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from the I-prefer-my-microcarriers-medium-rare dept.
Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
Researchers at UCLA have created an edible particle that helps make lab-grown meat, known as cultured meat, with more natural muscle-like texture using a process that could be scaled up for mass production.
Led by Amy Rowat, who holds UCLA's Marcie H. Rothman Presidential Chair of Food Studies, the researchers have invented edible particles called microcarriers with customized structures and textures that help precursor muscle cells grow quickly and form muscle-like tissues. Edible microcarriers could reduce the expense, time, and waste required to produce cultured meat with a texture that appeals to consumers. The results are published in the journal Biomaterials.
[...] Mass production of cultured meat will involve surmounting several challenges. Current methods can produce a cultured steak that mimics the structure of T-bone, but not at the volume needed for food production. In an animal's body, the muscle cells most commonly eaten as food grow on a structure called the extracellular matrix, which determines the shape of the mature tissue. Animal tissue can be grown in a lab using scaffolds made from collagen, soy protein or another material to replace the extracellular matrix. This process, necessary to produce whole tissues resembling steaks or chops, is labor intensive and takes weeks, making it hard to scale up for industrial production. It takes about 100 billion muscle cells to produce a single kilogram, or 2.2 pounds, of cultured meat.
Growing larger volumes of cultured meat at a faster pace involves making a paste or slurry of cells in a container called a bioreactor. Unfortunately, without a stiff substrate, meat grown this way lacks the muscle-like structure and therefore, texture and consistency, of what people are used to eating.
[...] The internal structure of the tissue grown on edible microcarriers looked more like natural muscle tissue than that grown on inedible carriers, suggesting that the edible microcarriers encouraged more natural growth. Norris, who is a postdoctoral scholar, was surprised to find that cells and microcarriers spontaneously combined to form microtissues that contained a significant amount of myotubes, which are precursors to muscle fibers.
[...] To harvest the tissues, a centrifuge separated the cell clumps from the growth medium. They were rinsed to remove traces of growth medium, compressed into a disk two centimeters, or about 3/4 inch, in diameter, and cooked in a frying pan with olive oil. The cooked patty had the rough, brown surface texture and overall appearance of a tiny hamburger patty.
Journal Reference:
Sam C.P. Norris et al, Emulsion-templated microparticles with tunable stiffness and topology: Applications as edible microcarriers for cultured meat [open], Biomaterials (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.biomaterials.2022.121669
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Friday August 19 2022, @08:42PM (6 children)
I mean, I feel like ethical concerns(i.e. "should"), whether justified or not, have to be the primary driver of non-animal derived meat. Right?
It's not like someone's out there thinking "And we can sell lunchboxes!"
(Score: 1, Troll) by HammeredGlass on Friday August 19 2022, @09:35PM (2 children)
Eating meat is ethical.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by julian on Saturday August 20 2022, @03:25AM (1 child)
That's not something you can just assert, and I'm a meat eater. You would have to undo a LOT of work in neuroscience, biology, and bioethics to make such a claim. I'm afraid the vegans are probably right, broadly.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by The Vocal Minority on Saturday August 20 2022, @04:11AM
And yet you do little more than assert something yourself.
(Score: 4, Informative) by julian on Saturday August 20 2022, @03:31AM (2 children)
There's also potential for enormous efficiency gains since you don't have to raise a whole animal to slaughter weight just for the parts you want. Even if you use every gram of the animal you still had to raise it and keep it alive and (reasonably) healthy as a whole animal which has lots of overhead. It also has the potential to be much cleaner than raising whole animals. It could be done in a much more sterile environment which would obviate the need for regular health checkups of a whole animal, and reduce or eliminate the need for medications, especially antibiotics. There are plenty of reasons this could be beneficial other than the ethical concerns--which shouldn't be dismissed either.
(Score: 2) by HammeredGlass on Saturday August 20 2022, @03:57PM
Nah. If you don't want to go to the effort, and ethical struggle, to eat meat properly, you don't deserve meat.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2022, @11:10PM
But I thought they invented hotdogs so that you could use every gram of the animal.