Lab-Cultured Meat Makes Debut, Comes Close in Taste Test

6 Aug 2013 – Professor Mark Post of Maastricht University has hailed as a success the first-ever cooking and tasting of a Cultured Beef burger. The burger was presented to the world at an event in London. “We set out to prove it could be done, and today we have done exactly that,” said Professor Post. “This has been the culmination of five years’ work and I am delighted that the hard work has paid off.”

The burger, which was cooked by frying in a pan by chef Richard McGeown, is intended to present a possible solution to pressing problems in global food production. 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 burger was tasted by Chicago-based food writer Josh Schonwald and Austrian food trends researcher Hanni Rützler. After tasting the burger, Hanni Rützler said: "I was expecting the texture to be more soft. There is quite some intense taste, it's very close to meat, but it's not that juicy. The consistency is perfect, but I miss salt and pepper."

Josh Schonwald said: "The mouthfeel is like meat. I miss the fat, there's a leanness to it, but the general bite feels like a hamburger. What was consistently different was flavour." The burger was made using Cultured Beef and other ingredients commonly found in similar food products such as salt, egg powder and breadcrumbs. Red beet juice and saffron were added to bring out its natural colours.

A sample of muscle cells taken from a cow was cultured in a laboratory by scientists who placed them in a nutrient solution to create muscle tissue. The tissue was grown by placing the cells in a ring, like a donut, around a hub of gel. The muscle cells grew into small strands of meat. Some 20,000 such strands are needed to make one 140g (approx. five ounce) burger.

The project has been given support by Sergey Brin. The next challenge is to scale up the production process, so that Cultured Beef can become a viable consumer product. More testing will be required, and Professor Post is confident the scientific processes required can be developed. “The next steps, if this is going to be a viable product in the future, are to refine existing techniques so that we can scale up production. At the moment it is slow and expensive,” said Professor Post. “We would need to combine meat tissue with other tissues, like fat and connective tissue, which have already been created using culturing techniques. This would allow us to make more complex meat like steaks, and would allow us to make Cultured Beef more easily and cheaply.”

Mark Post’s aims prove that laboratory-produced meat is a sustainable alternative to the economically and agriculturally inefficient conventional livestock methods. Post is pioneering a method that uses myosatellite cells, which are stem cells that are only able to become muscle cells. One of the advantages of using these cells is that they have an innate tendency to form muscle fibres in unison as they grow in number. In 2009, Post and his colleagues successfully cultivated pieces of meat 8mm wide, 22mm long and 0.5mm deep from the muscle cells of mice. Post is confident that this work will pave the way for future research in the field, and that Cultured Beef will be one of the solutions needed to address the coming global problems of food security and environmental sustainability.

A study conducted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in 2006 estimates that 70 percent of all agricultural land – around 30 percent of the Earth’s surface – is currently dedicated to livestock production. It currently caters for the needs of seven billion people. These needs are growing rapidly: the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates that global meat demand will increase by more than two-thirds thanks to a global population of 9 billion people by 2050, caused in part by the rapidly growing middle classes in countries like China and India. As the growth of the human population continues, meat production by conventional means becomes increasingly unsustainable.

Cultured Beef might form part of this solution, if muscle cells harvested from a cow can be cultured to create meat that is similar in taste and texture to meat produced by conventional means. As a result, Cultured Beef reduces the need for agricultural land dedicated to meat production, freeing up space to grow crops to be eaten directly by humans. A study by Hannah Tuomisto in 2011 suggests that one tonne of Cultured Beef would require approximately 200 square metres, a space 99% smaller than what is currently needed using traditional livestock methods.

Another benefit of Cultured Beef is that its production results in the emission of fewer greenhouse gases which greatly impact the global climate. In 2006, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimated that currently livestock raised for meat are responsible for 18 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions, more than all global transportation sectors combined. If Cultured Beef were to be produced near population centres, reducing transportation, these emissions would be reduced even further.

Some of the most significant implications of Cultured Beef are the benefits that it could have on the health of humans. Beef cells are cultured with the help of natural nutrients and there are no chemicals added during the production process. The food technology methods used to add taste and texture are internationally recognised and already widely used in food production. There is nothing different about beef made in this way than farmed beef. The production of Cultured Beef would undoubtedly help to significantly reduce the risk of animal-borne disease and effectively eradicate disease among livestock that affects humans. The chance of contamination is a lot lower due to stricter quality controls that cannot be implemented in a conventional farming environment. Measures are taken to prevent contamination during the early stages of cell culturing. Nutrition-related diseases, such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes, associated with the over-consumption of animal fats are now responsible for a third of global mortality. High amounts of naturally-occurring saturated fatty acids in meat are known to significantly increase the risk of heart disease. Although fat has to be used in production to add flavour to the meat, its content can be controlled. Cultured Beef allows for a healthier meat composition. The production of Cultured Beef allows for these harmful saturated fats to be reduced and the amount of polyunsaturated, cholesterol-lowering fatty acids increased.

Cultured Beef is made by harvesting cells from a cow, and growing muscle tissue similar in taste and texture to meat produced by traditional means. It is estimated one single sample could produce 20,000 tonnes of Cultured Beef, enough to make more than 175 million quarter-pounder patties. This many patties would otherwise require meat from more than 440,000 cows. The ability to produce such a large amount of meat from a small group of bovine cells, would result in considerably fewer slaughtered animals and fewer livestock farmed intensively. A study conducted by Datar & Betti in 2010 suggests that through reduced contact, Cultured Beef could also result in a dramatic decrease in the spread of diseases between humans and cows.