A 5-oz beef patty assembled from thousands of teeny-tiny meat strips, cultured from the stem cells of a single cow, is to be served next week week in London. The price: £250,000, or about $385,000.
Via The Independent:
The scientist behind the "in vitro" burger believes synthetic meat could help to save the world from the growing consumer demand for beef, lamb, pork and chicken. The future appetite for beef alone, for instance, could easily lead to the conversion of much of the world's remaining forests to barren, manicured pastures by the end of this century.
The precious patty will be made of some 3,000 strips of artificial beef, each the size of a rice grain, grown from bovine stem cells cultured in the laboratory. Scientists believe the public demonstration will be "proof of principle", possibly leading to artificial meat being sold in supermarkets within five to 10 years.
The patty in question is the creation of Maastricht University physiologist Mark Post, who envisions a future where a small herd of donor animals supply the world with meat. Whether you actually regard the creation as "real" meat, of course, ultimately boils down to semantics. And maybe religion.