Dutch university presents lab-grown burger
06/08/2013
At the event, a chef, Richard McGeown, cooked the burger and served it up for two food critics, one from Austria and one from the US, to try. The university said in a press release that the idea behind the project, funded by Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, was to attempt to “help solve the coming food crisis and combat climate change”.
“As the world’s population grows to an estimated 9 billion by the middle of the century, experts believe even intense livestock farming processes will not be able to match the demand from a growing middle class for meat,” the press release continued.
The new burger was made from muscle cells taken from a cow, cultured in the laboratory in a nutrient solution to create muscle tissue. The tissue is grown by placing the cells in a ring, like a doughnut, around a hub of gel. The muscle cells grow into small strands of meat. Some 20,000 such strands are needed to make one burger of 140 grammes. Other ingredients such as salt, egg powder and breadcrumbs, as well as red beet juice and saffron were added.
According to the BBC, the project cost $330,000.
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