Fwd: [SoFlaVegans] In Vitro Meat

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Greetings Members: FYI: Spread the news to your friends and family members: BE WARE!!Note: forwarded message attached.Ronald A. Fells

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In Vitro Meat

By RAIZEL ROBIN

December 11, 2005

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/magazine/11ideas_section2-9.html

 

[Letters to the editor:

http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/lettertoeditor.html

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In July, scientists at the University of Maryland announced the

development of bioengineering techniques that could be used to

mass-produce a new food for public consumption: meat that is grown in

incubators.

 

The process works by taking stem cells from a biopsy of a live animal

(or a piece of flesh from a slaughtered animal) and putting them in a

three-dimensional growth medium - a sort of scaffolding made of

proteins. Bathed in a nutritional mix of glucose, amino acids and

minerals, the stem cells multiply and differentiate into muscle

cells, which eventually form muscle fibers. Those fibers are then

harvested for a minced-meat product.

 

Scientists at NASA and at several Dutch universities have been

developing the technology since 2001, and in a few years' time there

may be a lab-grown meat ready to market as sausages or patties. In 20

years, the scientists predict, they may be able to grow a whole beef

or pork loin. A tissue engineer at the Medical University of South

Carolina has even proposed a countertop device similar to a bread

maker that would produce meat overnight in your kitchen.

 

There are still several major hurdles to clear, like figuring out a

way to get stem cells to proliferate cheaply enough that meat could

be mass-produced. But if in vitro meat becomes viable, the

environmental and ethical consequences could be profound. The thought

of beef grown in the lab may turn your stomach, but in vitro meat

would avoid many of the downsides of factory farming, most notably

pollution: in the United States, livestock produce 1.4 billion tons

of waste each year. What's more, once a meat-cell culture exists, it

could function the way a yeast or yogurt culture does, so that meat

growers wouldn't need to use a new animal for each set of starter

cells - and the meat industry would no longer be dependent on

slaughtering animals.

 

Fidyl

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