Scientists turn stem cells into pork

[Kadie]

Scientists turn stem cells into pork

By MARIA CHENG, AP Medical Writer Maria Cheng, Ap Medical Writer – Fri Jan 15, 1:13 pm ET

LONDON – Call it pork in a petri dish — a technique to turn pig stem cells into strips of meat that scientists say could one day offer a green alternative to raising livestock, help alleviate world hunger, and save some pigs their bacon.

Dutch scientists have been growing pork in the laboratory since 2006, and while they admit they haven't gotten the texture quite right or even tasted the engineered meat, they say the technology promises to have widespread implications for our food supply.

"If we took the stem cells from one pig and multiplied it by a factor of a million, we would need one million fewer pigs to get the same amount of meat," said Mark Post, a biologist at Maastricht University involved in the In-vitro Meat Consortium, a network of publicly funded Dutch research institutions that is carrying out the experiments.

Post describes the texture of the meat as sort of like scallop, firm but a little squishy and moist. That's because the lab meat has less protein content than conventional meat.

Several other groups in the U.S., Scandinavia and Japan are also researching ways to make meat in the laboratory, but the Dutch project is the most advanced, said Jason Matheny, who has studied alternatives to conventional meat at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore and is not involved in the Dutch research.

In the U.S., similar research was funded by NASA, which hoped astronauts would be able to grow their own meat in space. But after growing disappointingly thin sheets of tissue, NASA gave up and decided it would be better for its astronauts to simply eat vegetarian.

more...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100115/ap_on_he_me/eu_med_petri_pork

[HopeHoops]

1. Yeah, well enough about Rush Limbaugh....

[ddeclue]

2. I want real dead pig dammit! Not test tube fake pig!

:P

[Edweird]

3. Never. Ever. It's 'interesting'. It was on 'Better Off Ted'. That's as far as I go.

If I have to move out to the boonies and go all 'Grizzly Adams' to get real meat, then so be it. I will never eat synthetic meat.

[Sebastian Doyle]

4. So if the fake meat has less protein than real meat, what would be the point of eating it?

Isn't that why people eat meat, for the protein?

Now if they could get all the protein without the fat or cholesterol, that might be useful. But it would still probably be the type of stuff you could make sausage from or use in some sort of stir fry or whatever. Doubt you would ever get a decent pork chop, ham, or bacon out of this process. Or a decent steak, when they get around to making fake beef.

[TheMadMonk]

9. No People Eat Tasty Animals, because they are tasty.

Also people today, don't get fat and die simply because of their fatty diets. They get fat and die, because their modern lifestyle doesn't burn the fat they do consume. Instead their bodies do exactly what they evolved to do. Put that fat aside for those lean times that nowadays never come.

[rcrush]

5. It tastes like DESPAIR

Seriously thats gross.

[TeeYiYi]

6. Jayzusss...

...I just threw up in my mouth a little.

TYY

:yoiks:

[provis99]

7. so now we have "Soylent Pork"?

Ah, the wonders of science....

[formercia]

8. Personally, I pefer Makin' Bacon the old-fashioned way.

If you know what I mean.....

[MilesColtrane]

10. McDonald's got there first.

You don't think the McRib was made from an animal, do you?

[Juche]

11. Yehaw. I keep waiting for this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIjanhKqVC4

Factory farming is pretty bad. It causes a lot of psychological pain for animals, and is one of the biggest causes of environmental damage.

Livestock produces more greenhouse gas (in the form of methane) than all transportation (in the form of CO2). Cows and pigs contribute more to global climate change than SUVs.

In vitro meat will save animals from suffering, help clean up the environment and drive down the cost of meat (which will help poor people in developing nations get more protein in their diets).

Not only that, but much of our corn is used to feed livestock. With synthetic meat (which is more efficient), you do not need as much raw materials to grow the meat. It will drive down the cost of corn and make more available to people who really need it in Asia & Africa.

I don't understand why anyone who examined this issue would be opposed to this.


Cheaper, more available food
Less environmental damage
Less animal suffering



What is the problem?