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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: 4, Funny) by Barenflimski on Friday August 19 2022, @08:57PM (1 child)
Can a vegetarian eat this stuff?
Can a vegan eat this stuff?
For those ethically opposed to killing animals, I suppose this removes those qualms, right?
I figure, if you don't like meat in the first place because of taste/texture, then this is all a moot point. You likely won't eat this?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by julian on Saturday August 20 2022, @03:58AM
I would say that lab-grown meat fits the broadest and most common definition of vegan, but not vegetarian. It absolutely is an "animal" product, so if you want a diet that excludes animal products you cannot eat lab-grown meat. It's molecularly identical to the real stuff. But veganism isn't just about nutrition. That's why vegans also care about buying leather and fur products. You don't eat those, but they're not vegan because they required an animal to suffer and die to produce them. It's about the suffering inflicted, which is broader than just what you choose to eat. The lab-grown meat is just an alienated clump of tissue that was never part of a whole animal that had the capacity to suffer. It's ethically vegan.
I expect there to be a split in the vegan community. You already see such a split WRT plant-based "meats", which don't have any ethical concerns about animal welfare. There are a large amount of vegans who adopt it as a lifestyle that includes aspects of bodily and spiritual purity. These products are, universally to my knowledge, extremely processed foods. They even include new ingredients never before eaten by people such as synthetic animal hemoglobin produced from genetically engineered yeast. Imagine vats of yeast digesting a substrate to make blood instead of beer. It creeps people out, but that's why your Impossible Burger "bleeds". A lot of vegans want to eat whole food products that resemble what they came from or are identifiable without a mass spectrometer.
For me, I actually like the Impossible Meat products. But read the labels; they're no healthier (and in some ways, less healthy) than their animal-derived equivalents. And I'll try lab-grown meat as soon as it's available at near the equivalent price as animal-grown meat.