proteins and emulsifiers that can fool the human palate and also maintain an eco-friendly and sustainable reputation. [url]
If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.
Filed Under: biotech, fake meat, food, gmo, murderless meat, steak chips, vegan, vegan egg, veggie burger
Companies: beyond eggs, hampton creek foods, impossible foods, modern meadow
Comments on “DailyDirt: Test Tube Meat Fresh From The Lab”
No market for fake meat? If people are so resource constrained, lab grown meat isn’t the answer. Vegans don’t want to eat meat, so fake meat shouldn’t be aimed at them.
Re: Re:
I went to a business lunch once with a group that included a lot of vegetarians (not vegans), and the restaurant that was chosen was a vegetarian hamburger restaurant. Understand, I’m not talking about veggie burgers — these are truly indistinguishable from real meat hamburgers. As a confirmed omnivore, I found them delicious.
The vegetarians found them repulsive: they not only don’t desire things that are meat-like, they are actively disgusted by them. It made me wonder about who the target market of the restaurant was and how viable the idea really is as a business.
Two of my children, through marriage, are vegetarian and they confirmed the problem: they actively dislike meat. They have no interest in vegetarian food that resembles meat. That’s gross to them.
Re: Re:
And I don’t think this would go over well with the anti-GMO crowd, either. Space exploration is the only application I can think of off of the top of my head, but that’s not very profitable.