Test Tube Burger

Posted on Dec 24, 2014 – 01:09pm by Anonymous

Have you ever thought if it was possible to make a burger without anything you can get from the kitchen? (And yes that includes the spatula!) Well think no more because a group of scientists from Maastricht University in the Netherlands had just achieved so by using test tubes! They’ve found a way to create meat that might gain a place on dinner plates — and straight out of a laboratory!

The hamburger was grown in Post’s lab with bovine skeletal muscle stem cells which were collected from a piece of fresh beef. The cells were fed with calf serum in a growth medium to initiate multiplication to allow them to grow into muscle cells over time. These cells were given various nutrient sources, one of which was algae extract. Post, along with his group of scientists, allowed the cells to grow on a sugar scaffold so these cells can “bulk up”. The result was a five-ounce burger cooked by chef Richard McGeown, which contained 20,000 strips of cultured meat (which means it was grown in a lab). The chef revealed after that this approximates to 40 billion bovine cells!

This burger is the priciest of burgers, with its price tag being $325,000, which was donated generously by the co-founder of Google, Sergey Brin. Now you might be thinking – if this is in fact the most expensive burger in the world, does this mean this is the tastiest of all burgers? Well, the scientists stated that their purpose for creating this meat was to provide a solution to global food crisis so taste wasn’t more important than creating it. According to the statistics on the World Health Organization’s website, the demand for meat will double over the course of the next four decades. Post hopes that lab-cultured meat will lower methane production as well, which is another rising global issue as climate change becomes more drastic. The cost of the lab-cultured hamburger patty is still too high for the burger to be sold. However, these talented group of scientists is hopeful that they will one day get the cost down to allow everyone to consume the meat, which will help both the environment and solve the mounting food crisis.

What are some of your creative solutions to the growing food crisis? Leave your comments below!